poetry – Ridge Writing Retreats

Writing vengeance

image of Szymborska's poem, Radość pisania, and Erneaux's Nobel lecture, I will write to avenge my people, j’écrirai pour venger ma race

I will write to avenge my people, writes Ernaux. Revenge, writes Szymborska. Why do these Nobelists write vengeance? Sixty years ago, Ernaux wrote a sentence in her diary, that was the springboard for her Nobel lecture: ‘I will write to avenge my people, j’écrirai pour venger ma race’. It echoed Rimbaud’s cry: ‘I am ofContinue reading “Writing vengeance”

Writing round the table

Helsinki’s poetry moon festival, Runokuu, is in the last week of August. I spent it with a dozen colleagues, translating Finnish poems and listening to some of the poets. That was the perfect way to mark ten years of living in Finland. As I’d hoped, the poetry translation workshop made me think hard about aContinue reading “Writing round the table”