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Review by Kirk Ridgeway Miriam Van hee, a well-known contemporary Flemish poet, is also known for her extensive translations of Russian poetry. While many of her own poems have been translated into other languages, this is the first English translation as interpreted by Judith Wilkinson in collaboration with the poet. The collection’s scope of inward and outward facing poetry assures that the reader will discover poems of great resonance. A most striking characteristic of Miriam Van hee’s poetry is precision of her word- images that are acutely tangible. ("you look at her//the way a child looks//at the first snowfall//you touched her//carefully, like a blind man"). Her images evoke the reader’s own experiences of time, place, and circumstance upon which she adds her own to reveal and affirm the universality of human experience. The clarity of her writing, along with the disarmingly sparse structure and language of her poems, leads us to readily join our story with her story through the power of the imagination. As in all poems, the intensity of emotional identification is necessarily dependent on what the reader brings to the reading. Reading the introduction by the translator is a good first step. She provides a concise overview of the body of work and some relevant history of the poet. The poems themselves are written with minimal punctuation, devoid of capitalization except for "I," and many have no titles. This style results in the necessity of the reader to slow down and engage fully each line in order to access the depth and quality of her poetry, especially on the first reading. Read an excerpt from this book opens in new window About the Author Miriam Van hee is one of the best known Flemish poets writing today, with numerous major awards to her name. Her poetry is known for its quiet power and simplicity of language, the kind of simplicity that is hard-won. Van hee frequently gives readings at international poetry festivals and her work has been widely translated. She also teaches Russian at the Interpreters’ Academy in Antwerp and is a prolific translator of Russian poetry. About the Translator Judith Wilkinson is a British poet and translator. She grew up in the Netherlands. After her grammar school education she moved to England, where she obtained an M.A. in English literature from Manchester University. He own poetry and translations of Dutch and Flemish poetry have been published in many journals, and she has written two long poems for dance theatre company The Kosh, performed through Britain and elsewhere. In addition she has written reviews and articles on contemporary poetry. In 2006 her first chapbook of translations, In An Unguarded Moment, was published on-line by www.languageandcutlure.net. Judith Wilkinson currently lives in Groningen, the Netherlands.  |
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