LEWISTON — During the first “Translations” poetry festival at Bates College in 2010, organizer Claudia Aburto Guzman had an encounter that seemed to crystallize the event for her.
At the festival international poets read their works in the original language, with English translations prepared by Bates faculty and students. Working with Somali poet Omar Ahmed, “it struck me that I was involved in the true practice of communication,” said Aburto Guzman, associate professor of Spanish.
“He and I had to communicate through layers of cultural expectations — his Somali culture and my Chilean culture, in addition to U.S. culture. I had to be so clear with language.”
This year’s festival on Tuesday, Oct. 25, though Saturday, Oct. 29, celebrates cross-cultural communication with readings by poets from the Americas, Europe and Japan. New to the event is an Oct. 27-29 conference, organized by Visiting Assistant Professor of German Raluca Cernahoschi, exploring the art and practice of literary translation.
The festival is open to the public at no cost. For more information, call 786-8293 or email gdumais@bates.edu.
The festival begins at 4:15 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25, with a welcome, readings and a reception in Chase Hall, 56 Campus Ave. Readings continue in Chase Hall at 7 p.m.Wednesday through Saturday, Oct. 26-29.
The conference begins with registration at 4:15 p.m. Wednesday in Chase Hall. Conference sessions take place at 8 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 27, and at 9 a.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 28-29, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.
A closing reception in the Bates College Museum of Art, 75 Russell St., will follow the Saturday readings.
Here are the poets and the dates when they read (all poets read on Oct. 29):
Oct. 25: Rhea Cote of Brewer and Bates faculty member Francisca Lopez, a native of Spain;
Oct. 26: Miguel Angel Zapata of Peru and Naomi Otsubo, a native of Japan living in Maine;
Oct. 27: Polina Barskova, a native of Russia, and Bates faculty member Robert Farnsworth;
Oct. 28: Danny Plourde, a Francophone poet from Canada, and Carmen Elisabeta Puchianu, a poet from Romania who writes in German.
Conference presenters include Enrique Yepes, a Colombian critic and scholar of Latin American literatures; and Rafael Carpintero of Spain, a translator whose works include Spanish editions of titles by best-selling Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk. Yepes will give a talk, “Carving the Air: On Poetry Festivals,” at 7 p.m. Thursday in Chase Lounge, and Carpintero will discuss the translation of poetry at 4:15 Friday in Chase.
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