The Trace They Wished to Leave

Contact: Tel: 020 7420 9887, poetrycafe@poetrysociety.org.uk

In the Poetry Studio

Remco Campert and Jacques Prevert

Remco Campert (The Hague, 1929) is one of the great generation of Dutch poets, the ‘fifties’ poets. Coming to adulthood under the shadow of the Nazi occupation, these poets dismantled traditional notions of poetry in favour of a language closer to common speech. Of this group Campert was always the most accessible. Rarely translated into English, Campert is a household name in Holland. He is known for his fiction and columns, as well as his poetry.

Donald Gardner is a poet and translator who lives in Holland. Originally a Spanish-language translator, he translated Octavio Paz’s ‘The Sun Stone’ (Cosmos, York 1969) and was co-translator of Gullermo Cabrera Infante’s novel, ‘Three Trapped Tigers’. His book of translations of the poems of Remco Campert, ‘I Dreamed in the Cities at Night’, was published by Arc in 2007.

Jacques Prevert (1900 - 1977) became a very popular poet in the Thirties, famed for his wry wit and his depiction of Parisian working-class life and attitudes. He also wrote several successful screenplays for the director Marcel Carné, notably Les Enfants du Paradis that many people consider to be the greatest French film ever made.

Sarah Lawson is a writer and translator from French, Spanish and Dutch. Her translation of Christine de Pisan's Treasure of the City of Ladies (Penguin, 1985) was the first translation of that work in English since it was written in 1405.

Her translation of Selected Poems by Jacques Prévert (Hearing Eye, 2002) was a Poetry Book Society Recommended Translation for the Summer Quarter in 2002.

Poetry in Translation is a series organised by Sebastian Hayes, co-Director of Brimstone Press Ltd. www.poetryintranslation.org

Price: £5.00 / £3.00

Time: 7:30pm