‘the elephant’ by Adelaide Ivánova, looks at how the human body processes trauma, drawing parallels between a mother reacting to the death of her young child and a woman experiencing sexual assault.

In this recording, you will hear Ivánova talk about the origins of this poem in her friendship with an elderly German woman suffering from Alzheimer’s disease before she reads her poem in the original Portuguese. Afterwards, you will hear the poet Rachel Long reading the English translation that she prepared collaboratively with the writer and editor Francisco Vilhena.

Adelaide Ivánova and Rachel Long will be appearing together on Saturday, October 19th at the ‘Exploring Translation as Disruption‘ event, part of Poetry International at the Southbank Centre, London.

This is part of our new rebranded weekly release: the Dual Poetry Podcast, one poem in two languages from the Poetry Translation Centre. As ever we will be releasing a translated poem each week.

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