PAGE 6INTERNATIONAL

QU'EST CE QUE C'EST, xr/EIRDO ?POET PAMELA BBOWN ATT,ENDED

THE FRANCO-ENGLISH POETRY FESTIVAL IN PARIS AND WHITES HEBEABOUT THE HAZARDS OF TRANSLATION...

TI n June lhis year. the six-Iteenth annual FestivalFranco-Anglais de Poesiewas held in Paris at thewell-appointed Maisondes dcrivainS, not far fromthe Mus6e D'Orsay.

The live day event isessentially- a poetrytranslation and performance festival.This year the invited poets came fromAlgeria, Canada, France., Great Britain,Ireland, Scotland, the USA and fromAustralia, with myself as its representa-tive. thanks to the support of theInternational Promotions Program of theLiterature Board.

The Festival is. coordinated by theParis based Qu6becois poet, editor andtranslaior Jacqes Rancourt. In the past, ithas been anended by many well-knownwriters such as Margaret Atwood. ElaineFeinstein, August Kleinzhaler,'DeniseLevertov, Michael Ondaatje, Ron Padgettand many others and several Australiansincluding Judith Rodriguez, TomShapcott, Chris Vallace-Crabbe and Alan\7earne.

Unlike the usual literary festivalwhere the writer gives areading or perhaps

preSents a thematic paperi-.;' and answers a few ques-

tions from the audience, thisevent entails quite a degreeof hard slog. We we,re

required to translate eachothers' poems from French into

English and vice versa beforethe festival began. Then, in Paris,we workshopped the translations

ly (discoursing mostly in French) inintensive daily sessions so as to

produce the best possible versions.In the workshops we found that

the focus usually centred on findingsolutions to the kind of language

problems inherent to the broad realmof cultural difference given our diverse

nationalities, For instance, in Frenchtheie can be a poetic language pafticu-lar only to poetry which is not part

of general usage. InQu6becois there are wordsand expressions whichdon't exist in French. Addto this the idiomatic diffi-culties of the noun-richEnglish language as usedby American, Australian,English, Irish and Scottish

poets and the profound complications oftranslation could take forever to resolve.So, the discussions were always vigorousand occasionally; to great relief,collapsed into simple hilarity.

'Qu'est ce que c'est, weirdo?''Un zarbi .''Non, non, c'est un cingl6l'Non, jinsiste, dans ce contexte, c'est

un zarbil'The workshop process was a literal

experience of cultural exchange and per-haps the thoroughness of that process isnever evident in the resulting translationsThe contributions made to this exchangebroadened our knowledge of the poeticliterature of each others' countries.

There was an impressive and, for thepoets, flattering public exhibition ofpaintings, collages and drawingsillustrating the work of each participant.A group of young French composers,musicians and singers had composedpieces also based on the participants'texfs. Each evening these pieces werepart of the public performances at whichwe read poems chosen from the day sworkshop.

The festival culminated in an outdoorconcert before a large,. convivialaudience of writers. translators. teachers.linguisls. artists, expatriates, musicians,students. publishers and peoplegenerally interested in poetry. This was atruly enjoyable event after the long daysof discussion and as darkness doesn't fa1luntil around ten thirty.on summer nightsin Paris, the atmosphere was appropri-ately balmy.

Jacques Rancourt will publish thetranslations and some of the drawings inthe next edition of La Traducti?re, rhebi-lingual. magazine which he edits. o