I Am Translated

I went for a swim with Julie the other day. It was cool and blissful - about the same water temperature as the day in spring when I took a call from photographer Alex Ramsay He rang to let me know we'd been offered an opportunity in Salt, Girona, at the Casa De Cultura Les Bernardes (CCLB) to exhibit Os - a collection of Alex's exquisite black and white photos of bones and my poems written in response.

I took Alex's call on my Bluetooth earbuds while swimming head-out-of-the-water breaststroke which added to my sense of being translated, suddenly and unexpectedly, into glamour. "This is what it must feel like to be a star," I thought. 

Everything about our journey to Girona for the launch of the exhibition last month felt like being suspended in good fortune, fun, and generous kindness. We were held up by forces I only partially understand: all travel arrangements made for us; a taxi to meet us at the airport; a fine hotel; dinners of delicious tapas and wine; profound and light-hearted conversations with artists and people who've dedicated their lives to bringing the work of artists into collective spaces.

And at the heart of my involvement with Os was collaboration, which for me has been a means of multiplying my creative potential to make more than the sum of the parts I brought to the endeavour. I've so enjoyed working with a photographer of such skill and experience - the trip and exhibition were a wonderful bonus.

Central to the Os experience at CCLB was seeing my poems translated into Catalan by award-winning translator Jordi Fité - an act of artistic intimacy which I experienced as my poetry being deeply seen. What a privilege to have every word considered, held up to the light, weighed in the palms of someone who is passionate about a language so often persecuted. When I saw my poems in the exhibition space, and heard a couple read aloud at the launch, it felt as if my words had been set to a precious and rare music. 

Jordi's attentiveness became apparent when I saw the way he'd added meticulous footnotes, for example to Elephant Tooth (Dent d'elefant). His notes pointed out, in this case, the cultural specificity of the terms 'Fair Isle' and 'Woodbine' in a careful tribute to the precise meaning of my poem, and to my grandmother Angela: to my memories of her knitting while smoking and reading Jane Austen. As she did this, the elephant tooth (an eccentric family heirloom) sat next to her all the while on the occasional table.

To be translated in time, space, language and image: what a joy. What a joy to be read, interpreted, welcomed into another culture, another linguistic notation, another means of shared understanding.