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 TRANSLATION CAFÉ 

CTITC
CENTER FOR THE TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETATION OF THE CONTEMPORARY TEXT

MTTLC
MA Programme for the TRANSLATION OF THE CONTEMPORARY LITERARY TEXT

TRANSLATION

CAFÉ

Review of Contemporary Texts in Translation and E-Learning

Nr. 39/June 7, 2008

Director: LIDIA VIANU

© CTITC

    MTTLC

ISSN 1842 – 9149

Issue Editor: LIDIA VIANU and OANA TEODOROIU

Board of Advisors:

FIONA SAMPSON

RUTH FAINLIGHT

GEORGE SZIRTES

ADAM SORKIN

JOHN MOLE

These translations  are an online seminar of literary translation, part

of Lidia Vianu’s course [Guide to Contemporary Literature and Its Translation],

and a session of E-Learning in the MA Programme for the Translation of the

Contemporary Literary Text, directed by Lidia Vianu.

The texts have also been discussed in translation group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/translationcafe/ 

poetry pRO

A collaboration between Lidia Vianu, Professor of contemporary British literature at the English Department of the University of Bucharest, and poetry p f, a growing showcase of poets writing in English, some fully accomplished with several published collections, others at the start of their poetic careers.

Lidia Vianu:  www.e-scoala.ro/lidiavianu/index.html

poetry p f:      www.poetrypf.co.uk/

Gary Bills:

Gary Bills was born in Wordsley, in the West Midlands, and currently lives in Herefordshire.

He has published two poetry collections, which are The Echo and the Breath (Peterloo Poets, 2001) and The Ridiculous Nests of the Heart (bluechrome, 2003).

In 2005, he edited the anthology, The Review of Contemporary Poetry for bluechrome, sold on behalf of the Stroke Association.

He has won various prizes, including Poetry on the Lake’s Bill Winter Award in 2003, for the best short poem.

Gary is a graduate of Durham University, where he studied English Language and Medieval Literature.

Review comments:

“There is something ancient yet bang up to date about Bills’ poems.. They will surely find a special pigeon hole in the English canon.”

The Black Mountain Review. Volume 11.

“Bills has an inspirational drive that is both effortless and lucid, creating a new poetic reality…a superficial reading would miss the enormous range of Gary Bills’s subject matter and his uniquely assured, modern and lyrical voice.”

Will Daunt, Envoi.

“When I am given poems to review, I list the most notable: I’ve chosen thirty-three, which speaks for itself….This is his second collection. Such a lengthy one must stem from the most intense immersion in his work, while living to the full as husband, father, friend, salaried slave and eternal student. It’s hauntingly beautiful, an intriguing collection; something worth finding and holding onto.”

R G Felton, South

“It should be obvious from poems like these that, quite regardless of any significance one may attach to the poetic traditions of his part of the world, Gary Bills has made impressive strides towards achieving a distinctive voice and identity - ones that are his alone."

Martin Blyth.

"Technically, he is faultless, and his knowledge and use of metrics makes him something of a rarity with regard to his contemporaries. This, combined with a painter’s eye for detail means that his work has that unity of eye and ear, image and music that gives his readers an exquisite doubling of sensory effects. I have only experienced a similar unity when reading the poetry of Lorca.”

Kevin Bailey, HQ

“A genuine new voice that stands out from the crowded world of British poetry.” Brian Patten
 

Gary Bills' The Ridiculous Nests of the Heart is a very impressive collection. I came to it with a degree of suspicion, expecting to find something portentous. I have to say it grew on me and, as it did, my admiration grew...Bluechrome can certainly be proud of having published this collection...I am tempted to say he is restoring to poetry something that went missing when laissez-faire attitudes took hold: a proper seriousness, a genuine respect for craft, the feeling that poetry is more than mere self-expression. Bills may perhaps reconnect us with the powerful tradition and still-available techniques of English poetry. The biographer of Alexander Pope, Maynard Mack wrote, "Particulars - ephemera - the flotsam and jetsam of experience are all fascinating but have value for the artist only in so far as they can be organised in a patterned whole". Bills is not just a poet, he is an artist. He controls an enviable range of forms - from haiku to ballad, from sonnet to free verse - and his measure is that he is comfortable in all of them, using them, not being used by them, to tell us interesting things about the world.

                                 Matt Simpson. Stride. 2004.

It often doesn't mean very much these days to say someone has "talent", but Gary Bills really has. He is a concerned craftsman, working in the old, timeless traditions of English poetry, like Edward Thomas; yet not like anybody, only himself, in his constant move through different language registers with effortlessness that one can only admire...his ear for both demotic speech and traditional metre is excellent.

                              William Oxley.

Translations of A Love Affair in Miniature by: Simona Elisabeta Catana, Liviu Martinescu, Ileana Botescu-Sireteanu, Fabiola Popa, Brandusa Raileanu, Arina Lungu, Cristina Florea, Andreea Hadambu, Teofana Trapcea, Steliana Palade, Ionela Maria Adam, Iuliana Florea, Iulia Anchidin, Rodica Tita (Ionas), Raluca-Ioana Manolescu, Simona Florentina Pavaloiu, Daniela Bojica, Silvia Nicolae, Ioana Tudor, Patricia Neculae, Violeta Mitu, Corina Nicoleta Iscru, Ana-Maria Purec, Alina Petrescu, Ioana-Alina Stan, Paula Sezonov, Reluta Paune, Raul Cojocaru, Vlad Gandila, Gianina Casleanu, Eliza Ghitulescu.