Mailing List


George Szirtes
George Szirtes's many books of poetry have won various prizes including the T. S. Eliot Prize (2004), for which he is again shortlisted for Bad Machine (2013). His translation of László Krasznahorkai's Satantango (2013) was awarded the Best Translated Book Award in the US. The act of translation is, he thinks, bound to involve fidelity, ambiguity, confusion and betrayal.

Articles Available Online


Foreword: A Pound of Flesh

feature

Issue No. 12

George Szirtes

feature

Issue No. 12

1.   ANALOGIES FOR TRANSLATION ARE MANY, most of them assuming a definable something on one side of the equation – a fixed original...

feature

January 2014

Afterword: The Death of the Translator

George Szirtes

feature

January 2014

1. The translator meets himself emerging from his lover’s bedroom. So much for fidelity, he thinks. 2. Je est...

1 Cessation of Breath: Is He Breathing?   He’s not breathing, and he cannot go on like this He needs air Mouth-to-mouth is a fool’s game: you must not believe that you have enough air for the both of you The body should supply itself, but in this it can be encouraged Breath begets breath, and life life One O says yes to another O and that equals oxygen One god nods to the next god, who nods to the next and so on Therefore plant plants, as follows: (i) The chest is just a gathering of shapes as it is, and it knows full well what it means to be a shrubbery There is depth and breadth enough for soil, and it lends itself naturally to inhabitance From there to conurbation Drop seeds and sow It grows in spite of itself (ii) The extremities are a framework already in place: honeysuckles, for example, thrive on the order inherent in limbs; fingers are the beginnings of mathematics, and you will find the sweetpea loops nicely to a ring; ivies are many and incessant (iii) The holes of the head are a blessing Eye sockets, in particular, are favourable to succulents 2 Cardiac Arrest: Is There Any Rhythm to Him?   They say: cut the wood yourself and it will warm you twice It is the same for the heart – if you beat it, it will beat And it is the same with blood – it won’t move unless you move it This is the kind of work that must be done by hand This is monks and manuscripts This is sculpture This is the work your father did, is where you came from (i)        Locate the heart by feeling (ii)       Trace out the gridlocked veins (iii)      Prepare the bell for pealing (iv)       Make fists and take your aim (v)        Pound it till it feels like kissing (vi)       Push the blood between your hands (vii)    

Contributor

August 2014

George Szirtes

Contributor

August 2014

George Szirtes’s many books of poetry have won various prizes including the T. S. Eliot Prize (2004), for which...

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

poetry

November 2013

George Szirtes

poetry

November 2013

And so they shone, every one of them, each crazy, everyone a diamond shining the way things shine, each becoming a gleam in his...
Rescue Me

poetry

November 2013

George Szirtes

poetry

November 2013

Pain comes like this: packaged in a moment of hubris with a backing band too big for its own good. It isn’t the same...

READ NEXT

feature

May 2011

Why I Write (Rather than Riot)

Gavin James Bower

feature

May 2011

Watching the recent public demonstrations protesting, at times violently, the Coalition government’s budgetary cuts, I was forced to revisit...

poetry

November 2015

Two Poems

Ko Un

TR. Brother Anthony of Taizé

TR. Lee Sang-Wha

poetry

November 2015

Kim Geung-Ryeol   During the Japanese colonial period he attended Japan’s Military Academy, became squadron leader in the Japanese...

feature

May 2017

The Pilgrims

Rachel Aydt

feature

May 2017

ST. JOAN The great actress Renée Jeanne Falconetti stands trial for heresy, a woeful story told with her eyes...

 

Get our newsletter

 

* indicates required