Showing posts with label Zachariah Wells. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zachariah Wells. Show all posts
Thursday, July 19, 2012
(another) very short story, up at Readers' Digest Canada!
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
call for submissions: Zach Wells asking for short, short stories,
Dear
writer friends,
I'm
working on an editorial fiction project for Reader's Digest Canada and need
some excellent very short stories for it. If you have any stories that are 100
words long or shorter, or if you can write one or more by May 11, please send
them to me at zachwells@gmail.com
If
your story is selected for the feature I'm working on, payment would be very
competitive and your story would reach an audience of millions.
Please
share this call for submissions widely.
Thanks!
Zach
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
12 or 20 questions: with Zachariah Wells
Bio: "After living in six different provinces and territories, Zachariah Wells no longer knows where he's from or where he's going. Old books include Unsettled (poems); Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets (anthology) and Anything But Hank! (children's picture book, co-written with Rachel Lebowitz, illustrated by Eric Orchard). New books will be Track & Trace (poems, 2009) and Career Limiting Moves (critical prose, 2010). Wells is reviews editor for Canadian Notes & Queries, passenger train attendant for Via Rail and blogger for his own self-indulgent person."1 - How did your first book or chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?
Because I have an embarrassing predilection for the actuarial, I'm breaking your multi-part questions down to a, b and c. My answers will be further subdivided i, ii, iii, etc.
a) i) Before my first book was published, I was a semi-employed bum. After it was published, I was a semi-employed author. This has made all the difference. (Rich galas, etc.)
ii) I started using my ISBN as the basis for choosing lottery numbers.
iii) My grant applications stopped getting rejected.
iv) Other people with books started talking to me.
v) I began to have nightmares involving being pursued by an enormous fanged book that bore a vague resemblance to my mother. Make of it what you will.
b) i) My older work has a lot of coarse language in it. My new work ... oh fuck, never mind.
ii) I don't really keep track of what I wrote when. Several poems that are in my forthcoming collection are older than most of the poems in my previous book (one of the poems is, in fact, a revision of a poem from my first book, which appears there in two different versions). The third book, should it ever materialise, will be similarly shingled. How a writer's work changes over time is rarely of much interest to me. If the work's any good, it's a pretty trivial consideration. If it's bad, even more so.
c) More velvety.
2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?
As opposed to being a rock 'n' roll star, actually. I'm completely tone deaf. So I went for a really lame second choice. Third actually. Pro baseball player would have been my first choice, but my athletic gifts are only marginally more impressive than my music skills. So basically, I'm kind of a loser and I'm pretty lazy. Isn't that how we all get here?
As opposed to being a rock 'n' roll star, actually. I'm completely tone deaf. So I went for a really lame second choice. Third actually. Pro baseball player would have been my first choice, but my athletic gifts are only marginally more impressive than my music skills. So basically, I'm kind of a loser and I'm pretty lazy. Isn't that how we all get here?
3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing intitially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?
a) What's a writing project?
b) My writing sometimes has problems with premature ejaculation, but I got some killer pills online that are helping with that.
c) Because I'm a genius, brilliant poems pretty much emerge fully-formed from my brow, naked and gleaming.
4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?
a) Top of the page.
b) I write poems.
5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?
a) Readings are more relevant to me than books.
b) Ibid.
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?
a) Maybe, but my poems are pretty quick, so I'm sure they can outrun them.
b) i) Where do babies come from?
ii) What's the frequency, Kenneth?
iii) Why do fools fall in love?
iv) What the fuck were you thinking?!
c) Same as they've ever been.
7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?
a) Don't really care.
b) Not much of one.
c) To write.
8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?
Do you mean, like, a foreigner? I don't think foreign editors should be taking the jobs of Canadian editors.
9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?
At a high school graduation party, my grade 11 English teacher Edward Zrudlo, by this point well in his cups, said to me: "Zach, you have the soul of a poet. You have to study classics."
Unfortunately, he was slurring so badly that I heard "plastics." Man, was that ever a dead end.
10 - How easy has it been for you to move between genres (poetry to critical prose)? What do you see as the appeal?
a) I don't really move between genres. I write poems when I feel like it and reviews and essays when someone asks me to. Occasionally, the opposite is true, but not often.
b) It's thoroughly unappealingly, but I'm a bit of a loser, like I said.
11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?
a) Nope.
b) My son cries. I wake up. Then I close my eyes again. Then my son smacks me on the head. Etc.
12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?
Nowhere. I just wait. The physical act of writing is incredibly over-valued, I think.
13 - What fairy tale character do you resonate with most?
Jesus.
14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?
If David said that, it's hardly an original observation. Quite banal, actually. Shame on you, David. Also, "nature, music, science [and] visual art" aren't forms, per se. In answer to your question, poetry that simply refers to other poetry--especially poetry that refers mostly to contemporary colleagues of the poet--bores the hell out of me, and is a sure sign that the poet has no sense of an audience greater than his or her circle of peers.
15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?
Too many to name, really. Which ones are most important changes with time and sometimes cycles. But a few key figures, who may or may not have influenced my writing: Joseph Conrad, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ted Hughes, John Clare, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Frost, Yukio Mishima, Irving Layton, Bruce Chatwin, Robert Browning.
16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?
Retire. Which is a bit of a lie. Tho I've been in the workforce every year since I was 14, I've yet to work an entire year. But working partial years is starting to get old, and I'd like to give it up sooner than later.
17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?
These questions don't pertain to me, as I've never been a full-time writer. I'm neither wealthy nor irresponsible, so I've worked. Mostly in the transportation industry (seven years for an airline and five years and counting for Via Rail).
18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?
Again, tone deafness.
19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?
b) I've never read a film. I saw a Swedish film called Songs from the Second Floor that was pretty brilliant. One of the best lines ever: "You can't make money from a crucified loser."
20 - What are you currently working on?
Packing up my apartment in Vancouver to move back to my house in Halifax. I can pretty safely boast now that I'm one of the only tri-coastal writers in the country. Oughta be worth some beer.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
JAILBREAKS: 99 CANADIAN SONNETS, edited by Zachariah Wells
For some time, former east coast (now living in Vancouver) poet Zachariah Wells has been one of the champions of this "new formalism" (for lack of better terminology) that's been spreading around Canadian poetry the past few years, along side other champions such as Montrealer Carmine Starnino and East Coast resident George Murray. What is the appeal? Either way, he has crafted an attractive and interesting new anthology of sonnets over the decades by Canadian writers, Jailbreaks: 99 Canadian Sonnets (Emeryville ON: Biblioasis, 2008). Including poems by numerous Canadian poets one might expect in such an anthology, from Margaret Avison, Carmine Starnino, Peter Van Toorn, Irving Layton, John Newlove, Stephen Brockwell, Archibald Lampman and Robyn Sarah, part of what makes the collection appealing is his inclusion of works by some lesser-expected poets such as Gerry Gilbert [see my note on him here], Stuart Ross, E.A. Lacey and Phyllis Webb.
YOU HAVE NO FORM
You have no form, you move among, yet do
not move, the relics of exhausted thought
of which you are not made, but which give world to
you, you are of nothing made, nothing wrought.
There you long for one who is not me, O
queen of no subject, newer than the morning,
more antique than first seed dropped below
the wash where you are called and Adam born.
And here, not your essence, not your absence
weds the emptiness which is never me,
though these motions and these formless events
are preparation for humanity,
and I get up to love and eat and kill
not by my own, but by our married will. (Leonard Cohen)
For some time, there have been poets in Canada (Diana Brebner did through example, in the 1980s and 1990s, well before it was fashionable again) attempting to argue for the form of the sonnet, and this collection, I would suppose, is Well's argument for the form, and an argument well made. Still, the back of the collection includes commentary by Wells on most if not all of the poems included in the anthology, ranging from highly astute criticism to strange and even baffling story-telling. Writing on Stephen Brockwell's contribution, "The Fruitfly," Wells writes some of the best criticism on Brockwell's work to date:
WHAT IS HOMELESS IN ME, AND SIGHTLESS
What is homeless in me, and sightless, not
without love, but blind to your world? If I
insist on love, or sight, something not brought
by insisting, who will still cherish my
eyes, kiss them with tenderness, with darkness?
All of those places within me, somewhat
lonely, and foreign, where I am homeless,
still remain to be seen. The terror that
fills me is one dark place. The fear of sight
is another. I would like to believe
love is blind; blindness is something to fight
for, to believe in. Dear man, when I leave
my eyes open, I see nothing, in this
world we call real, but you: you and darkness. (Diana Brebner)
YOU HAVE NO FORM
You have no form, you move among, yet do
not move, the relics of exhausted thought
of which you are not made, but which give world to
you, you are of nothing made, nothing wrought.
There you long for one who is not me, O
queen of no subject, newer than the morning,
more antique than first seed dropped below
the wash where you are called and Adam born.
And here, not your essence, not your absence
weds the emptiness which is never me,
though these motions and these formless events
are preparation for humanity,
and I get up to love and eat and kill
not by my own, but by our married will. (Leonard Cohen)
For some time, there have been poets in Canada (Diana Brebner did through example, in the 1980s and 1990s, well before it was fashionable again) attempting to argue for the form of the sonnet, and this collection, I would suppose, is Well's argument for the form, and an argument well made. Still, the back of the collection includes commentary by Wells on most if not all of the poems included in the anthology, ranging from highly astute criticism to strange and even baffling story-telling. Writing on Stephen Brockwell's contribution, "The Fruitfly," Wells writes some of the best criticism on Brockwell's work to date:
Don’t let the lack of end-rhyme fool you into thinking this free-verse sonnet is sloppily built. The thought articulated in this poem is every bit as intricate as the fruit fly's wing ― if more nimble than the fly clapped into a punctuation mark. The metaphoric imagination Brockwell displays here reminds me of the pattern-perception of Hopkins in his journal prose. And in case you're wondering about his skill with more traditionally structured sonnets, you should seek out Wild Clover Honey and the Bee-hive, a sequence of 28 sonnets on the sonnet ― fourteen written by Brockwell, contra the form, and fourteen by Peter Norman, another contributor to this anthology, arguing for it. It's a brilliant performance of dialectical banjos.Compare that to what he has to say about the late John Newlove's "God Bless the Bear," writing:
John Newlove was a friend of my uncle's. Once, while visiting Prince Edward Island to give a reading, Newlove was tracked down by a young fan at my uncle's farmhouse. The poet, not surprisingly, was in pretty rough shape from the previous evening's excesses. When asked by his admirer if he wouldn’t mind reciting a poem, Newlove looked blearily at the ephebe and croaked, "Gimme a dollar." Not sure what that has to do with this very moving free-verse sonnet, but it must be something.I find it frustrating that, yet again, John Newlove's clear precision as a skilled writer is too-often overshadowed by biography, and it makes me wonder what the purpose of including this story is. I would rather such be left out, and nothing be said than this. How does this add anything to a consideration of the work, other than some kind of dismissal? And why is it so many of his small critical commentaries are excusing or asking the reader to overlook the fact that so many of these sonnets are, potentially, "sloppily built"? Is he excusing his argument even as he's making it?
WHAT IS HOMELESS IN ME, AND SIGHTLESS
What is homeless in me, and sightless, not
without love, but blind to your world? If I
insist on love, or sight, something not brought
by insisting, who will still cherish my
eyes, kiss them with tenderness, with darkness?
All of those places within me, somewhat
lonely, and foreign, where I am homeless,
still remain to be seen. The terror that
fills me is one dark place. The fear of sight
is another. I would like to believe
love is blind; blindness is something to fight
for, to believe in. Dear man, when I leave
my eyes open, I see nothing, in this
world we call real, but you: you and darkness. (Diana Brebner)
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
a question of translation:
This email arrived in my inbox today. I wonder if it's related to the brooha Zach Wells started, suggesting an award for Goran Simic?
Dear Friends
Robert Majzels and Erin Moure have put together a letter (included in the attachment) in the hopes of lobbying to the Canada Art Council to expand their criteria to recognize and promote the translation and publication of foreign works in Canada. If you would like to lend your name in support of this cause please write to either Erin Moure (emoure@ca.inter.net) or Robert Majzels(majzelsr@sympatico.ca).
thank you,
Oana Avasilichioaei
Hi everyone,
We just wanted to send you a copy of the letter (with a few tweaks and polishes), and signatures we mailed on December 1 to the Canada Council. People are still sending their names in support, and in about 2 weeks or so, we will send these names as well. Please do feel free to circulate the letter to others, and encourage anyone else who wishes to support these efforts to send us their name and location. Anyone can, of course, write directly to the Council, expressing their ideas on the issue.
It has been heartening to witness the passion and enthusiasm of so many writers, editors, and translators. We want to stress that our effort is but one of many, and that the question we all raise here has been raised for years. If anything comes of this latest effort, it will be first and foremost thanks to earlier efforts, particularly those of translators. Let's hope the timing now is right.
If nothing else, the response to our proposal and the list of names appended certainly demonstrate how strongly readers and writers feel about nourishing this work here at home, as part of our literature and place.
We will keep you in the loop, and we welcome hearing of any parallel efforts or comments that will help open the debate and keep it alive.
Thank you,
Robert Majzels, majzelsr@sympatico.ca
Erin Moure, emoure@ca.inter.net
Here' a draft of their letter. If you want to be included, send your name (and location) to either Erin or Robert.
Joanne Larocque-Poirier
Manager, Celebration 2007
Canada Council for the Arts
Melanie Routledge
Head, Writing and Publishing
Canada Council for the Arts
Dear Joanne Larocque-Poirier and Melanie Routledge,
Following my conversation with Joanne during jury deliberations for the Governor General’s Awards in English Translation 2005, I took up her suggestion to elaborate a proposal for extending Council support to Canadians translators working from languages other than Canadian English and French to translate non-Canadian authors into French, English or First Nations languages.
I first consulted poet and translator Erín Moure just last week, and as others caught wind of our initiative, we quickly discovered that many writers, editors and translators are as passionate about this issue as we are, and wanted to append their names. People seem to want to ally themselves to opening up this debate and doing something. The proposal breeds a lot of excitement.
As several people suggested I send the proposal to Melanie Routledge, I am including her as well at the outset.
We believe this initiative is crucial to Canadian readers and culture. It would not only contribute to diminishing Canada’s cultural reliance on American, British, and French filters here at home when we look outward to the world, but it would increase Canada’s contribution to cultural understanding and dynamism on the world stage. I look forward to hearing your response and any ideas you may have to bring the idea to fruition.
I’d like to thank Joanne, above all, for her encouragement.
Sincerely,
Robert Majzels
285 Spicer/West Bolton, Québec/J0E 2T0
(450) 243-1336/majzelsr@sympatico.ca
CANADIAN CULTURE: OPENING DOORS TO THE WORLD
In the years since the creation of the Canada Council, and thanks in no small part to its intervention, Canadian writing in both English and French has emerged from its infancy to become a recognized player on the international scene. Meanwhile, funding and support for translations of Canadian works between our two official languages has made possible a dialogue between English and French Canada and enabled writers in both communities to learn from and influence each other.
In our reception of world literature, however, Canada is virtually silent. Without the administrative support for translation of works by nationals from other cultures into Canadian languages and a Canadian context, we are attempting to sustain a national literature in isolation.
This is not to say that Canadians have no access to literatures of the world. However, because we rely on English translations from the United Kingdom and the United States, and on French translations made in France, we view the world through foreign glasses. We are letting these other cultures open the world to us. Those individual Canadian translators who take up the work of translating foreign works must do so without institutional support; Canadian publishers are barred from using block grant funds to publish those works; and our prizes and grants exclude them. We, in effect, force Canadian translators to “emigrate” their skills and work elsewhere if they want to publish.
By not taking measures now to support those Canadian artists in the domain of literary translation who are working to open Canadian culture to new and vital influences, to international works filtered through a Canadian – not an American, British or French – sensibility, we not only point them toward the border, toward leaving their country, but we attempt to maintain and grow our literature in isolation and, above all, we lose an opportunity to enhance Canada’s cultural dynamism by beckoning the world in, and welcoming it into our literature and our place and time.
Why are Canadians taking up the work of translating literature from foreign languages? Well, first of all, because we can. Thanks to decades of attention to the craft of translation, to university programs in translation, and to the large number of multi-lingual Canadians, and to immigrants bringing their literatures with them, we have in this country the talent and skills to locate international work and create high-quality translations that will find a home in our own literature, helping ensure its vibrancy, while also potentially having a market here and abroad.
Britain, France and the U.S. in fact produce very few translations from other languages; in 2004, for example, just 3.2% of all books published in English were translations. As far as translation into English is concerned, this is undoubtedly, at least in part, one of the effects of the globalization of U.S. culture, and of cultural myopia in the U.S. We cannot rely on our neighbour to the south to reverse this trend, and to provide us with access to the stories, rhythms, and sensibilities of other cultures and languages. Canada, with its tradition of building ties between different cultures and respecting minority languages, has a role and responsibility on the international stage to foster exchanges that allow different cultures to understand and impact each other.
By relying on translation that originates abroad, filtered through values and choices that are not necessarily ours, we impoverish our own literature and the world to which our young people have access. Canadian literature and society need this nourishment from other cultures. Without it our literatures are in danger of provincialism, and we cannot play a full role on the world cultural stage. Whether or not this is already happening in Canadian writing is perhaps a matter of debate, but it is still true that vibrancy will inevitably be lost without stimulation from outside.
The Canada Council has always known and argued that our Canadian idiom and culture differs from that of the U.S. or Britain. When our access to world literature is mainly via U.S. or U.K. incursions, we receive values, lexicons and angles that may not reflect ours. Translation is not a neutral activity; translations are also reading practices and, as such, are culturally and historically embodied, marked by the translator’s lexicon and values. Even as translation enriches, challenges and finally alters possibilities in the target language, Canadian translators read and translate from Canadian perspectives and into Canadian idioms (note the use of the plural here, for there is no question that local perspectives and idioms are heterogeneous). To preserve and develop the various idioms and cultures of Canada, we need to provide a Canadian context for reception of these literary texts from outside our borders. We need heterogeneous translation practices rather than the homogeneous language spawned by economic globalization.
This work of translation is already being done in Canada, unsupported, often unnoticed. Canadian writers are translating literature from Argentina, China, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Galicia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, to name a few. However, this work is done under conditions of struggle, without access to institutional supports other writers and translators can take for granted, and is going largely unrecognized, and often unpublished in Canada, as a result. Translators are compelled to seek publishers elsewhere, meaning in the United States, thus finding themselves caught up in the vortex of the infamous brain drain.
Of course, Canadian letters do have a distinctive history already, with a rich variety of themes and forms, but these did not and cannot evolve in isolation from influences outside our borders. In the past, not surprisingly, such outside influences have been overwhelmingly British and American in the case of literature in English, and French in the case of Quebec. But other influences have also played a role. Who can imagine contemporary Canadian drama without the influence of Ibsen or Chekhov, Canadian prose without Kafka or Garcia Marquez, Canadian poetry without Neruda or Lorca? In the present historical moment, our contact with international experiences and approaches can and must be allowed to multiply. Our cultural tapestry can be made more vibrant by letting the world enter. In multiplying and strengthening our ties with the world and its literatures, we will all benefit, as writers, as translators, as readers, as a society united by values of justice and diversity. As well, other cultures will embrace ours more readily and recognize our distinctiveness. We would assume a more dynamic and fruitful place on the world stage, as our translations filter out into the world.
What measures can the Canada Council implement to remedy this situation, to foster translation from beyond our borders and invite new air into our literatures?
1. To begin with, Canadian literary publishers should be allowed to use a set proportion of their block grants (funding without which it is impossible to publish a literary book in Canada, especially books that open up practices apart from the mainstream) to publish the work of Canadians translating from languages other than English and French, and from works of literatures outside Canada by writers who are not Canadians. This major change can be accomplished without any cost to the Council, and with great benefit to the literature.
2. At least on a trial basis, the Council’s translation grants should be extended to cover translations from literatures other than Canadian French, English or First Nation languages, into Canadian languages, regardless of the citizenship of the original author, as long as the translator is a Canadian whose work is recognized by qualified peers. Finding readers to judge translation quality in any language will not be difficult in this country, thanks to the large number of multilingual writers and translators either born or immigrated here. It’s probably worth warning from the outset against the temptation of limiting or listing the source languages the Council would recognize. Such discrimination is dangerous and tantamount to making judgments on the relative value of different national literatures. If a recognized Canadian publisher is prepared to publish the translation in Canada, it’s not the Council’s role to question the source language, literature, or culture.
3. At some point, the Governor General’s Awards, Canada’s highest literary accolade, which seeks to applaud every type of literary production, ought to include a category for the translation of a foreign-authored work by a Canadian translator. We must find some way to recognize these translations, to applaud their existence, to applaud the craft and dedication and artistry of the translators.
Of course, the Canada Council is limited by the money governments make available to it. New programs must involve new funding, and not take from existing programs. But we do not believe the measures we are proposing would be all that expensive, especially in the initial period of implementation; the numbers of translations are just not that high, which is precisely the problem. Certainly, for Canadian translators, writers, and for Canadian readers, the potential return on such an investment makes it foolish to pass up. The loophole that refuses to honour the contribution of one sector of Canadian cultural producers – translators from international languages – will be closed, and our translators will feel welcome, not stifled, at home.
We believe the Council has a critical role to play in expanding the field of Canadians’ reading experience, and the time to act on this pressing need is now.
The following individuals have expressed their support for this proposal:
Phyllis Aronoff, Montréal QC
Oana Avasilichioaei, Montréal QC
George Bowering, Vancouver BC
Per Brask, Winnipeg MB
John Buschek/Buschek Books, Ottawa ON
Barbara Carey, Toronto ON
Lisa Carter, Toronto ON
Margaret Christakos, Toronto ON
Paulo da Costa, Victoria, BC
Mary di Michele, Montréal QC
Patrick Friesen, Vancouver, BC
Linda Gaboriau, Montréal QC
Phil Hall, Toronto ON
Beatriz Hausner, Toronto ON
JonArno Lawson, Toronto ON
Lazar Lederhendler, Montréal QC
Robert Majzels, West Bolton QC
Daphne Marlatt, Vancouver BC
Roy Miki, Vancouver BC
Jay MillAr, Toronto ON
A. F. Moritz, Toronto ON
Erín Moure, Montréal QC
Kenneth Mouré, Santa Barbara CA
Michael Ondaatje, Toronto ON
Susan Ouriou, Calgary AB
Sina Queyras, Brooklyn NY
Michael Redhill, Toronto ON
Lisa Robertson, Poitiers, France
Howard Scott, Montréal QC
Adam Seelig, Toronto, ON
Martha Sharpe, Toronto ON
Gerry Shikatani, Peterborough ON
Goran Simic, Toronto ON
Sherry Simon, Montréal QC
Carmine Starnino, Montréal QC
Nathalie Stephens, Chicago IL/Toronto ON
Luise von Flotow, Ottawa ON
Fred Wah, Vancouver BC
Zachariah Wells, Halifax NS
Paul Wilson, Heathcote ON
Rachel Zolf, Toronto ON
rob mclennan, Ottawa ON
This email arrived in my inbox today. I wonder if it's related to the brooha Zach Wells started, suggesting an award for Goran Simic?
Dear Friends
Robert Majzels and Erin Moure have put together a letter (included in the attachment) in the hopes of lobbying to the Canada Art Council to expand their criteria to recognize and promote the translation and publication of foreign works in Canada. If you would like to lend your name in support of this cause please write to either Erin Moure (emoure@ca.inter.net) or Robert Majzels(majzelsr@sympatico.ca).
thank you,
Oana Avasilichioaei
Hi everyone,
We just wanted to send you a copy of the letter (with a few tweaks and polishes), and signatures we mailed on December 1 to the Canada Council. People are still sending their names in support, and in about 2 weeks or so, we will send these names as well. Please do feel free to circulate the letter to others, and encourage anyone else who wishes to support these efforts to send us their name and location. Anyone can, of course, write directly to the Council, expressing their ideas on the issue.
It has been heartening to witness the passion and enthusiasm of so many writers, editors, and translators. We want to stress that our effort is but one of many, and that the question we all raise here has been raised for years. If anything comes of this latest effort, it will be first and foremost thanks to earlier efforts, particularly those of translators. Let's hope the timing now is right.
If nothing else, the response to our proposal and the list of names appended certainly demonstrate how strongly readers and writers feel about nourishing this work here at home, as part of our literature and place.
We will keep you in the loop, and we welcome hearing of any parallel efforts or comments that will help open the debate and keep it alive.
Thank you,
Robert Majzels, majzelsr@sympatico.ca
Erin Moure, emoure@ca.inter.net
Here' a draft of their letter. If you want to be included, send your name (and location) to either Erin or Robert.
Joanne Larocque-Poirier
Manager, Celebration 2007
Canada Council for the Arts
Melanie Routledge
Head, Writing and Publishing
Canada Council for the Arts
Dear Joanne Larocque-Poirier and Melanie Routledge,
Following my conversation with Joanne during jury deliberations for the Governor General’s Awards in English Translation 2005, I took up her suggestion to elaborate a proposal for extending Council support to Canadians translators working from languages other than Canadian English and French to translate non-Canadian authors into French, English or First Nations languages.
I first consulted poet and translator Erín Moure just last week, and as others caught wind of our initiative, we quickly discovered that many writers, editors and translators are as passionate about this issue as we are, and wanted to append their names. People seem to want to ally themselves to opening up this debate and doing something. The proposal breeds a lot of excitement.
As several people suggested I send the proposal to Melanie Routledge, I am including her as well at the outset.
We believe this initiative is crucial to Canadian readers and culture. It would not only contribute to diminishing Canada’s cultural reliance on American, British, and French filters here at home when we look outward to the world, but it would increase Canada’s contribution to cultural understanding and dynamism on the world stage. I look forward to hearing your response and any ideas you may have to bring the idea to fruition.
I’d like to thank Joanne, above all, for her encouragement.
Sincerely,
Robert Majzels
285 Spicer/West Bolton, Québec/J0E 2T0
(450) 243-1336/majzelsr@sympatico.ca
CANADIAN CULTURE: OPENING DOORS TO THE WORLD
In the years since the creation of the Canada Council, and thanks in no small part to its intervention, Canadian writing in both English and French has emerged from its infancy to become a recognized player on the international scene. Meanwhile, funding and support for translations of Canadian works between our two official languages has made possible a dialogue between English and French Canada and enabled writers in both communities to learn from and influence each other.
In our reception of world literature, however, Canada is virtually silent. Without the administrative support for translation of works by nationals from other cultures into Canadian languages and a Canadian context, we are attempting to sustain a national literature in isolation.
This is not to say that Canadians have no access to literatures of the world. However, because we rely on English translations from the United Kingdom and the United States, and on French translations made in France, we view the world through foreign glasses. We are letting these other cultures open the world to us. Those individual Canadian translators who take up the work of translating foreign works must do so without institutional support; Canadian publishers are barred from using block grant funds to publish those works; and our prizes and grants exclude them. We, in effect, force Canadian translators to “emigrate” their skills and work elsewhere if they want to publish.
By not taking measures now to support those Canadian artists in the domain of literary translation who are working to open Canadian culture to new and vital influences, to international works filtered through a Canadian – not an American, British or French – sensibility, we not only point them toward the border, toward leaving their country, but we attempt to maintain and grow our literature in isolation and, above all, we lose an opportunity to enhance Canada’s cultural dynamism by beckoning the world in, and welcoming it into our literature and our place and time.
Why are Canadians taking up the work of translating literature from foreign languages? Well, first of all, because we can. Thanks to decades of attention to the craft of translation, to university programs in translation, and to the large number of multi-lingual Canadians, and to immigrants bringing their literatures with them, we have in this country the talent and skills to locate international work and create high-quality translations that will find a home in our own literature, helping ensure its vibrancy, while also potentially having a market here and abroad.
Britain, France and the U.S. in fact produce very few translations from other languages; in 2004, for example, just 3.2% of all books published in English were translations. As far as translation into English is concerned, this is undoubtedly, at least in part, one of the effects of the globalization of U.S. culture, and of cultural myopia in the U.S. We cannot rely on our neighbour to the south to reverse this trend, and to provide us with access to the stories, rhythms, and sensibilities of other cultures and languages. Canada, with its tradition of building ties between different cultures and respecting minority languages, has a role and responsibility on the international stage to foster exchanges that allow different cultures to understand and impact each other.
By relying on translation that originates abroad, filtered through values and choices that are not necessarily ours, we impoverish our own literature and the world to which our young people have access. Canadian literature and society need this nourishment from other cultures. Without it our literatures are in danger of provincialism, and we cannot play a full role on the world cultural stage. Whether or not this is already happening in Canadian writing is perhaps a matter of debate, but it is still true that vibrancy will inevitably be lost without stimulation from outside.
The Canada Council has always known and argued that our Canadian idiom and culture differs from that of the U.S. or Britain. When our access to world literature is mainly via U.S. or U.K. incursions, we receive values, lexicons and angles that may not reflect ours. Translation is not a neutral activity; translations are also reading practices and, as such, are culturally and historically embodied, marked by the translator’s lexicon and values. Even as translation enriches, challenges and finally alters possibilities in the target language, Canadian translators read and translate from Canadian perspectives and into Canadian idioms (note the use of the plural here, for there is no question that local perspectives and idioms are heterogeneous). To preserve and develop the various idioms and cultures of Canada, we need to provide a Canadian context for reception of these literary texts from outside our borders. We need heterogeneous translation practices rather than the homogeneous language spawned by economic globalization.
This work of translation is already being done in Canada, unsupported, often unnoticed. Canadian writers are translating literature from Argentina, China, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Galicia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Spain, to name a few. However, this work is done under conditions of struggle, without access to institutional supports other writers and translators can take for granted, and is going largely unrecognized, and often unpublished in Canada, as a result. Translators are compelled to seek publishers elsewhere, meaning in the United States, thus finding themselves caught up in the vortex of the infamous brain drain.
Of course, Canadian letters do have a distinctive history already, with a rich variety of themes and forms, but these did not and cannot evolve in isolation from influences outside our borders. In the past, not surprisingly, such outside influences have been overwhelmingly British and American in the case of literature in English, and French in the case of Quebec. But other influences have also played a role. Who can imagine contemporary Canadian drama without the influence of Ibsen or Chekhov, Canadian prose without Kafka or Garcia Marquez, Canadian poetry without Neruda or Lorca? In the present historical moment, our contact with international experiences and approaches can and must be allowed to multiply. Our cultural tapestry can be made more vibrant by letting the world enter. In multiplying and strengthening our ties with the world and its literatures, we will all benefit, as writers, as translators, as readers, as a society united by values of justice and diversity. As well, other cultures will embrace ours more readily and recognize our distinctiveness. We would assume a more dynamic and fruitful place on the world stage, as our translations filter out into the world.
What measures can the Canada Council implement to remedy this situation, to foster translation from beyond our borders and invite new air into our literatures?
1. To begin with, Canadian literary publishers should be allowed to use a set proportion of their block grants (funding without which it is impossible to publish a literary book in Canada, especially books that open up practices apart from the mainstream) to publish the work of Canadians translating from languages other than English and French, and from works of literatures outside Canada by writers who are not Canadians. This major change can be accomplished without any cost to the Council, and with great benefit to the literature.
2. At least on a trial basis, the Council’s translation grants should be extended to cover translations from literatures other than Canadian French, English or First Nation languages, into Canadian languages, regardless of the citizenship of the original author, as long as the translator is a Canadian whose work is recognized by qualified peers. Finding readers to judge translation quality in any language will not be difficult in this country, thanks to the large number of multilingual writers and translators either born or immigrated here. It’s probably worth warning from the outset against the temptation of limiting or listing the source languages the Council would recognize. Such discrimination is dangerous and tantamount to making judgments on the relative value of different national literatures. If a recognized Canadian publisher is prepared to publish the translation in Canada, it’s not the Council’s role to question the source language, literature, or culture.
3. At some point, the Governor General’s Awards, Canada’s highest literary accolade, which seeks to applaud every type of literary production, ought to include a category for the translation of a foreign-authored work by a Canadian translator. We must find some way to recognize these translations, to applaud their existence, to applaud the craft and dedication and artistry of the translators.
Of course, the Canada Council is limited by the money governments make available to it. New programs must involve new funding, and not take from existing programs. But we do not believe the measures we are proposing would be all that expensive, especially in the initial period of implementation; the numbers of translations are just not that high, which is precisely the problem. Certainly, for Canadian translators, writers, and for Canadian readers, the potential return on such an investment makes it foolish to pass up. The loophole that refuses to honour the contribution of one sector of Canadian cultural producers – translators from international languages – will be closed, and our translators will feel welcome, not stifled, at home.
We believe the Council has a critical role to play in expanding the field of Canadians’ reading experience, and the time to act on this pressing need is now.
The following individuals have expressed their support for this proposal:
Phyllis Aronoff, Montréal QC
Oana Avasilichioaei, Montréal QC
George Bowering, Vancouver BC
Per Brask, Winnipeg MB
John Buschek/Buschek Books, Ottawa ON
Barbara Carey, Toronto ON
Lisa Carter, Toronto ON
Margaret Christakos, Toronto ON
Paulo da Costa, Victoria, BC
Mary di Michele, Montréal QC
Patrick Friesen, Vancouver, BC
Linda Gaboriau, Montréal QC
Phil Hall, Toronto ON
Beatriz Hausner, Toronto ON
JonArno Lawson, Toronto ON
Lazar Lederhendler, Montréal QC
Robert Majzels, West Bolton QC
Daphne Marlatt, Vancouver BC
Roy Miki, Vancouver BC
Jay MillAr, Toronto ON
A. F. Moritz, Toronto ON
Erín Moure, Montréal QC
Kenneth Mouré, Santa Barbara CA
Michael Ondaatje, Toronto ON
Susan Ouriou, Calgary AB
Sina Queyras, Brooklyn NY
Michael Redhill, Toronto ON
Lisa Robertson, Poitiers, France
Howard Scott, Montréal QC
Adam Seelig, Toronto, ON
Martha Sharpe, Toronto ON
Gerry Shikatani, Peterborough ON
Goran Simic, Toronto ON
Sherry Simon, Montréal QC
Carmine Starnino, Montréal QC
Nathalie Stephens, Chicago IL/Toronto ON
Luise von Flotow, Ottawa ON
Fred Wah, Vancouver BC
Zachariah Wells, Halifax NS
Paul Wilson, Heathcote ON
Rachel Zolf, Toronto ON
rob mclennan, Ottawa ON
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