Poetry and the State at Amnesty International UK

From the beginning, poetry has been the great communicator. In every protest, conflict and movement of oppression, voices have risen through the crowd and found expression in its fearless form. Whether personal or political, poetry is a public statement with a universal reach. Poet in the City’s recently hosted series of Arab Spring poetry events at City Hall brought to Londoners a fresh awareness of poetry’s power to speak to the State, and to speak of and for the people of the State.

Continuing this theme, Poet in the City is hosting today, on Tuesday 20th September, a FREE event to celebrate the current edition of Modern Poetry in Translation: Poetry and the State with our co-hosts Amnesty International and MPT. Our distinguished speakers include:

• Carlos Reyez Manzo is a documentary photographer and poet, born in San Antonio, Chile. A survivor of torture under Pinochet’s military regime, Carlos is a powerful human rights advocate and through his work documents the struggles, hopes and suffering of people across the world. He was this year appointed as Amnesty International’s first Poet in Residence. (21/09/11 update: Carlos read his poems in Spanish and Shane Enright of Amnesty International read English translations.)
• Timothy Allen, a former aid worker, has lived and worked in many parts of the developing world, including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique and in the Peruvian Amazon. He is currently writing a radio play based on the Liberian novelette, Murder in the Cassava Patch. He lives in Liverpool with his wife and his two children.
• Amarjit Chandan was born in Nairobi in 1946 and studied in India at Panjab University, coming to Britain in 1980 to live in London. He has published five collections of poetry and three books of essays in Punjabi notably Jarhān (poems) and Phailsufiān and Nishāni (essays). His latest publication: Sonata for Four Hands, Collection of Poems (Arc Publications) was prefaced by John Berger. March 2010.
• Jennie Feldman’s collection The Lost Notebook and her translations of selected poems by Jacques Réda, Treading Lightly, were published by Anvil Press in 2005. She is co-editor and translator, with Stephen Romer, of the anthology Into the Deep Street: Seven Modern French Poets 1938-2008 (Anvil 2009). She lives in Jerusalem.
• Zuzanna Olszewska is a Junior Research Fellow in Oriental Studies at St. John’s College, Oxford University. She recently completed a doctorate in Social Anthropology on Poetry and its Social Contexts among Afghan Refugees in Iran. She is working on further translations of Afghan poetry.
• David Constantine and Helen Constantine, co-editors of Modern Poetry in Translation, will host the event. Both are experienced and widely published translators in their own right and David is an acclaimed poet and short story writer.

Join us for a glass of wine from 6.30pm in Hall One at Amnesty International UK, 17-25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA. See Map. The event itself will start promptly at 7.00pm.

To ensure your registration on the guest list, please RSVP by telephoning 07908 367488 or by emailing info@poetinthecity.co.uk.

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