The Poetry Translation Centre is pleased to present a translation workshop on the Chinese poetry of Rong Yu.
Rong Yu’s poems are observational, zooming into the mundane routines of clipping toenails or getting a haircut. Detached and ironic, they imbue the texture of everyday life in the cafés, bars, kitchens and train carriages of Sichuan with a pervasive sense of youthful ennui. The concrete specificity of Rong Yu’s verse is frequently destabilised by his reflexive attention to language and the limits of poetic expression.

This online workshop will take place over two 1-hour lunchtime sessions on Zoom over two consecutive Tuesdays. This format will let us spend time with a single poetic voice. The sessions will be lead by translator Dave Haysom and facilitator Miriam Nash. Dave is a long-time PTC workshop leader who translated Yo Yoyo's 2019 book My Tenantless Body. He will offer insight into the nuances of the language and culture, and give helpful suggestions for the direction of the translation that is produced. Miriam is a poet, performer and educator whose first collection All the Prayers in the House won a Somerset Maugham Award and an Eric Gregory Award.

Our online poetry translation workshops can be accessed from anywhere in the world. Join like-minded poetry lovers from across the world to discover new poetry and different cultures, share insights and language skills, working together to open up a poem in its original language and reassemble it in English.

We have participants from the UK, Egypt, Canada, UAE and the Phillipines. The workshops are the perfect way to keep you feeling creative, engaged and connected to the world at large. A rough and ready guide translation is provided by the guest translator so there is no need to know the language being translated, simply sign up and bring your love of language.

'Pay-What-You-Can' Pricing

The cost of running these sessions is £45 per person. However, the PTC wants to ensure that our workshops are financially accessible to all, so participants are invited to pay what they can afford to attend.