Carla van der Zwaag was the RIXT poet of the month March 2020. You can read her original Frisian poems of that month here. The translation of one of them – ‘Lonely’ – is published below.
Geart Tigchelaar is part with the Frisian poem ‘njoggen nachten’ [nine nights] of the volumnious anthology Arbolarium. This is a Columbian anthology of 148 poets from 78 countries over five continents, which explains the subtitle De los cinco continentes.
An anthology of songs: songs that human beings address to the trees: songs of the trees who borrow human beings’ voices. In the nahuatl language, poetry is flowers and songs; in this book, poetry is trees and songs. And in plural: trees, songs, poems, poets, cultures, languages. So that this book is a homage to diversity, in its widest significance – that of the whole nature.
This book, “a forest of voices”,has trees as main topic. Support and proceeds of the book go to organisations for the protection of forests and planting of trees in South America . It is translated to English and Spanish with the help of translators of the Antoine Berman Literary Translation Workshop of the University of Antioquia.
Tigchelaar was inspired by the life tree Yggdrasil from the Nordic mythologt on which Odin (or Weda in Frisian) hung for nine days to acquire wisdom and knowledge on the runes. Erik Jan Harmens and Tigchelaar represent the Netherlands together.
picture: Geart Tigchelaar
You can read the English and Spanish translations (by Daniel López) below.
