General Instructions Our translation workshops are

Transcript:General Instructions Our translation workshops are:
General Instructions Our translation workshops are structured as follows: 1. Present students with the Image Board, play the audio recording and show the poem text in the original Ukrainian 2. Invite guesses as to what the poem is about; ask students to come up with a few words that describe their sense of what the mood of each poem is 3. Students should use the glossary to complete a word-for-word translation of the poem before attempting a polished version 4. Once they have completed their own translations, as a group, discuss the poem’s main themes and any translation challenges they faced 5. Using the poem(s) as a starting point, encourage students to draw further on their creativity in the extension activities. Welcome 1 This workshop will focus on two poems whose themes are related. Your students can choose one or both to produce translations of. Iya Kiva, who wrote Town of Childhood is a poet, translator and critic originally from Donetsk. She is a member of PEN Ukraine and one of the most vibrant and moving voices to emerge from Ukrainian literature over the past decade. Ever since Iya was forced to leave her home in 2014, when Russia occupied Donetsk, she has written extensively on current events, reflecting poignantly on home and a sense of belonging, identity and loss. Kiva’s work has been widely translated into many languages. This poem written in 2020, is richly laced with metaphor, and as such deals powerfully with these subjects. Though the poem is short, the inventive strangeness of the language will present an exciting challenge for any translator (‘milk of silence’, ‘rye bread of loneliness’). Viktoriya Amelina is a well known and prolific poet and writer based in Lviv and is one of the prominent voices speaking out during the current conflict. She is an active volunteer with the Truth Hounds team documenting Russian war crimes. A Comeback Story is a very touching, narrative poem with a powerful message. The poem tells the story of four different children fleeing from war and what they take with them to remember home. Like Kiva, Amelina does not shirk from writing about painful subject matter, but manages to do so with a light touch, employing the language of fairy tale to explore darker issues of exile and loss. Notes on two poems Town of Childhood (2020) by Iya Kiva A Comeback Story (2022) by Viktoriya