Williams was unafraid to consider using the locutions of the street. McCarthy searched for equivalents integral to his own picturesque evocative voice. I questioned the etymology of particular Dutch words to check whether they retained nuances of their shared roots with German which I know moderately better.

One of the engaging revelations of the workshop was to discover in Lieske a logomaniac like myself, determined to resurrect almost obsolete words, dialectical variations and even combine them in neologisms; who sees part of a poet’s duty to be someone who strives to keep the individual word alive.

For instance Lieske used spalling – a dialectical word of Frisian origin. Groenewegen had to search a dictionary of medieval Dutch to discover it denoted a suckling pig. Two possibilities presented themselves to me: the American dialectical shoat which my youthful self had discovered in a rhyming dictionary decades ago and banmh, an Irish word in common currency in Hiberno-English. Williams recognised shoat and it fitted neatly and alliteratively with the rest of the line so I decided to leave banmh as an option for Seamus Heaney should he ever decide to translate Tomas Lieske.

At my invitation Lieske will travel to Ireland for the Cork Spring Literary Festival in 2011. I always like it when multiple productivities result from my participation in festivals abroad.

I found his poetry exciting. His subject matter sometimes took me to places I had rarely been: Egyptology, for example, in ‘Complaint of a Shrewmouse (Mummified)’. Most of the poems selected were quite intimate, concerning familial relationships and love. However, the viewpoint of his characters often proves startling (the shrewmouse v. the falcon) or puzzling (‘Caravan of Salt’) if you are not aware of the poet’s thinking behind it. However, even he could not always provide adequate assistance when I queried his work. It is an example of further research that I wish to discuss here, on this forum provided by the Poetry International team.

It concerns a term used in the short prose extract from his novel Gran Café Boulevard. ‘Sprotbuiker’ is a nickname used to describe someone from Roelofarendsveen, Lieske told me, but he didn’t know where the term originated. So I asked some fellow translators what to do with it. One said to leave it out altogether, another to translate it literally, and another still to substitute it with a nickname of my own making. All agreed that ‘sprot’ meant ‘sprat’, a fish used as bait to catch mackerel. As the town is close to water, that would corroborate that theory. ‘Spratbelly’ would then be an adequate translation. Someone with his belly full of sprat. But, as a translator, I am not easily convinced, so I tapped other sources. I telephoned the local council and they knew of a local historian who could probably tell me more. And it transpired ‘sprot’ had nothing to do with fish, but with French beans, cultivated for centuries in that particular area. Farmers were usually left with an unsold surplus after auction, which instead of destroying, they ate themselves. So, while the ‘sprot’ might not be fish, the farmer and his family still had a bellyful. My sincere gratitude to the local historian, Mr Gerard van der Meer.

Although the word was now explained, this still left me with a translation problem: spratbelly, beanbelly, French beanbelly, whatever the choice would be, it would remain an alien term, as it couldn’t be sourced to a specific locale as was the case in Dutch. So, were the other translators right? Should I have abstained from my amateur sleuthing exercise and chosen a simple, even literal translation instead?

Conferring with the translations editor, we agreed on ‘potbellied’, as that referred to the bellyful without getting into the problems caused by connotations not being easily transferable into an English context.

I’ll be present at the festival all week, sitting in on Lieske’s translation project, so please don’t hesitate to tell me what you think of this solution!

Saskia and I are coordinating the translation workshops during the festival. Under Rosa’s formidable guidance, we are inviting every poet and editor who steps foot on the theatre’s grounds during the festival to participate in translating poems by Carlos López Degregori and/or Tomas Lieske. I’ve been looking forward to this event very much: I love poetry, I love searching for right word, and I am sure I will love the participants (in a professional way – we have been told not to love the poets too much).

However lovely it is to be in an intern at Poetry International – it really is, we’ve been given so much freedom and responsibility – sometimes we get to do true “intern tasks”. Such a task was given to Saskia and me the other day. Could we please pick up an enormous pile of dictionaries at the library? Of course we could, though it’s a miracle I am able to use my fingers to write this after lugging them back.

This trip could have been a pain. It could have just been annoying and tiring. It wasn’t, though. As we were dragging the books along with us, Saskia noticed a big Poetry International stand at the library, with bright festival posters, the red and yellow seeming to burn with fire. The magazines – piles of them – never looked better. And then we noticed the banners. I forgot about my heavy load when I saw the Layla & Madjnun articles. So, there I stood – eye to eye with articles about “my” programme. As I read over the words I myself had written for the magazine (a couple of lines, really), and the words more qualified writers had written for me (about two pages’ worth) – I suddenly realised that other people were actually reading this. Not just Poetry International people, people involved in the programme or the people I have been harassing about it, but also strangeers who are just visiting the library and notice the stand. People who might come to the festival. People who will actually come to the festival. I stood there a little while taking this in. And I looked over and noticed Saskia doing the same.

Saskia was gazing at the Wallace Stevens section of the stand, and we realised we had done a pretty good job. There was only one thing to do. We had to take a picture. So we did. Because we made it. The festival – featuring our programmes – will happen! We can be proud of ourselves. For some reason I can’t remember if we high-fived at that point, but if we didn’t, Sas: high five! In fact, high five to everyone involved in making this festival happen! And if you are reading this, dear blog reader, and you see me running around next week, feel free to throw me a high-five yourself. Oh, and please do participate in the translation workshop so that we didn’t drag those dictionaries around for nothing. It will be lots of fun!