Today, My Poetic Side focuses on a story surrounding a Rumi translation and the ‘Voices of Poetry’.

Rumi Poetry New Translation to be Released Shortly

Farrukh Dhondy is shortly to release “Rumi: A New Translation” a book which contains just a small selection of the works of the poet Rumi.

The author is of the opinion that both Rumi and the Sufi both search for ways in which they can inspire the mind and the emotions so that they can accept God, as the being is in every living thing.

Much of the poet’s work was made up of rhyming couplets. In order to retain the meaning that Rumi gave to them and the metaphors that they contain whilst ensuring that they retain a similar rhyme in English is a challenge, says Dhondy who has been responsible for translating the works of the 13th-century mystic and poet.

Dhondy is an Indian born British writer. Translating, he says, is a difficult thing when translating from one language to another but when it involves two completely different cultures spread over the course of several centuries it becomes just that little bit more complicated.

When asked if he had used any particular rules to translate the works, he said that all he had tried to do was remain as true to the original as possible. Dhondy was raised on the works of English poets and Hindu songs and had little knowledge of the works of Rumi, although his great grandfather before him was also a translator responsible for several translations of Persian poets works including Omar Khayyam and Rumi.

He was inspired to create his own translation of the poetry having been gifted a very stilted copy of the translated poems of Rumi which he didn’t feel projected the real essence of the poet.

“Voices of Poetry”

The Harwich Junior Theatre in collaboration with the Cape Cod Theatre Company will be hosting the “Voices of Poetry” event on 23^rd July. It will be available to watch via a live stream from the theatre website.

Four poets will be taking parts in the event; Andrea Cohen, Krysten Hill, Charles Harper and Robert Pinsky, the former US poet Laureate.

There will also be a performance by Bruce Abbott, a local musician.

Robert Pinsky is a speaker, translator, essayist, teacher, and poet he served several terms as the poet laureate of the US. Such was his popularity that he was appointed for a third term by the Library of Congress. He is a winner of a number of poetry awards including the Lenore Marshall Prize and the William Carlos Williams Prize. He has also spent time working as a professor at Boston University.

Voices of Poetry is an event that was created by Neil Silberblatt; a poetry activist and Pushcart Prize-nominated poet.