Digital Distractions

So I haven’t blogged for a long while, I know, but home-schooling whilst trying to work has left me without much (any) writing time. Instagram is about the closest I get nowadays. Having said that, like most people, I have been enjoying various digital distractions. I sadly haven’t managed to watch a National Theatre production online yet, but my children have been loving online art classes like #DrawwithRob and Jim Parkyn’s #communityclaytime, and when I haven’t been glued to Duolingo or the Guardian Coronavirus Live Feed, I’ve been excited by the digital possibilities for poetry, attending readings on Zoom and seeing all sorts of interesting classes and projects happening.

At Modern Poetry in Translation, we’ve now launched our Japan focus, Dream Colours.

In case you’re looking for digital distraction too, we have two things going on this month I thought I’d draw your attention to. Firstly, tomorrow at 7pm we’re having an online JAPAN ISSUE LAUNCH on youtube – I’ll be chairing and Polly Barton, Jeffrey Angles and Sayaka Osaki will be joining me (the latter from Japan in the middle of the night!).

We also have this fabulous, spring-themed, blossomy haiku translation workshop online, set by Alan Cummings. It’s free, and the perfect way to try your hand at translation (no language necessary). We’re also suggesting people try and translate into other mediums – could you translate one of these haiku into an animation, piece of music, photo, Tik Tok, emojis, a sketch? It would be a great activity for kids too (hint hint)

And whilst I’m here, I was very honoured to be included in my favourite feature on the Poetry Society’s website – their poetry mixtapes – as part of Amy Acre’s Lucky 13 Mixtape, alongside legends like Miroslav Holub and Jericho Brown. Do check it out (and the whole archive of poetry mixtapes) if you need some lockdown reading.