Monday, December 24, 2012

open college of the arts in cambridge: poets on the radio

At Darwin College, Cambridge, last month, I co-tutored a poetry workshop for Open College of the Arts students with tutor John Drew, who will be a featured poet on this blog in the New Year.

We were recorded and interviewed by Cambridge radio presenter Simon Bertin, who also took part in the workshop.  His lively Cambridge arts show, Arts Round-Up, is a must-listen for anyone interested in the arts scene in Cambridge.

The December show, which is here, features snapshots of the OCA day, an interview with me about what the Open College of the Arts offers, student Catherine Foster, John Drew and I reading out poems, and part of a famous Chinese poem read out in Chinese by PhD student Yang Guohua. Many thanks to Guohua and Simon for taking such an interest in the day.

My blogpost about the day is on the Open College of the Arts blog.

One of the best things about 2012 for me has been that I have had opportunities to work with other tutors for both the OU and the OCA, to tutor distance learning students face to face for short, intense periods of time, and to collaborate with other interested parties.

We were asked to translate the famous Chinese poem 'Leaving Cambridge 1927' by Xu Zhimo. This is my version of part of the poem, which I read out for Simon's radio show:

...one full year, one boat, one bright star.
Speckles of starlight sing themselves free.
But I'm unable to sing my own star free.
Quietly I steal away from reed pipe, flute,
summer insects. Now I sink into silence,
as this Cambridge evening sinks
into silence. This is how I leave,
quietly, just as I arrived, quietly.
I wave one sleeve, wave another,
walk away, don't leave myself
one slice of cloud.

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