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Westminster Bridge

This is the city I love, the city I chose to live my life in, and I am brokenhearted.

Today people were killed and injured in the streets of London out of hatred.

Things like this are happening every single day, all over the world. Every single day people die and are harmed out of hatred: the madness, the blindness of hatred.

Like many, I run out of words.

Beyond the political, historical, social explanations there’s a void, the space of no-words.

It is humanity.

I can only invoke compassion, I can only wish that a vast fiery flower of compassion enfolds us all. That it brings us to our knees, not in death but in weeping, the flood of tears that cleanse our eyes so that we can see what we are, in all our beauty but in all our horror too, and that the crying of a wounded humanity becomes a river that brings life and light as it passes through every shore.

Today hatred killed and harmed people. Today is everyday. I can think of no other resistance but compassion, for us all.

om mani padme hum

 Thousand armed Avalokitesvara bodhisattva

Image source: commons.wikimedia.org

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Modern Poetry in Translation – Korean poetry

The latest issue of Modern Poetry in Translation, “The Blue Vein“, has just come out. A thing of beauty!

It will be launched on  Tuesday 21 March, at 19.30, at The Print Room in London, with readings from Don Mee Choi and Denise Riley, followed by a discussion chaired by the magazine’s editor, Sasha Dugdale (who has written a forceful editorial asking the disturbing, vital questions that spring from the growing darkness in the world we’re living in now).

The Print Room is at the site of the old Coronet Cinema in Notting Hill. The addres is 103 Notting Hill Gate, London W11 3LB.

And on Wednesday 22 March, at 17.00, Korean poet Don Mee Choi will be reading at SOAS’ School of Translation.

Hope you can join us!

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Para Rita, 6 años después / For Rita, 6 years after her death

Te extrañamos, Rita. Te queremos. Estás con nosotros, lo estarás siempre. Gracias por la alegría, por la belleza, por la risa. Gracias por la valentía, por el cariño y la lealtad. Gracias por haber compartido tanta vida y tanta creación, con tan enorme generosidad. Por tu presencia en mi vida. Gracias por cantar hasta el final. Por haber honrado el regalo de la vida hasta el último momento.

We miss you, Rita. We love you. You are here with us, and you will always be. Thank you for the joy, for the beauty, for laughter. Thank you for the courage, for the love, for the loyalty. Thank you for having shared with such generosity so much life and the creation of beauty. Thank you for your presence in my life. Thank you for singing until the end. For having honoured the gift of life up to the last moment.

Rita Guerrero, 22 de mayo de 1964 – 11 de marzo de 2011, in memoriam

[If you came here looking for information on the problems surrounding Blake’s Cottage please go to https://blakecottage.wordpress.com/]
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Poetry for the International Women’s Day

To celebrate the International Women’s Day this year, Modern Poetry in Translation has assembled in its blog  ten brilliant female poets and their female translators:

Ten Women Poets in Translation for International Women’s Day 2017

The more complicated, scary, heartbreaking this world becomes, the more poetry pours forth everywhere. A mysterious alchemy, the art of tightrope walking that informs and rekindles hope.

[If you came here looking for information on the problems surrounding Blake’s Cottage please go to https://blakecottage.wordpress.com/]