"Why do people produce different translations of the same poem? Discover varying haiku translations, and learn to write your own.

"Why do people produce different translations of the same poem?

In this workshop, we will consider haiku as a form and discuss varying haiku translations, before writing versions of our own.

We will think about seasonality and how the symbols of the seasons differ between countries and regions. We will look at syllable count and rhythm to understand how they function differently between Japanese and English. We will think about how writing for a specific audience can change how we translate our poetry.

This creative and playful workshop would appeal to anyone with an interest in poetry and creative writing, as well as in translated literature and the choices made in the process of translation.

No prior knowledge of Japanese language is required – glosses will be provided for all source texts."

Workshop leader:

"Heidi Clark is a literary translator, zine-maker and co-founder of the Translators’ House Press. She writes, makes and publishes work which illuminates the role of the translator and experiments with form. Her translation of Nakanishi Morina’s essay Dried Seaweed at Midnight is published in the online journal Asymptote, and her translation of Niwa Asahi's poem WAYFARING is published as both a bilingual and monolingual artist book. She holds an MA in Literary Translation from the University of East Anglia."

Description supplied by the event organiser.