I was in Berlin last month, launching Jan Wagner and Federico Italiano’s new European anthology Grand Tour at the Haus für Poesie with Luna Miguel and Sergej Timofejev. I also managed to fit in a visit to Brecht’s grave in the rain and have a long lunch with my friend, the Hungarian poet Anna Szabo. I’m currently working on co-translations of her Selected for Arc, more news to follow soon I hope. Since then the UK issue of MPT has come out, which I’m really proud of, do check out our poetic map of the United Kingdom, put together by our brilliant digital editor Ed Cottrell.
Otherwise I’ve just got back from an Easter break with the family in Tobago. It was relaxing (or at least as relaxing as a holiday with a 2 and a 5 year-old can be), with lots of swimming and sand; lots of nature. We breakfasted on papaya, mango and melon every day whilst bananaquits hopped on the tables and pelicans flew past. We swam in a waterfall, and took Gruff on his first rainforest adventure, where he saw leaf-cutter ants, termite mounds and a fruit bat, and held an ancient fish called a ‘jumping wabeen’ that leapt from his palms. There were many, many hummingbirds, fencing flowers for sweetness, and hermit crabs, and geckos, and once our hotel phoned our room at one in the morning, and I dragged myself out onto the beach under the stars to watch an enormous leatherback turtle lay eggs like pingpong balls in a deep hole, blinking tears from her dinosaur eyes.
In the evenings, I’d read Gruff a tale from Trish Cooke’s brilliant Tales from the Caribbean and then have a rum and ginger on the balcony. Lovely food too – corn soup, little juicy chick-pea and tamarind wraps called doubles, shrimp, crab curry and dumpling, lobster. And great taxi drivers who played very loud music – the family favourite was ‘Hookin Meh’ by Farmer Nappy, if you fancy a blast on sunshine…
Back now, for my final term at Essex with the RLF (the woods are full of bluebells), and hard at work on the summer issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, which has a Maghreb focus, and a small, secret pamphlet project, which means I’m finally writing poetry again after a hiatus of (at least) three years – wish me luck…
clarepollard 