Interview _ Irena Ioannou

Irena Ioannou’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Wild Word, S/tick, Literary Mama, Eyedrum Periodically and Shipwrights. She writes from Crete, Greece where she lives with her husband and four children.

In this interview, Irena Ioannou talks about her writing, translation and poetry.

When did you start writing?

My first efforts were in Greek and were meant for my eyes only, too many years ago to be able to pin it down. Then I stumbled upon some creating writing courses at Malmo University, or they stumbled upon me, I can’t tell for sure.

My first poems were published online in 2013 and ever since I’ve been taking my writing one step forward, the past months more steadily and decisively so.

How would you describe the writing you are doing?

I write narrative, confessional poetry, more often than not with a feminist-political bent. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with the flash fiction and the short story form. Writing constantly offers new opportunities to learn and evolve, or sometimes you find that a medium cannot deliver the intended meaning adequately. But poetry is the guide to everything else: it taught me to pay attention to every single word, which is a big step into writing.

Who or what has had the most influence on you as a writer?

I am Greek and I have attended Greek school which means that I’ve studied the Classics. Having also studied English Literature though, a new window opened when I came across contemporary female poets.

I chose to do my Bachelor Thesis on Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife, and, well, nobody can remain unaffected by that. Questions about the truth of representation and the reinvention of history still haunt my writing.

In general, I am drawn to poems with a strong voice. Poets like Sharon Olds and Adrienne Rich — and others less known who use poetry to bare their soul — are my soft spot.

How have your personal experiences influenced your writing?

Your experiences make you who you are, and your writing reflects it. I’ve been influenced by two countries: Sweden, where I was born, and Greece, where I’ve grown up.

Studies have also the habit of messing with your head, and at times I enroll in foreign language courses trying to decode the way of thinking behind them. And of course, my job in the Greek Fire Brigade offers new angles of interpreting the human condition.

What has been your most significant achievement as a writer so far?

I consider my best achievement that I continue writing while working and being a mother of four.

I cannot single any of my pieces out as they all carry a piece of me in their words. But of course I value the magazines that treat my work with respect, like The Wild Word did with my poem "It’s Only Human Nature" and my personal essay "On Country And Shared Blood", and the Mortar Magazine did with my short story "St. George".

The publishing world is still a puzzle to me, though every time a total stranger chooses my work among hundreds I call it a small miracle, and marvel at the way poetry unites us all.

How did you get involved with Journeys in Translation?

I answered to an open call for volunteer translators posted in my university’s online writing community.

I have translated eight of the poems into Greek, and I am working on the rest. So far, it’s been a very rewarding experience. I can’t help but admire such initiatives; we’re all so caught up in our lives that we don’t even allow sidelong glances to anything that doesn't directly concern us.

Which were the easiest aspects of the work you put into the project?

It’s natural to identify more with certain poems than with others, which make their reading and translation an easier task. It’s like reading a poem and thinking, "Yeah, I've been there." I could refer here to Kathleen Bell’s "Waiting". That peeking out through the window felt quite intimate.

Irena Ioannou's translation, into Greek of Kathleen Bell's "Waiting", one of the 13 poems from Over Land, Over Sea: Poems for those seeking refuge (Five Leaves Publications, 2015) that are being used as part of Journeys in Translation, a project that aims to facilitate cross- and inter-cultural conversations on the themes of home, belonging and refuge.  

Which were the most challenging?

Words come in different hues and there is always the fear that, as a translator, you’ll assign a meaning to a word not intended by its first creator. I treated some of the poets as witnesses, as though offering them a medium to share their experiences and I would hate to alter these experiences in any way, as in assigning to emotionally charged words lesser meaning. But in the end, poetry is deeply felt and you just put on the paper what your heart dictates.

What would you say is the value of initiatives like Journeys in Translation?

The value of such an initiative is that it is not another product of MFA graduates, neatly arranged words in projected structures — at least that’s not the way I viewed it. I felt some of the poems literally singing to me, I could see the rhythm of escaping behind them, this sense of people caught in midair. I don’t know what else can touch us anymore, but poetry — our eyes have long been trained to stop seeing.

Editor's Note:

Journeys in Translation aims to facilitate cross- and inter-cultural conversations around the themes of home, belonging and refuge.

The project encourages people who are bilingual or multilingual to have a go at translating 13 of the 101 poems from Over Land: Over Sea: Poems for those seeking refuge (Five Leaves Publications, 2015) from English into other languages and to share the translations, and reflections on the exercise on blogs, in letters and emails to family and friends, and on social media.

So far, the 13 poems that are being used as part of the project have been translated into languages that include Italian, German, Shona, Spanish, Bengali, British Sign Language, Farsi, Finnish, French, Turkish and Welsh. Currently, over 20 people from all over the world are working on the translations. More translations and more languages are on the way.

In Leicester, Journeys in Translation will culminate in an event that is going to be held on September 30 as part of Everybody's Reading 2017. During the event the original poems and translations will be read, discussed and displayed.

Over Land, Over Sea: Poems for Those Seeking Refuge (Five Leaves Publications, 2015) was edited by Kathleen Bell, Emma Lee and Siobhan Logan and is being sold to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Leicester City of Sanctuary and the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum.

Copies of the anthology are available from Five Leaves Bookshop (Nottingham).

More information on how Over Land, Over Sea came about is available here.

Interview _ Laura Chalar

Laura Chalar was born in 1976 in Uruguay, where she trained as a lawyer. She is the author of six books, most recently Midnight at the Law Firm (Coal City Press, 2015), a chapbook of poetry, and Líber Andacalles (Topito Ediciones, 2016), a Spanish-language short story for children.

She has also published numerous translations from and into Spanish, including Touching the Light of Day: Six Uruguayan Poets (Veliz Books, 2016) and Uruguayan poetry dossiers in Modern Poetry in Translation and other literary journals. The recipient of various literary awards as well as a Pushcart Prize nominee, she is currently at work on several simultaneous projects. Laura is married and has a daughter.

In this interview, Laura Chalar talks about her writing.

When did you start writing?

I started writing when I was very small, copying the printed letters I found in books and newspapers. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write. My father was very proud of a story about a ‘caterpillar woman’, which I must have written when I was about four. Both my parents were readers --- fine examples of that type of cultured, literary-minded lawyer which is now sadly in danger of extinction. We never had much money when I was growing up, but there were always plenty of books around the house.

How would you describe the writing you are doing?

I am a poet and short-story writer who also wants to become a novelist! Recently, I’ve also started writing for children. And then, of course, I also translate. These different genres often hinge around subjects I keep returning to --- memory, childhood, ‘normal’ people living normal lives, usually in places I happen to know or have lived in.

In the writing you are doing, which authors influenced you most and in what way? Why do you think they’ve had this kind of influence?

I wouldn’t know about influence, but there are many writers whose work I admire and which are a quality standard I always try to keep within sight, even if I can’t match it. I’m always discovering poets whose work I love, many of them English!

Among Uruguayan writers, who are perhaps less familiar to English-language readers but definitely worth getting to know, I would mention Julio Herrera y Reissig, Líber Falco, Juan Carlos Onetti, Marosa di Giorgio, Carlos Martínez Moreno, Horacio Quiroga and Juana de Ibarbourou from the ‘classics’ ranks.

Laura Chalar's books include Touching the Light of Day (Veliz Books, 2016) and Líber Andacalles (Topito Ediciones, 2016).

How have your personal experiences influenced the writing you are doing?

My personal experiences are always there, lurking behind the scenes. That is not to say, of course, that my writing is always ‘confessional’ --- I will draw on stories I have heard, the visual arts, places I have never been to --- but there is always something of myself, of my tastes and inclinations, in what I write. I suppose it’s the same with most writers --- your life seeps into your writing, sometimes in ways you can’t recognize.

What are you working on at present?

I am preparing a Spanish-language book of prose poems (or poem-like stories, depending on your view) for the press. It will be published in Uruguay by Irrupciones, a local publisher, perhaps in May.

This year, I also plan to finish a book about reading to (and with) my daughter, and edit the short stories and other writings of my father, who died last year (some of these can be read in the latest issue of Coal City Review, an American literary journal, in my translation).

I’m also looking for a publisher for my translations of the Brontë sisters’ poems, illustrated by a wonderful Uruguayan artist. There are also a couple of translation projects around, involving English-language poets whose work I enjoy ...

And I’m probably still forgetting something.

How do you balance the demands of the various aspects of the work you are doing?

The greatest demands come from motherhood and my work as a lawyer, which is how I make my living. These are both wonderful and challenging but, as you may imagine, take up most of my time! Any free time I find for writing goes to whatever is currently the most ‘urgent’ project, always trying to fit in things that come up and which can be finished relatively quickly.

For you, what connects Law, poetry and literary translation?

Words and ideas ... a passion for them, their possibilities, the worlds they uncover. I suppose I could just as accurately say that in my view they are connected by a deep interest (and involvement) in human lives and human minds.

What would you say is the value of an initiative like Journeys in Translation?

I think if you can make people understand and know about the refugee experience, then tolerance and compassion (both greatly needed in today’s world) will be fostered and enhanced. And you might make people gain a greater appreciation of poetry along the way, which would be an added bonus.

What have been the most interesting aspects of the work you’ve done so far with the initiative?

So far I have only translated a couple of poems, ‘What’s in a Name’ (which offers, in an almost incantatory manner, the names of different people who are suffering, and through naming them brings them closer to us and gives them a voice) and ‘Dislocation’, a very spare poem about disconnectedness and alienation.

The most exciting thing about doing so was the possibility of being a part of a project that will hopefully help people and change lives for the better, hackneyed as these words may seem. Uruguay and Argentina, the countries I divide my time between, are both currently peaceful in the sense that there are no dictatorships, wars or displacement issues (though there is a very concerning streak of totalitarianism alive and kicking in both); for most of us here, having to leave your life, family and possessions behind and start anew, seeking protection in a foreign country, is an ordeal we can’t even begin to imagine. Our ancestors did it when they sailed for this part of the world, usually driven by poverty, two or more generations back --- but it isn’t really a part of our everyday experience. And I don’t want geographical distance and a different life path to prevent me from empathizing with and helping, if I can, those who are going through such misery and misfortune in current times. I want to be a part of the change for the better, part of the good in their lives, and literature seems like the most obvious channel, as writing is what I do best.

Laura Chalar's translations of some of the poems from Over Land, Over Sea: Poems for those seeking refuge (Five Leaves Publications, 2015) that are being used as part of Journeys in Translation, a project that aims to facilitate cross- and inter-cultural conversation on the themes of home, belonging and refuge.

What has been the most challenging? And, how have you dealt or how are you dealing with these challenges?

I always try to deal with translation challenges with creativity and craftsmanship. I think a translation is successful when it can be read as a poem in its own right.

Editor's Note:

Journeys in Translation aims to facilitate cross- and inter-cultural conversations around the themes of home, belonging and refuge.

The project encourages people who are bilingual or multilingual to have a go at translating 13 of the 101 poems from Over Land: Over Sea: Poems for those seeking refuge (Five Leaves Publications, 2015) from English into other languages and to share the translations, and reflections on the exercise on blogs, in letters and emails to family and friends, and on social media.

So far, the 13 poems that are being used as part of the project have been translated into languages that include Italian, German, Shona, Spanish, Bengali, British Sign Language, Farsi, Finnish, French, Turkish and Welsh. Currently, over 20 people from all over the world are working on the translations. More translations and more languages are on the way.

In Leicester, Journeys in Translation will culminate in an event that is going to be held on September 30 as part of Everybody's Reading 2017. During the event the original poems and translations will be read, discussed and displayed.

Over Land, Over Sea: Poems for Those Seeking Refuge (Five Leaves Publications, 2015) was edited by Kathleen Bell, Emma Lee and Siobhan Logan and is being sold to raise funds for Doctors Without Borders/ Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Leicester City of Sanctuary and the Nottingham and Nottinghamshire Refugee Forum.

Copies of the anthology are available from Five Leaves Bookshop (Nottingham).

More information on how Over Land, Over Sea came about is available here.