Helene Cardona's Blog - Posts Tagged "poet"

Professeur Michele Druon interviews me in "Le mot juste en anglais" where we discuss literature, life and consciousness.


http://le-mot-juste-en-anglais.typepa...

3 new poems in Poetry Salzburg Review Spring Issue 25, along with a review of Dreaming My Animal Selves (Salmon Poetry) by Caitríona O’Reilly:

Hélène Cardona’s Dreaming My Animal Selves / Le Songe de mes Âmes Animales is a work written in English and then translated into French by the author.

Cardona’s antecedents are certainly exotic; born in Paris to a Greek mother and an Ibizan father, she seems at home in many languages and many countries.

Amongst the prefatory puffs – of which there are a significant number – the poet Thomas McCarthy remarks “it is always risky business for a poet to self translate: it may seem like wanting both the work of art and the reader’s response.” Well translated work takes on another life in its new language, and surely the multi-lingual author with a foot in both camps occupies a privileged position with regard to the ability to convey meaning in the most precise and appropriate idiom possible.

The poems in this collection do concern themselves explicitly with movement, shape-shifting and liminal states of consciousness. As Cardona writes in “dancing the Dream”, “This is a story of flight, / a story of roots, / a story of grace. / I am the wandering child. “

The tone of these poems is often breathless, enraptured, and to borrow a phrase once used by Charles Tomlinson brilliantly to describe the poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva, ‘self-wearing’…

Constantin Severin's beautiful piece "Hélène Cardona's atemporal poetry in The Alchemical City:

https://constantinseverin.wordpress.c...

Guy Sangster-Adams's soulful review of Life in Suspension (Salmon Poetry, 2016) in Plectrum - The Cultural Pick:

"Extraordinarily, magically, poignantly, I could have sworn just as I finished reading Hélène Cardona’s latest poetry collection and was switching on my laptop to write this review that I could faintly hear a lone piper playing Flowers of the Forest..."

Read the whole review:
http://theculturalpick.com/wordpress/...

A Poet is a Mood: Life in Suspension reviewed by J.C. Hallman in The Brooklyn Rail

"The dual-language aspect of this surprising volume, which just as often will have you thinking of Rumi and Rilke and Neruda, offers a unique archaeology-style pleasure of penetrating a psychic poetic cavity that generally remains undisturbed... And… you remember being with the poet for these moments stolen from an unlikely life."

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2016/12/b...

"But Cardona is different, I think, and [her] dissertation on James is the clue. In both letters and fiction, James asserted that all the arts are one, and what he meant was that a novel can aspire to do what the gigantic Tintorettos in the Louvre do. In short, we should no sooner segregate media than people....[These poems] compile to form the chronicle of a traveler, without fixed language, without fixed nationality or profession, moving physically from Bar Harbor to Chalkidiki (it’s Greece), and emotionally from the calm of floating alone on a lake to the inner hurricane of watching a loved one slip from this world to the next. En route, there are these poetic hesitations, the vibrancy of life trapped in amber."

Read the full review: http://www.brooklynrail.org/2016/12/b...

This week Cobalt Poets presents Hélène Cardona plus open reading:
Hélène Cardona’s Life in Suspension is called “a vivid self-portrait as scholar, seer and muse” by John Ashbery, and David Mason described Dreaming My Animal Selves as “liminal, mystical and other-worldly,” adding, “this is a poet who writes in a rare light.” Hailed as visionary by Richard Wilbur, Cardona’s luminous poetry explores consciousness, the power of place, and ancestral roots. It is poetry of alchemy and healing, a gateway to the unconscious and the dream world. She has authored 5 translations, is the recipient of over 20 awards & honors, and her work has been translated into 19 languages. Dreaming My Animal Selves / Le Songe de mes Âmes AnimalesLife in Suspension: La Vie Suspendue Tuesday, Aug 15, 7:30 PST.
Signups for the open reading start at 7:15pm in the Zoom Chat.
https://www.facebook.com/events/27835...
When you RSVP, please use your full real name as your Zoom identity so you can be let in, and DM me so I can let Rick Lupert know.

"Hélène Cardona’s masterful translation of The Abduction by French-Syrian poet Maram Al-Masri contains luminescent pages where readers will traverse tidal currents of raw emotion, passionate love, and the sting of separation. Unfurled through motifs of motherhood, nascent innocence, the ache of parting, and the fragility of memory, the verses offer a rare glimpse into the psyche of a mother torn from her offspring. This collection of poems is a sacred remembrance, reminding the reader of our deep connections between a parent and child and within the family. And the deep sorrows we face when those connections are sundered unexpectedly."
--Julian Press Book Reviews:
http://www.saintjulianpress.com/the-a...

I'll be reading from The Abduction, my new translation of Maram Al Masri:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...
https://helenecardona.com/translations
https://www.whitepine.org/the-abduction

Celebrate the 50th anniversary of White Pine Press at Beyond Baroque! Established in 1973, White Pine Press has been at the forefront in bringing the rich diversity of world literature to the English speaking audience. Publishing poetry, fiction, essays, and literature in translation from around the world. Join Editor/Publisher Dennis Maloney alongside White Pine-published authors: Hélène Cardona, Tzveta Sofronieva, Yun Wang, and Christopher Merrill for an evening of poetry readings including new and selected works. The evening will be hosted by poet and translator Gail Wronsky.

Beyond Baroque
681 Venice Blvd
Venice Beach
Los Angeles, CA 90291

Many thanks to The US Review of Books for the beautiful recommended review of The Abduction, my translation of Le Rapt by Maram Al Masri:
https://www.theusreview.com/reviews-1...



Book review by Nicole Yurcaba

"He has begun to speak to me
with his eight tiny teeth."
Opening with poems celebrating the wonder of new life, this collection explores birth, development, motherhood, and the terrifying experience of losing one’s child to an act of abduction. In this book, an empty house becomes a metaphor for a woman longing for her child: “A house like mine / may be hiding wounds / may be hiding stories.” These verses also explore the speaker’s harrowing emotional journey as she navigatse the present and potential future without her son. Additionally, the book provides readers with philosophical takes on what it truly means to love another person: “To love, it is to prepare yourself / to be abandoned.” At the same time, the speaker also questions why humans must love the way they do, given that the experience can transform into something utterly terrifying and painful.

These poems rely on minimalist forms and language to create a significantly deep message about what it is to lose the one person who shapes another person’s existence. The evocative images and emotions displayed in this book leave readers feeling the speaker’s pain and heartbreak. The collection also addresses socio-political issues like immigration, and it gives anecdotes that give readers a first-hand glimpse into the sense of otherness with which many immigrants live in their new homelands: “Immigrant / you will always be / in the crosshairs of suspicion.” These anecdotes speak loudly in an America rife with political tensions surrounding the issue. Thus, the collection transforms from a personal exploration of loss and grief into a larger conversation about one’s role in a new society. Poetry lovers who appreciate poems with a deeply personal yet socially conscious message will appreciate this book.

RECOMMENDED by the US Review

The Abduction is a World Literature Today's Notable Translation:
https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/...