John Montague, Vol. 40 Nos 1-3, and to
the Translation as Metamorphosis issue
of Agenda, Vol. 40 No 4, Agenda Editions
is bringing out, with the generous assistance
of the Arts Council of Ireland, Dublin,
two collections of translations by two
very well-known Irish poets:
John Montague: A Smile Between The Stones,
Translations of La Dernière Lande,
by Claude Esteban (£7.99 pback)
Comments on this book include:
‘These translations, inspired to
an extent by King Lear, flow with the apparent
ease, subtly calculated by the craftsman
he is, of his own poems. In fact, they
seem an extension of his own poetry, and
an enhancement. In this sequence, Montague
serves triumphantly to further his own
avowal “on the edge is best.”’ Patricia
McCarthy
‘John Montague has captured the
simplicity of language combined with seriousness
of intent in a most deft fashion.’ Patrick
Cotter
‘John Montague stands apart as a
voice of translation….In Esteban,
Montague has uncovered a voice at once
sublime and tentative….Only a poet
who had already published work of the power
of Life Class and Mount Eagle with their
delicate filigree lines and their meditative
calm could have captured such an essence
in Esteban. These poems are the best kind
of translation in that they are events
within the host tongue itself.’ Thomas
McCarthy
Desmond O’Grady: Kurdish poems of
Love and War, an important companion volume
to O’Grady’s Seven Arab Odes,
also published by Agenda Editions. (£9.99
pback)
Comments on this book include:
O’Grady is one of the senior figures
in Irish Literary life, exemplary in the
way he has committed himself over the decades
to the vocation of poetry and has lived
selflessly for the art.
In the area of translation he has proved
himself first rate. Nobody has bettered
his Raftery versions in A Limerick Rake,
and his previous book in the Agenda Series,
Seven Arab Odes, broadened the Anglophone
horizons and opened windows on a poetic
culture that we need to know more about – for
artistic as well as other reasons.
His book of Kurdish poems completes the
trilogy. The Kurdish tradition reaches
back even longer than the native Irish
one, and shares the same preoccupations.
A romantic and heroic spirit pervades their
poetry, and it has strong links to oral
composition and to song. Given the passionate,
lyric temper of his own ‘singing
line’ in the translations from the
Irish, Desmond O’Grady has produced
a manuscript that is vigorous and substantial.’ Seamus
Heaney
‘…
The Kurdish poems continue and extend both
branches of O’Grady’s important
contribution. Apart from its inherent interest
at this stage of the world’s history,
O’Grady offers a poetry that will
chime in the hearts of all Irish and English-speaking
readers. The poems move between simple
and heartwarming, personal love poetry,
to cries of hurt and anguish as the lot
of the Kurdish people. The translations
themselves are to the usual high standard
of O’Grady’s translations;
there is the usual care, the accuracy,
and the choice of work is profoundly visionary….’ John
F. Deane
‘
His work of translation emanates from a
powerful mid-century humanistic impulse – the
insight that poets speak not only of their
own nation but of the human condition….
His work in poetry embodies a sense of
belonging seen only among seasoned Aid
workers and UN peacekeepers; his loyalty
is to the Babel of many tongues, those
independent nations of language. He is
the Irish poet who speaks most fearlessly
for a poetry without frontiers. Like
Dervla Murphy or Doris Lessing, his home
is the
world.’ Thomas McCarthy
Both
the above poets reside in County Cork.
These two books together speak culturally
for the Irish Presidency of the EU and
for Cork City, cultural capital of Europe
2004 and 2005.