This season we will be translating four brand-new poets: Persian poet Farzaneh Ghavami from Iran, Georgian poet Bela Chekurishvili, Arabic poet Haifa Aljabri from Saudi Arabia, and Quechua poet Raúl Cisneros from Peru. At each online workshop, the poet Leo Boix will guide the participants through the translation process. Starting from an initial reading of a poem in the original language, the group will unfold the poem, opening up the grammar, vocabulary, and potential meanings of each line, to arrive at a vibrant Engish translation. Each workshop ends with a magical moment when the newly translated verse is read in English for the first time.
Our workshops are open to all – there is no need to know the original language. Simply join in.
The PTC has been running our translation workshops since 2004. We are led by our international network of translators who select living poets from Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America for us to translate. The guest translators provide a simple guide translation for the group to work from. It is a wonderful opportunity to look closely at a poem from another culture and participants discover new aspects of language, develop their translating skills and have an opportunity to share their love of poetry with people all around the world.
Workshop Facilitator – Leo Boix
The workshops will be led by award-winning poet and translator Leo Boix, an Argentine-British poet, translator and journalist based in the UK. He is the author of an English collection, Ballad of a Happy Immigrant (Chatto & Windus, 2021) and two Spanish collections, Un lugarpropio (2015) and Mar de noche (2017). He co-directs Invisible Presence, a scheme to nurture young Latinx poets in the UK. Boix received the Bart Wolffe Poetry Prize Award in 2018 and the Keats-Shelly Prize in 2019.
Season Passes
Save money with a season pass. At £56.00 for full price or £35.00 concession, a Season Pass of our Autumn workshops season you save 12.5% on the price of four individual tickets. Plus for every workshop you attend, you earn loyalty points towards free PTC publications.
Week 1: Monday 16 October – 18:30-20:30
Translate Persian poet Farzaneh Ghavami with Alireza Abiz
Farzaneh Ghavami’s poetry reflects her lived experience as a woman living and working under a dictatorship system that suppresses women and femininity. Book now.
Week 2: Monday 23 October – 18:30-20:30
Translate Quechua poet Raúl Cisneros with Constantina Higbee
Quechua poet Raúl Cisneros comes from a peasant community in Ayacucho Peru. He is an activist, teacher, theatre maker and musician who works with communities in the Amazon. Book now.
Week 3: Monday 6 November – 18:30-20:30
Translate Georgian Poet Bela Chekurishvili with Natalia Bukia-Peters
Bela Chekurishvili is a Georgian poet and journalist. Her poetry depicts everyday life: from lumberjacks to prostitutes, housewives to refugees. Book now.
Week 4: Monday 20 November – 18:30-20:30
Translate Arabic poet Haifa Aljabri with Nashwa Nasreldin
Haifa Aljabri is a poet and translator from Saudi Arabia, who has published several poetry collections and received the Prince Abdullah Al-Faisal Prize for Arabic Poetry. Book Now.
