Translator Alireza Abiz returns for another workshop looking at the work of Iranian poet Iraj Ziayi, known as ‘The Poet Of Objects.’ Iraj Ziayi was first translated by the Poetry Translation Workshop in November 2016. That time the workshop attendees produced a translation of a poem called ‘Six Green Polish Chairs’. For this new workshop Alireza will once again provide ‘literal’ translations which the group will use as a starting point to create new English versions. Award-winning UK poet Clare Pollard will be facilitating this session.
Individual workshops cost £7. Students and retirees pay £4 per session. For the unwaged and refugees the sessions are free.
NEW THIS TERM: We are running a loyalty scheme where each workshop attended will earn you points towards free PTC chapbooks and poetry collections.
Iraj Ziayi was born in 1949 in Rasht, north of Iran. His family later moved to Isfahan where Iraj went to high school and joined ‘Jong-e Isfahan’ circle, a group of influential writers and poets. Objects, animate or inanimate, are present in his poetry in minute details. His relationship with objects is very personal and peculiar. In a surreal setting, he picks unrelated objects and puts them alongside each other creating a world where each object has their individual life. Because of his love of objects, he has been given the nickname of ‘the Poet of Objects’ by the critic; a title that he has happily embraced.
Alireza Abiz has published two collections of poetry, Stop, We Shall Get Off (1998) and Spaghetti and Mexican Ketchup (2004); Abiz is also an award-winning translator and has translated many leading modern English-language poets into Persian, including W B Yeats, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Basil Bunting, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. For two years Abiz presented a poetry programme on Iranian TV. A noted literary critic and reviewer, he has also written extensively for radio and is the poetry editor for Aineha website.
Clare Pollard received an Eric Gregory Award in 2000 and was named by The Independent as one of their ‘Top 20 Writers Under 30’. Her first poetry collection, The Heavy-Petting Zoo, was published in 1998. As a writer, Clare is very concerned with bearing witness to the times in which we live. Her work has frequently engaged with contemporary concerns, from our confessional media culture in Bedtime, to climate change in The Weather and globalisation in Look, Clare! Look!.
