Hefyd, everybody. You're all very welcome to the Institute. Yn mynd i'r ffasau a'r newf ffaith, as well. My name is Rory Quinn. I'm the chairperson of the Institute. We're delighted to welcome you back here to your second visit, with an elevator titled as the Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Institute is very welcome to have you. We are partners in the European Union. We'll be very interested to hear what you have to say. That's it. Time to remind you to turn off your... Sorry for that. It's a good way to do it. So without further ado, I'd like to invite you to address the audience and we'll have a question and answer session after that. So thank you very much. Good morning to all of you. I have heard it in speech but I prefer to, instead of reading it, go through it and to give ample time to your remarks, and we'll have time for that. As you heard from the introduction, this is my second time here. Just to make sure. Oh, okay. I was the director. It's my second time here. The first time I was here in my capacity as Minister for Home Affairs and National Security and at that time I tried to address, at least, our experience in terms of my country when it comes to migration. It seems to me that almost nothing changed or things got worse at times, but migration maybe will speak about it if there are questions or even during my speech. I would like to begin by making reference to the European Commission's white paper on the future of Europe. This was in 2017 where the scope of this paper was to set out possible parts for the future of the continent. And I quote from this white paper. While the world has never been smaller or better connected than the present day, the return of isolanism has caused doubts over the future of international trade and multilateralism. When I read this quote, it seems that to complicate matters to the current global and regional challenges, now we have in recent years and months also put doubts on whether multilateralism works or not. And I think that this is one of the challenges that we have to face when it comes to how we deal with global issues. One can say that without any doubt, multilateral cooperation is facing a crisis and Brexit is just another setback in this regard and working together we are one of the biggest member states that is departing the European Union. Of course, more to fully respect the democratic decision taken by the United Kingdom, although of course we still find it hard to come to terms with the fact that the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. We go back centuries with the United Kingdom. We were colonised by the United Kingdom. We know the feeling. Yes. Then we became partners in the European Union, members of the commonwealth as well, and now this big country is leaving the European Union. Of course now we are experiencing that it's not easy for any country to leave the European Union. We have to deal with all the possibilities at the moment and there is uncertainty of what's going to happen. Of course we do sympathise with and understand also the Irish concerns. Most notably when it comes to the border issues and this afternoon as soon as we leave from here I will be visiting the border crossing. Now, pardon me if I don't pronounce it correctly. Archonel? No, you don't recognise that. So it's definitely... It's A-R-D-G-O-N-E-L. It's on, excuse me minister, it's on the Maunahan border. Okay, you see? So that will give me the opportunity about from learning how to pronounce it. It gives me the opportunity to understand better what is at stake when we talk about the border issue. It's the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland. So I feel much more at home. Yes. Of course Ireland and Malta we do have a longstanding strong relationship with the United Kingdom irrespective of whether we were colonised by them. And it's our wish to continue to nurture this relationship that goes back in history and of course it's also in the interest of our respective peoples to do so. As the United Kingdom usually say they are leaving the EU but not Europe which means that still we have to work together. And it's within the scope of multilateralism as well if we believe that multilateralism is the way forward to solve or tackle in the best possible way the challenges that we have. So I would like to speak a bit about multilateralism. Of course nothing is perfect in life if you don't have a better solution then work together rather than work in isolation. And definitely when we listen today or hear today issues regarding trade wars which are becoming even bigger in these days there are talks again with the two most big economies the United States and China what will happen in those talks. The rise of populism in Europe but not only and also the erosion of the international rules-based approach when it comes to a number of challenges. In recent times we are also experiencing certain difficulties when it comes to the transatlantic relationship which today is being challenged at the bilateral but also at the multilateral level. In these last few days I had testified personally to speeches that came from eminent persons in the United States they spoke about the European Union what we feel that should be the way forward on a number of issues including JCPOA, including Iran and other challenges that we have. Of course we do share the common values at least we have to start from somewhere to find the common ground especially respect for democracy, human rights, rule of law but also our relationship has developed and grown when it comes also to security and prosperity. We need to fight terrorism for example together. Terrorism knows no border and likewise should be our action when it comes to terrorism. So there is a long list so to speak of issues that we have to work together and there is exponential cooperation that can be pursued by both sides but we have to continue with the dialogue and not up to certain extent say certain words that might be interpreted in a different way. So maybe we arrived at a time where the concept of multilateralism needs to be renewed if we want to together accomplish something when it comes to the challenges that we have. Now we are both small member states in the European Union and beyond of course we are even micro states when it comes to our country but we have what we call a Mediterranean vocation. Notwithstanding Brexit the EU is still a clear example of how countries can work together when it comes to the economy when it comes to political partnership especially towards peace and also achieving a high degree of cooperation and success in a multitude of fields. Definitely Ireland's contribution to the European Union is truly commendable it has made a success out of membership and it was also a model for us when we were discussing and trying to find a model for ourselves back then before 2004 and most of the time Ireland was mentioned as a model also for us as a future member state and then when we became a member state. This model also applies to my country. So if when it comes to countries size did matter it's more as the smallest EU member state would and should not have much influence on matters pertaining to for example the EU foreign policy but this line of thinking however should consider two important factors regional influence but also added value and I think these two aspects help us to be let's say relevant irrespective of the size of our countries. For almost now 15 years EU membership employed a strategy with highly focused goals and political initiatives which represent a regional common interest. This means that this allows to maximize our influence when it comes to us as a country while acting in concert in our respective niches. So this in a nutshell is our experience when it comes to our role and whether we are effective or not or at least relevant or not within a union of 28 till today. As you know what has strategically located in the centre of the Mediterranean but it's also geographically and historically close to North Africa. When we go to Tunisia for example we fly north so Tunisia is further north is closer to Europe than we are actually. We never shied away from promoting the interests of the Mediterranean region in the European context and while sharing with our European partners the lessons learned from our Euro Mediterranean reality. I remember and we repeat every now and then the concept that there is no peace and security in Europe unless there is peace and security in the Mediterranean. This was something that one of our previous prime ministers had insisted in the Helsinki declaration in mid 70s. It's still relevant today because some countries that are maybe not close enough to the Mediterranean when it comes to geography they are not even close in this mentality that when we look at the Mediterranean we see that there are a lot of issues and challenges that we have to deal with. North Africa as a whole maybe we can mention Libya in particular at the moment. The migration issue Middle East which is two hours away from us if we fly from Tel Aviv for example directly to Maltes just two hours. It takes us longer to come to Brussels rather than to go to Tel Aviv. Syria which has become a regional issue now not just Syria itself involved five, six other countries in the region Yemen as well so all these are part or very close to the Mediterranean and definitely directly or indirectly have an impact on member states. So we have these challenges but do we only focus on the challenges or we can exploit also and see if there are opportunities and I feel that there are opportunities as well of course we need to promote stability peace and secure our borders that's important we need to have that in place because then if we don't have this in place we will not have economic prosperity so to say something about our southern neighbourhood this region is facing serious challenges ranging from conflict to terrorism, to extremism radicalisation, social inequity and the lack of economic growth this is the scenario in the southern neighbourhood of the European Union so Europe's external policy is aimed at countering these threats to have peace as much as possible in the region so it is important to forge a stronger link between the European neighbourhood policy and the Union for the Mediterranean and in this framework we have from a political perspective at least we have to maintain the European neighbourhood instrument separate and adequately financed in the next multi-annual financial framework and that would be in the EU strategic interest so when we invest money when we allocate money in the MFF for the southern neighbourhood we are not just allocating money for other countries but we are also investing in our own interests I mentioned Libya I will not go into the detail at least of how important is that Libya becomes a stable country in a nutshell we do follow and support what the UN secretary representative Gaston Salame is doing I think he is doing an excellent job when it comes to dealing with all the factions with all the main leaders in Libya is certainly a task definitely one key element is security because one day you might say well things look good today the following day something else happens so the issue of security is crucial if we want to have a political process which have to be Libyan-owned and Libyan-led with the support of the international community and the Libyans need this support but they first and foremost they need to get together and be convinced themselves first and foremost that they need to go through this process they have to agree also on the rules of the game when it comes to elections it's useless not agreeing on the rules of the game when it comes to election because otherwise will have problem when the results are published so they need to also agree on that and it's not easy it's not easy to enact the legislation and the constitution amendments and of course it's not easy because they know that not everyone can win and who today has some kind of authority or leadership that person might lose that kind of authority and leadership after the election so the situation is quite challenging but we need not to lose hope at least when it comes to the Middle East peace process at the time being one can easily say that we have no process going on now with the elections in Israel of course we have to await the results of the election in April our position when it comes to the Middle East both Ireland and we believe in a two state solution of course dialogue has to prevail even when it comes to difficult questions such as the capital city and that's why we think that with the declaration that Jerusalem is the capital city of one state of Israel that's something that did not help in the process, not at all at least it didn't help and we think that dialogue should be should prevail and also that all electors are involved today the Palestinians feel that the US on the wrong cannot be trusted that's what they say publicly and I feel that the opinion is in its interest to take a more visible role to be around the table of discussion and to have an active role when it comes to the Middle East because after all Middle East it's in our neighborhood and it's in our interest to secure security there usually when we have instability then the economy we cannot pretend that it goes well but then there is what I call the third element which is the humanitarian aspect and people are suffering from these situations, not only in the Middle East but also where we have conflicts so first we started political difficulties, stability then of course the economy cannot blossom is the humanitarian crisis I mean to give another example where it's happening now it's turned to be a humanitarian crisis with difficulties to send also humanitarian aid in this country and when it comes to the Middle East we know that UNRWA had received less funds which means that education, social help and other needs are lacking which means that we are not investing in the future because if we don't provide education for the children what can we expect that they do in the future if there is a future for them but we are not investing either in security because if they are not in the classroom what are they are going to do and if they know that someone is prohibiting from these funds to arrive to them for their for the daily basic services for which they have a right then we end up seeing the news and violence will again start so this is what I think is happening there and definitely we need to have a process we were hopeful that Bushner will come with the so-called deal of the century we were a bit let down last week when he was in Poland he didn't say anything because he said well maybe rightly so now that there is an election coming in Israel and we talked about that after the election but we are awaiting this for quite some time before even the elections were announced so let's even hear this is a long standing issue 70 years have passed at times we became immune when we listen to the news about what's happening there I visited the region twice and you see the disparity between one country and the other when it comes to Syria definitely we condemn in the strongest possible terms the use of chemical weapons even here we are talking about the humanitarian crisis when we have thousands of thousands of refugees that left Syria not because they wanted but because they were forced to do so and then one things leads to the other because then you have refugees leaving their country of origin and they are going in other countries which have to deal with huge amount of of persons both in Europe but not only in Europe even in Lebanon for example Jordan they are hosting millions and they are spending millions of euros for the daily needs but also in Europe we had to deal with the situation of refugees and migrants of course Syria it's a bit of another conflict that now we are approaching the 10th year and at times we have a chicken egg situation when it comes for example the reconstruction of Syria in Europe we are saying well first the regime will go and then we consider to help with reconstruction but are we sure that the regime will go and if there is no reconstruction going on how do we expect that refugees will return to their own country because they will not have hope where to go so I think this is what I am referring to as a chicken or egg situation which comes first the political process and the hope that there will be a change in the regime in the current leadership or reconstruction just to mention one issue there are also a number of actors there and interests and I think that maybe we lost an opportunity some years ago to meet around the table to at least have some common goals when it comes to Syria and this was not done in the past let me say something about Africa the way we as Europeans look at the African continent is that we are a member of Africa mainly because we have an issue with migration but we need to build a partnership with the African continent with the African countries they need to feel that we are partners and they need to feel that we are interested in the development and in the further development of this great continent I think in our mentality at least speaking from behalf of a number of Maltese is that when we are a member of Africa or a country in Africa the first thing that comes to mind is poverty which is a reality but we have to admit that poverty is a reality also in Europe we need to mention that maybe it's a different kind of poverty but still but we have to say that there are good things also going on in a number of African countries there are also huge opportunities for investment there is also investment happening in a number of countries African countries that is giving its fruit and providing work for the local population so it's not just poverty it's not just migration in a nutshell I feel that as Europeans we need to have a new narrative for the African continent and I have to admit that I was pleased when Jean-Flo Thune made the speech of the Union the State of the Union speech and he mentioned this that we as Europeans need to have a new narrative when it comes to Africa to be seen as partners as equals and not just that we need point fingers you do this, you do that and that's that's not good for the African leaders of course so we need to build this relationship this partnership with the African continent and grab the opportunities that exist also for businesses in Europe we from our end we are trying to enhance the relationship with Africa not only with the North Africa where we have Libya, Tunisia Morocco, Algeria, Egypt that's more or less a given since the proximity geographically proximity of these countries but also sub-Saharan countries and we decided to open our first embassy sub-Saharan embassy which is in Ghana basically trying to cater for that part of the African continent definitely one embassy is not enough but limited resources when it comes to human resources mainly and then financial resources but little by little we are looking at the African continent not only the North part but also in the very heart of Africa I was pleased when I had the opportunity to visit Ghana in July of 2017 a company with her excellency the president that we had a trade delegation with us and I was pleased that the local business community the multi's local business community we had for us a substantial number more than 20 actually which for us is let's say a good number when it comes to a region that we do not have direct connectivity that it's a new region for us it's a new country for us so I really admire the fact that these companies wished to explore and I know that they continue to go there on their own and there are good prospects for them to make some some good deals with in Ghana likewise we have Ethiopia which is becoming much bigger in importance there is also the seat of the African Union there so we are we also appointed an ambassador specifically for Ethiopia and the African Union while before we used to cover that from Egypt it's not a resident ambassador but still at least this ambassador can be focused I'm saying this because I think as Europeans now we need to have more focus on the African continent from a different perspective and we are trying to do something at least that we can afford to do when it comes to the African continent we should speak of trade and not aid yes there are projects going on from NGOs even the European Union is the major donor when it comes to development but still I think that we need to build the partnership not on giving money but helping these countries to to develop and we need to invest there then we need to invest quickly in the sense that we are competing with other countries we are not on our own there the Africans want to work with Europe want to work with the European Union but of course we have to be more let's say less bureaucratic because jokingly maybe they say well if we ask the Chinese the Russians the Turks maybe to come and do a project they will come maybe they will start if we ask the same to the European Union you will see a number of bureaucrats coming you have to build this and we know that we have the procurement regulations which of course we are bound to follow but I think we need to from the administrative point of view be more effective otherwise we will lose when it comes to competition from other countries as well now we are talking about the post-couture agreement and how that will be negotiated and in these negotiations what I feel is that we have to listen carefully to what Africa is saying it's not just us but it's them as well so we need to listen carefully to that finally I would like to mention the United Nations because the United Nations is seen to be as the multilateral fora par excellence and I know that Ireland is seeking to be one of the permanent seats at the United Nations Security Council we are doing the same soon after Ireland at least that's our hope we are bidding for one of the permanent seats and I think that we bring a lot and we will bring a lot to the Security Council from our perspective how we see things and other countries, the big countries especially can look at us as partners and not as a threat maybe there are sometimes there are suspicious that a big country might propose something because there is something behind in our case you get what you see and I think that we are really we can play a role in that as well so we share common goals and common aspirations based on our European legacy of dialogue, engagement and values this is something common to Ireland and to my country and I think that we are very much like minded as well even if you look at our constitution we have neutrality in our constitution we are not NATO members and these are things that brings us even closer together friendship that exists between the respective countries and hopefully this will continue in the future also for the mutual benefit of our people I stop here Thank you very much indeed


Welcome, I'm Esther Allen, a professor at City University of New York and here with me is Allison Markin Powell, who translates Japanese literature and works with the Penn Translation Committee. She and I are co organizers of translating the future the conference you are now attending. Thank you Esther, and thank you all for joining us for the final event in our Tuesday conversation series week 20. Today we'll be hearing from two luminary writers and translators about their works in progress and how they make progress in our uncertain present, guided in a discussion about the elusive art of translation by a brilliant moderator. Kate Briggs is the author of this little art and is currently working on a book titled at the long form, which finds a philosophy of the novel in the daily lives of a new mother and her baby. Tracy K Smith is the author of four collections of poetry and a memoir, and her collaboration with Ching Tai B on the translation of the poems of he lay. My name will grow wide like a tree will be published in November. Montalina Edwards is a writer, actor and translator from Spanish and Portuguese. She has translated a long list of authors, and her own work has appeared in an even longer list of publications. You can read their full and fascinating bios on the Center for the Humanities site. We'd like to express our gratitude to the sponsor of today's event, the Princeton University program in translation and intercultural communication. Before we start talking about the art of translation, we'd like to take one more moment to remember the dangers of translation and to salute the work of red tea, the first and only nonprofit that exclusively advocates for translators and interpreters in high risk settings including war zones, detention centers and sites of political unrest, where translators and interpreters are persecuted, imprisoned, abducted and assassinated with impunity. Founded by Maya Hess, who I'm proud to say, received her PhD from City University of New York. Red Tea has spearheaded the open letter project, which alongside partners such as Penn International advocates for better asylum policies for combat linguists. Red Tea has also issued the first guide for translators and interpreters in conflict zones. It drafts expert opinions for court cases involving translators and interpreters, and it connects individual translators and interpreters with resources to get them out of harm's way. To learn more about Red Tea's work and to support it, you can visit red-tea.org. Translating the future will culminate this week with several marquee events on our original conference date. We're getting tomorrow, Wednesday, with a double billing of post-modern-lingual New York, exploring how the city's immigrant communities have always enriched its linguistic texture, and translating for a world on fire, featuring Maria, Davina Hedley and Emily Wilson, authors of new translations of Beowulf and the Odyssey, respectively. That will be followed Thursday by an exploration of democracy and translation, with Natalie Diaz, Ken Yu, and Marilyn Nelson. And our final finale event on Friday, a flight of Tokarchuk translators, will feature 12 of Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarchuk's translators from around the world, moderated by Susan Harris of Words Without Borders. So, let's turn now for all of those events on the Center for the Humanities website. Translating the Future is convened by Penn America's Translation Committee, which advocates on behalf of literary translators, working to foster a wider understanding of their art and offering professional resources for translators, publishers, critics, bloggers, and others with an interest in international literature. The committee is currently co-chaired by Lynn Miller-Lachman and Larissa Kaiser. For more information, look for translation resources at penn.org. Please keep in mind, as usual, that you can email your questions for today's speakers, Tracy, Kate, and Magdalena to translatingthefuture2020 at gmail.com. We'll keep questions anonymous, unless you note in your email that you would like us to read your name. If you know anyone who is unable to join us for today's livestream or any of those we've done for the last 19 weeks, recordings are available on the HowlRound and Center for the Humanities sites, as well as in the Penn Archive. Before we turn it over to Tracy, Kate, and Magdalena, we'd like to offer our utmost and eternal gratitude to our partners at the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center CUNY, the Martin E. Siegel Theater Center, the Coleman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, Penn America, and the Masters of Dark Zoom Magic at HowlRound, who make this livestream possible. And now, over to you three. Hello, Tracy and Kate. And thank you also to Allison and to Esther and to all of the partners and supporters of this incredible series. I want to jump right in to our conversation, beginning with a question about the title of today's event. And Tracy, I'd like to begin with you and I'd like to know, what do you find most elusive about translation as a practice and what for you is most concrete? I love the question, which is in some ways itself elusive to me. I feel like every, every poem that I've set out to translate has been kind of a new initiation into this art form for me. This is the first work that I've really dedicated myself to bringing into English, and it's from a language that I don't myself speak so the many different modes of listening and collaborating have changed this from what I might have imagined it otherwise could have been. I think that finding the road into a text is the elusive thing. Sometimes I feel that it's a visceral connection. Sometimes for me with these poems that I first encountered in a very like rudimentary English form. I was trying to get past the language to a sense of the images or the impulses that set them into motion. And that always felt to me like a kind of dance and a kind of like a prayer almost to be a receptive medium for another person's voice and thoughts. And those are the things that have also been so exhilarating to me. I find that the poems that were hardest for me to find my way into often were the ones that taught me the most about what I was seeking to do because I had to play these different kinds of very concrete games like, okay, I'm having a difficult time stepping into the thought process of this poem. So I'm going to translate it backwards and see if the images can guide me until I forget that I'm attempting to do something and then I'm just in conversation with this. And I love the fact that every time I opened up this document with Elie's poems. I had no idea what the approach or the, you know, the dance would be like. Yeah. Kate, but what would you say for you as elusive and what's concrete. Yeah, thank you. It's beautiful to hear Tracy talk about that process. I think, for me, if I'm honest, when I first saw the title actually the elusive art of translation, I think part of me was kind of resistance. And not elusive, you know, not at least not in the sense of something that's kind of hard to reach or hard to get at or that requires some special process of initiation in order to begin. I was thinking something more like the concrete, Tracy's book of concrete games, you know, the concrete art of translation or the embodied art of translation or the laborious art of translation. In the book, This Little Art, one of the ambitions was really to try and bring the practice into relation with ordinary everyday experiences of life and kind of try to show how translation happens in such kind of settings, embodied kind of settings. So with that kind of ambition in mind, I would say no to elusive and then I was thinking about this and then thinking about what it feels like at my desk recently trying to translate a sentence, you know, a three word sentence from and understanding it feeling kind of fairly confident that I've understood it and feeling like it's making me feel something, you know, feeling it having a sense of its charge or its energy and feeling sensing that there are probably maybe sort of two or three possible solutions available to me, and I set them down, I said one down, I deleted, I put another down, I deleted, I said another one down, and, and that you know trying to trying there to catch it something. And there it feels like elusive would be exactly the right term this, this idea of kind of, you know that you can hear something or that you can feel something or there's a charge of something. But how, what do you have how what kind of net. Can you make, can you construct that can actually hold that and I think for me that often realize that it can't happen at the level of the sentence actually it's always about then how that sentence is is acting in relation to another sentence somewhere in other words choice somewhere else it's about kind of sort of slowly weaving this much bigger net that might catch something of that. Of what I think I hear so there so I would say no to elusive and then, and then, and then a yes kind of emphatic yes to elusive. I mean, it sounds like in an interesting way, what each of you is getting at is, there's no one path, each time that's the same, or even for for one text if it's a say it's a novel, or a series of chapters or poems, each one is going to demand different things and I love this idea of starting backwards, and also this Tracy you're talking about this kind of wanting it to feel not like it's, you're trying very hard to make it work, but rather to have the feeling of the of this piece of art or language that that is meant to have the reader have an experience. I like the resistance to the word elusive as well. Yeah, I feel like it's also in some way, at least for me a dance around my relationship to authority. You know, okay I don't have authorial authority. I don't have a command of the language. And so can I when do I allow myself to trust that what I'm receiving from this poem in the form that I'm getting it is something I should be authorized to act upon and to kind of offer as the one of the central concerns or one of the central offerings of the of the experience of the poem. And that's an interesting, you know, set of questions and inhibitions that I think, ideally you work work through and they become less and less of a constraint. The further into a poem that you get, but I often found myself saying okay, this is what these poems are saying to me, and I feel so compelled by these, these facets and these these powers that the poem seems to have. But I really hope that somebody else will hear something else and act upon that and do the work of translating this in a different way and somehow that was very freeing for me to think I wasn't going to be. I wasn't going to be the last person I'm not the first person. And what I can offer is a version of my own conversation with this poet. So I've really enjoyed reading each of your works as in preparation for this and sort of thinking about palms Tracy that you've written and also Kate from this little art reading, you know your meditations on translation and on language and on various things. And so I wanted to read a little snippet from from each of you and sort of throw that into this conversation see where that might take us. And so the first one and I think it these connect also with these questions of body and dance and a kind of giving and taking. The first one is from is from Kate is from Kate's book this little art, and I just love this moment where you say, I read with my body. I read and move to translate with my body, and my body is not the same as yours. And Tracy this the section I chose is to read of your work it comes from the poem self portrait as the letter why, which is such an interesting title so evocative for me self portrait is something that's different perhaps than the speaker herself. And this comes from the book the body's question. And the section is this, I am invisible here, like I like it.  You feed it to me, until my heart grows fat.  The scene and this image and this exchange makes me think a lot of ways about translation, perhaps as as something that is that is not only exchange but also perhaps even can be can be erotic. And this then brings me Tracy to this translation project that you that you've been working on that comes out in November so I just want to throw that all in and see where that will take us. I guess I guess to begin with the sentences that you read my mind and what I had in mind there is what I have in mind or who the work I have in mind kind of ongoing throughout this little art or the lecture courses on lecture courses and, and and there kind of distantly I think, or maybe not so distantly and maybe a few pages away from those lines. I've written about a list that made in his autobiography of sorts translated by Richard Howard which is just a simple list apparently simple list of likes and dislikes. I like, he says, I like cinnamon, I like slow walks, I like very cold beer, I dislike women in trousers, harpsichords, the afternoon you know these kind of, and so he has this list is very quite well known list of preferences of tastes I guess and that those two paragraphs end with him writing you know what does this mean. What does that want to say you know, actually it means nothing or it's, it has no significance, apart from to say my body is not is different from yours, you know my body is not the same as yours. So I was just very caught by this kind of expression of preference, which might seem like the smallest things you know the smallest like cold beer rather than whatever you know coincide or something like the smallest preferences but to think about making a kind of space for translation where, where, or an account of translation where those sorts of preferences are kind of possible to affirm and to hold to, and perhaps even Tracy was talking about authority to kind of ground an authority. But at the same time, you know, thinking about one's preferences, you know, for like blue jumpers or whatever it might be, or lipstick or, you know, I think, thinking, thinking that is that one doesn't stop I don't think it's possible to kind of all one should sort of stop an affirmation of preference. It seems that that to me that it also kind of opens up a space of inquiry where we might start thinking thinking we're certainly when you're translating to think about, why do I prefer this way of that way you know why do I like it like this, why, especially when it comes to the use of language, why does this sound right and good to me. And how far can I affirm that that is a kind of individuated preference and how far am I kind of reproducing some kind of norm that I might have inherited or received so it also I think translation does bring you up against your, your preferences like not harpsichords, you know, or your your kind of received aesthetic aesthetics of a sentence of a line in really really interesting and challenging ways and that's one of the reasons why it's so, I think valuable to do it so again it's sort of have wanting to say both to affirm the bodily and the fact that bodies are different and we translate, you know, from our bodies and we are under different pressures and kind of oriented a different way, but at the same time, sort of think out why and how that might be and how they might change possibly through the process of doing it. I love that. I love that sense that you know we can begin with what we're drawn to what speaks to us in the, the language be it you know made up of any essence that is home for us. But then that other thing that you're talking about which is, Okay, now I think I need to also acknowledge what I'm drawn to. I think about what the other facets of this work are calling me to submit to, to learn to seek to, to love or question in different ways. I felt that a lot. There are aspects of Eli's work that speak to me so emphatically and they have to do with theme, and they have to do with a beautiful sense of image and the features that were, I had to kind of submit to were the ones that had to do with what feels oracular, or what sometimes feels, you know, like it's built of an emphatic repetitive insistence. And I think it was a really beautiful revelation to say, I, I need to take myself out of this work more. I need to recognize okay this is what the me that that loves certain things can do within this space. I also have to remember to take some of that out and honor these other, these other facets of the work, which is beautiful. I think it kind of speaks to the, the sense that I'm, I am here in the lines that you quote from my poem, which is, this is an act of love in a way this is an act of finding a shared language for really heightening proximity, or porousness to people. And that's really an exciting thing to do as a writer, because most of what I find myself doing is is about going into myself is about thinking in, you know, very solitary terms hoping that psychically I can make a connection to something deeper or bigger than me or buried deep within me but it's a very different thing to say no, I want to be conduit for someone else. And that's kind of what, what love invites us to do in different ways. I certainly felt myself, you know, actually literally falling in love with the person that whose work I was translating and having the good fortune of being able to talk with her. In a very triangulated way. And to, to, I hope, take something from her that lives in my poetry now, you know. Yes, yes, and everything that you say also really resonates for me with what you brought up before about pushing against authority, and maybe not having this authorial or authority kind of position at the same time what Kate was also speaking about in her voice. And, you know, choosing to prefer it this way feel through it that way, and to have that generosity. Also, as you were describing to take yourself out of it more. I'm in it too much myself and I wonder if, if he lay herself if you feel that in her poems that speaker is also doing that kind of gesture of taking herself out in certain moments. One question I wanted to ask you about your experience of translating her work is, what was it like to work with the co translator.  And so many different, like the geometry of the relationship is really interesting. The way that we work together because he lay had hardly any English and I don't speak Chinese at all was through, you know, Chen Tai be who goes by David. And so I found myself working from this, this kind of bare bones, literal translation. And the bearer the better because there were moments when he brought in a kind of lilt or something that he thought was beautiful and so it occluded something that I needed to be able to hear. So that negotiation was interesting. But then to see him take my poem and back translated for her. So she could witness the changes that I had made. Some of them had to do with image systems that I thought could better carry a sense in English. And, and so it became a truly did feel like a collaboration. There were things that she liked about the changes and there were moments when she said you've pulled this, you're, you're only listening to this layer of my poem. You're only listening to the layer of this poem that has to do with desire, or with the female sexual power. But this is a poem that's also about government or this is a poem that's also about authoritarian, you know, law. I need you to hear both of these things and so to to be guided to kind of think about the distribution of my awareness within a poem was really exciting and to know that it wasn't threatening to her to see what I chose and what I what I didn't necessarily want to say, but rather an invitation to kind of educate me about these poems. That was really delightful, as it was delightful seeing her, her grow into her fuller self when we were in Beijing, and she was leading me around and introducing me to the people that were her peers and protégés and eating together all of the things that kind of, you know, we build a, you know, talking about the things we like, and how they, they are so emblematic of what we have to say and how being able to share in that together was really wonderful. It would be fascinating also to see those various drafts and that exchange and that dance, you know. I mean that that's where I wish I spoke more languages, because of course I could never appreciate the Chinese original or the translation back from yours but but if one could get a sense of all of that. And then and then of course it's all layered in the final translation. Yeah, I wanted to ask you about your new project, which I I've sort of thinking a little have been thinking a little bit about as a duet of sorts, between a new kind of translation work you were describing from the French right and then working on a novel of your own. And so can you tell us a little bit about this, these two, these two. I mean, I have a lot. Yeah, thinking also everything that was just said, maybe it does connect. I think it does connect. The sense that I didn't my this sort of most formative translation experience so far has been with an author with whom I, I had a very strong sense of working with and writing with, especially at the level of the translation but also at the level of the writing, this little art being as kind of making a kind of space of writing and thinking with in that book but but where the dynamic or the reciprocity was not was not as Tracy described in in her situation. But for many reasons to do with, you know, being alive or dead one thing but also to do with a kind of canonical established philosopher writer figure and and being a kind of very enthused willing student of that work but with with a very kind of uncertain sense of her own identity we're talking about myself as a as a as a writer as a thinker as a so where it felt like the kind of distribution of the distribution to distribute a distribution I guess it of power or agency or or was was was just different different to what I think Tracy is describing is having experience then and in a way that connects. I think in this little art there's one point towards the end of the book where I talk about trying, I tried to make an analogy again sort of bringing translation in relation to the ordinary. Every day very common experiences between translation and childcare. And the hinge of that analogy is is the is the reality, what for me felt like the reality of taking responsibility for something that I couldn't expect to be responsible for me. So kind of asymmetrical kind of one directional responsibility that you might have with a with a baby, you know, I'm responsible for you. You're not responsible for me I know that sounds slightly unlikely to kind of put hold on to this late work in the position of the baby in that scenario. I really don't know. Yeah, yeah, anyway, we could talk about whether or not he would be in anyway interested in that but for me that sense of like, I'm speaking for you I'm not expecting you to speak for me that's kind of not possible it's not reversible in that way. And that connects I guess to this this will very much for me to this, this, this project which is, I keep calling it new but it's been sort of three years or so now which is a, which is an effort to try and think through fiction, the kind of fictional days of living out, living out and living with this, the unproductive sort of unpredictable needy open form of a baby with that kind of long form of kind of discontinuous continuity and demand and response that that produces in the kinds of the level of the sort of texture of the days and to try and think that together with the kind of just oddly interruptive long form of the novel, which I know when I say it like that it sounds kind of completely opaque even to me, right. What that actually might, might look like, but the, the effort is to try and hold this sort of novelistic storytelling element together or kind of hold it in relation to a more essayistic kind of philosophical element of thinking about what, what kind of thing the novel is. And in relation to that, I have been translating. And I've been working just but very in a very un, un contracted kind of personal way through preference actually and through learning which is the term that Tracy used a book by Elen Becet, which was written in 1954, called Matana, which is set in a, in a Matanel and it's kind of an experimental novel of early years childcare in a way. And it's extraordinary. I find it extraordinary. It's very strange but very exciting at the level of, of the page and spacing and line breaking and capitalization and things that I'm trying to do in my own book, and then kind of found this, this, this, what is she a kind of instructor in a way. So I've been working on, on, on, on translating that alongside or just quite, quite recently alongside my own projects as a kind of learning experience. I think this idea that the translation is something that we are responsible for, but it's not responsible for us is so very interesting. And also, I really appreciate how you, you get into questions of, of childcare and caretaking in this little in, you know, in a very real way. And that, that brings me to a question, I think, for so many people right now, during this pandemic during this time of all kinds of upheaval and, you know, the three of us have to have young children who are home all the time they How, how are you, how are the two of you possibly keeping going with your work. And I, and I mean, the most kind, the most specific kind of concrete, you know, techniques or, or hacks, and, and even if there's spiritual mantras or something that was working for you and I'm asking not for a friend I'm asking for me. Oh, yeah, it's been such an interesting, you know, I can't even it's like more than a season now this this year really. And I've gone like everybody I think through many stages of feeling overwhelmed feeling angry feeling just dominated by reality. And to feeling, okay, actually the chaos of family 24 seven everything in one space. Maybe I can try and enjoy this. And one of the things that has kind of been helpful for my work, which I didn't have any, you know, impression that I would be able to attend to was, I guess, really just creating a practice of meditation. You know, my, they're the world. Questions of, you know, public health questions of justice, anxiety of leadership, all of this stuff is truly maddening. I mean, just the way that we relate to people that we know that we've known for a long time which is also a form of, you know, like just burden. And so the meditation for me has been really useful just to turn the volume down, but it's also guided me to start thinking about where my work my own work might seek to come from in a different way. In some ways, maybe it's similar to what happens when you're listening to another writer's voice and trying to draw what is true from it in service of that voice. This feels like I'm trying to listen to the deep me, or whatever I believe that I'm, I'm attuned to, and to draw something that can feel useful or even necessary to this moment. And that's felt really like such a such a gift to have to find poems out of this this time to find that my obsession with the news which many of us have can actually yield a body of poetry that is is speaking back to or seeking to speak through some of this found language. And I feel like there's a big lesson in all of this, which is, you know, we just mothers are really good at making space but actually we humans can be even better at doing that, then we already have learned to be. And I think it's about finding for me opportunity for silence and patience because you can't just sit right down and then get insight. Sometimes you have to fight against yourself in order to wait for it. And to parse it. And that's that happens sometimes when I'm sitting and writing but to imagine that that can precede the act of writing. That's very different for me. And then I can go back to picking up Legos and trying to get my kids back on the zoom classroom and, and doing all the things that that family life allows us to do. I mean, I feel like in a way of. Yeah, I mean it's a very big question of how I feel I think I feel surprised in a way, I've been wondering it why, why it is that I have felt it possible to kind of work on going or kind of just sort of keep a sort of sense of if in a project or investment in a project through this through this time like what why when I know, and I don't think it's any sort of particular special quality in me because I know you know many, many friends and, you know, felt found that really difficult to just find the kind of relevance in, you know, in relation to all of these things that we're experiencing. I think, I mean, in terms of a kind of practical sort of organization of my day one thing I did do when my children were locked down began was just started to just claim two hours in the morning I get up earlier, earlier than anyone else. And it was also sort of spring and you know the light was changing. And I just come come up to the space I work in and have two hours before going back into the into the tangley kind of lego sort of day and doing that felt just really important for my own kind of well being and just just doing a small push at work which often meant just reading and just being with with the kind of books that I've set around this project and that I'm thinking with. And I guess, I think maybe that what hasn't happened yet and I think if it did happen I would think I would be in serious existential crisis but I mean serious in the sense that it's something that I that has held me as a kind of one thing I'm trying to think about in this book the long form is is the book as a kind of holding device. And that's also a way of connecting it to to holding in a kind of win a cotton sense of what it holding a child a kind of responsive holding and books do, they have always, for whatever reason to do with preference or luck or education or privilege or held me and I, and I do believe I haven't lost faith in the technology of the book as a, as offering a space that I can enter and just live in with with someone else's energy and time and imagination for a while. And it, not that that makes me out entirely from from my own life or my own reality because I'm always being kind of pulled back into it and but but I believe in, you know, believe in their capacity to do that so the so sort of writing books, even though it takes things to take me quite a while, it does feel like an ongoingly meaningful thing to do just in, and I, I measure that against how, how much they, they mean to me in times, you know, like this of uncertainty. Yeah. I think that idea of the of the book, or the poem, as a space you can enter into which of course suggests you're going to leave where you are, and the freeing this of that and kind of read read becoming reacquainted with the power really for I've been reading a lot. I've been writing a little bit less lately but I've been reading a lot and it's been so satisfying to read in a way that that I recall from when I was like a kid. Right like the summer there's nothing happening you're kind of bored your parents won't take you anywhere you're just in the back of the house or the garage or whatever just reading reading reading. And I was hoping that that perhaps each of you might want to read something for us today before we take questions from from listeners. I'll share I can I'd love to share a poem of a lay hearing you talk Kate it also reminds me of something like none of us had guilt. And this the context of that which is sometimes what the motherhood slash being the selfish writer makes me feel. And I think there's something about this time that has absolved us of a lot of the unnecessary guilt that we felt. Maybe because things have collapsed and we've we've been able to kind of just dwell in what what is beautiful about going to this place thinking about books thinking about voices listening. Maybe I'll read a poem that is. Well I'm going to read this poem which is a little bit it feels a little bit unusual for a lay. It's called black hair. And I'm reading it because it's one of many examples of how something that arises out of her life or her, you know, vocabulary of experience or awareness intersected with mine from a very coming from a very different when I saw a poem called black hair as a black woman that met so many things to me that I knew it did not mean to elay, and yet the act of translating the poem allowed those different sets of concerns to kind of play together which I really loved. Black hair. Black hair like youth runs wild in March. Dark papery leaves fly teaming swarming bum rushing March black hair in March is gentle strangers eyes softer memory, a feast on offer. Born of the primordial see embrace me, drape my skin oldest clouds and something suppler. Black hair blown free rootless wanders the deserts countless tombs sways across a vacant sky whips it fresh mud in rain days blaze past. I have lost sight of my own black hair in the mirror. Let me watch it now for the next 1000 years black hair weedy and dirt poor soil, thirsty, diluted squandering its spoils black hair has no idea. The story of black hair is my story.  No way. There is no way to be saved, except to die. When black hair cries, its tears snuff themselves out like candles. So will my life cease to flicker.  Black hair shredded black flag of a woman's glory ragged and battered in March wind, forsaking dignity, absolved of chastity with its pride in knots black hair smiles easily in March. If waterfall, it will plummet if cloud, it will scatter eyes plaintive wide black hair waits to be spun by hardened hands into rock. Thank you Tracy that was extraordinary. I think for me that that there's so many things to think about and to say in relation to that but as listening to you kind of pronounce those words with your body and and you know occupy the eye of the poem and at least in the moment of that reading. It just really makes me think of the way that translation is, you know, in the best case scenario is not a it's not a layering, you know, it's a setting alongside. It's something that exists and still permanently exists and here is something new that exists that is in in direct conversational perspective relation to to what caused it what prompted it and what it couldn't exist without, but they're now two things, and then and they're conversing, and, and, and what you said about about the kind of resonance of hair black hair just just that just came across really powerfully, and also not they're conversing but they're also creating a kind of space in between them kind of charges between them. Thanks for that this exciting to me I also feel like oh I understood I've understood so many ways that translation is you know it's it's a creative act it's an active of excavation it's an active like honoring and archiving and it's an act of political act in many ways but this felt like at this, you know, at this time, creating a space for communion, love that exists between, you know, unlikely, unlikely pairs seem so important. And that that made me feel very excited to think oh, we can see one another in ways that we, we may never have thought were possible. And that's, that's another really good reason to to cross these lines and to undertake this, this kind of conversation, in a way. Unlikely pairing. Yeah, likely and unlikely pairings. And also I think maybe in this in this time, going back to, and I'm saying this because I haven't prepared anything to read. I mean, I'm not just feeling at home but also because I'm well just because these this everything just feels very fragile and I sort of a woman, not quite reasonable in this in this in this format but just going back to to what Michael and I picked up on about that question of preferences or my body's not the same as yours I think there's also, and you know I do believe that it's important to think through why we might turn our attention to this rather than that what is it that makes us lean towards this rather than that I do think that's that's vital work and as part of what I think translation asks of us but I also think it's so important, maybe right now as well to be able to affirm your own, your right to your own preferences as well to say you know this is how this is what I like to do you know this this is, this is how I like to organize my day in these open days of, you know, non time and just say this small thing I like this, hold to it. So, the right to one's own preferences feels really important. Kate Kate you had mentioned that. Well now you said the word fragility, which I think is so important, you know to not be ready to share but to also enjoy for yourself that fragility, and you had mentioned that this new project of translation is a kind of improvised translation. I would like to, to say just a little bit about that like, what, what do you mean by improvised and what is the, what is the preference or the pleasure the joy that might come from that. Thank you yeah I said that in an email exchange with you and I love it as a as part of your own practice and I think your own in your own interests and investments, you kind of zoomed in on that and I think I was thinking what did I mean I, I, I guess I mean improvisation in the sense of improvisation, which feels in many ways like the wrong way to start a translation that one ought to be prepared and one ought to be qualified and one ought to be learned enough to undertake this but I guess I like and that's part of the, of the invitation I was hoping to make with this little art is to say, within the sphere of at the moment my own interests of course, you know when it becomes a question of publishing and making public. It's one of the factors to consider but at the moment, I'm just going to begin. You know, I see this page, and I see this weird typography in this spacing and, and this matter now, which whether you know this, this, this early years scenes that are being created for me on the start and then, and see what that does, then and trust also in the way the process of translation will lead me towards what I then need to learn and be responsible for it doesn't absolve me, starting doesn't absolve me of responsibility, it just leads me towards me to think about reading more of her work reading her biography thinking about her manifesto, you know, and so on and so forth so that's I guess what I mean is just again like affirming a right maybe to begin. Yeah, for me but also for everyone at for others, you know. So amazing. This is so wonderful to hear the three of you in conversation and as always, I would love to just let this continue but we do have several questions from from viewers that we've brought to you and if there's time I have a question of my own and I might like to ask. So, one of the questions that came in is for both of you. I say I love the metaphor of translation as dance, and then there was a follow up the same person wrote back and said that something that Tracy said reminded her of reminded the writer at of a speech that Tony Morrison gave called the dancing mind. So the question is, can you talk about the listening that you find yourself engaged in as you translate. What are the modes of listening, you are aware of engaging as a translator. I often feel that listening is the, the mode that drives my work as a writer at least that's what I tell myself. I am listening to and through and trying to find what I otherwise I'm not equipped to notice or to. You know, like, it's kind of own up to, and I think that, you know, there's a different kind of listening that's at stake here which is what. What is this poem that's burying its soul. What is it offering and what does it want. What does it want me to lean toward. I know that when you're reading a poem and those are the features that that you you notice and that you respond to and that you question and dwell upon. When you're reading a kind of a literal translation, you notice these those things and you also notice areas where you know something more is there than what you're getting. And that was the kind of listening that I found myself daunted by and then really loving to think. Okay, I can, I can recognize these images. I can recognize this logical clause here. But what is the poet really, you know, what is she what is she confounded by and what is she conjuring by by bringing these things together and can I leap into that space. And sometimes it meant, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to think about the hot spots in this poem and allow them to activate something for me. And sometimes it was allowing my own mind to associate a little bit. But those were the those were the forms of listening that I was conscious of and then of course there's a mode of listening that's like I'm stuck this is what I hear but I can't. And that's where, you know, I had recourse to Eli for years of this process. And that was great. And then she you know she's she's passed on now. And so thinking what what what drives her. What are what are these other poems obsessed with that have spoken to me. And how can I trust that this poem that I'm struggling with is in conversation with those in some way. So some of it is, you know, a kind of inventive or willful form of listening that also ideally gets you to the next thing that's concrete that you can really, really trust. I mean, I think for me in bringing listening towards dance I think I love dance I love dancing and I love watching dance and I'm not but I'm a very amateur dancer, but it's something about rhythm I think is and is is is really important to me as a writer and like and in terms of preference of what one might be drawn to I think with this writer Ellen Bassett I think what and what I find in her is is this kind of strange kind of untimely off kind of rhythm which you know, like when you, if this happens to you if you like dancing or you know when you're dancing in front of dancing well or not well but with joy or, you know, abandoned and and to sort of catching the energy and wanting to dance I often, you know, watching someone dance I want to dance to, you know, and there's something about that. I think for me that powers or is the energy source of my, my writing and my translation is is is sort of reading and feeling kind of a sort of agitation as often a rhythmic agitation which is as much to do with as rhythm is to do with the delay and spacing as it is to with anything else kind of gaps between things that kind of agitates me into wanting to dance to or write to. So it is about that a kind of responding, responding with my own energy to the energy that I can that I can hear. And then, yeah, and rhythm is is a crucial part of that, to the point where is part of life hacks of, you know, I was asking about, I do if I'm working and I've been sitting down for a long time I do, and I'm alone, which is not that often nowadays but I will just put really loud music on dance about. So, a question has come in that's for you Kate that's the perfect follow up to that one. The person says that they especially like the form of this little art. How did you decide to arrange the book and what do you think it's organization can tell us about how we speak about read about think about right and understand translation and literature. Wow. Thank you. I think just answer, maybe I could talk for a long, long time if we were together in a different setting to the question that I think for me the key thing was, and it has to do with, I guess the question of authority that Tracy mentioned earlier of how, it's troubling to me through the translation process and through the writing process, who am I, who am I to, who am I to it was a big issue for me, who am I to translate this work and then who am I to pronounce on translation for others. Not and how to do that in a way that precisely isn't for others but trying to kind of affirm what was particular to me and try to find ways to open that up in such a way that others might join me or find kind of common ground with me. So the form was very much related to that I wanted to make an open kind of book where you might, and that's why there is this kind of address between you and me, or me and you throughout a kind of informality to the book which is trying to make it capacious enough that you know dissenting think a dissenting translator to come in and just occupy that space with me for a while so the organization did very much have to do with rhythm and pacing and trying to to sort of arrive at a mode of doing argument of doing argumentation but that felt narrativized and dramatized to the point where when when I arrive at a question or or or proposition it lands and I think that has very much to do with kind of pacing and rhythm, but it also had to do with trying to make space for for others to join me in the common thing, which is the book, which isn't the thing that's external to me. We have another question this one is for Tracy. How did the experience of working with a change how you interact with the translators of your own poems. How does being translated feel to you. I like that. I am after or do it as this project was kind of culminating. The Spanish translation of weight in the water was beginning and I speak Spanish, and I felt that unlike previous translations I wasn't afraid I just wanted to. I didn't want to say okay I'll let them, I'll let them do this I'll answer their questions, but I want it to be their act. The translator Andrea Cote Pupero is really wonderful at just wanting to kind of like have the relationship with me that I had with a lay in terms of let's talk what what are you thinking about what do you care about. You read your poems out loud and and she's closed the distance between me and her version of my poems in a way that's felt really beautiful. I think I was probably afraid before the first translations of my work I think we're in languages that I don't speak. So I just had to trust. And this brought me into an awareness that oh no this can be a really kind of a shared endeavor. And that's that's how I've received the gift of Andrea's work on my work. And I hope that future translations will be like I met he lay through my Chinese translator, whom I've never met, but he said you guys I know your work and I know her work and you need to know one another. And that was a really beautiful gift. So, I hope I'll have other relationships like that. I think it's a great story to think about how what brought you as a poet and a writer to translation. And if I may take the last few minutes that my question. I think is most attracted to Tracy but anyone's welcome to answer it but I think in this whole transcending the future and thinking about it seems like right now there isn't, there's there aren't as many writers and poets who are finding translation in ways in a way like the way that you have. And I'm just, I think often about how to bring more, more writers into this world that we're in of translation and I wonder if you have any thoughts on your experience. I really love the way that this happened it was kind of like a setup in a way. After Elaine I had already begun our relationship with on her poems. I was invited to a translation workshop that Ming D conducts in China every fall usually, and Elaine came to that. What actually happens there is writers in one language, sit across from writers in another language and work on an in a single poem together or two or three poems over the course of a day with help from bilingual people. It allows those of us who see ourselves as unlikely translators because we don't have a strong sense of authority within within a single language to say oh but I can, I can cross the stream. I can, I can do this thing of listening and interpreting and conversing. And I feel like there should just be more more opportunities for such exchange. I think the people who know that this is something they can do. But I love to think that the poets I love in their own language could also become guides for me to to poetry and other and other from other places. What do you think about that question. Or do we have another minute. I have 229 on my cloud. Okay. I would just say, in the extent to what was just said that I think translation is the most extraordinary education and many kinds of into many kinds of things, many kinds of questions but one of them is writing.  I teach I teach with a lot of I teach with that work with artists and that almost always speaking English as a second or third language, and trying to use translation as a way of also kind of affirming the knowledge and the resources and given that the language of instruction is English so to think of translation as a way is kind of something that's brought in to writing pedagogy. Not just kind of a question of linguistic competence but but I think it could be brought into so many different fields meaning fully and also thinking of younger you've children, you know, so much earlier as a way of affirming and exploring competence and feel, you know, bodies of knowledge and so on so I am very, yeah, I'm very pro translation by opening up translation as a practice for the more. Thank you all so much this has been unforgettable. Perfect wonderful thank you Magdalena for that great framing and those questions. And Allison has some final thank yous. It was a beautiful moderation Magdalena thank you so much. And once again we'd like to thank our partners, how around pen America, the Center for the humanities at the Graduate Center CUNY, the Coleman Center for scholars and writers at the New York Public Library, and the Marnie Siegel Theater Center, and to the Princeton University program in translation and intercultural communication for their support of today's event. And thank you all for watching translating the future. Thank you. Thank you.


Hey everybody welcome back to the channel. I forgot to hit the damn start record button again in OBS but this time I remembered it after only like a minute. I didn't get through the whole video like I did yesterday. This is getting ridiculous. I'm gonna have to put a sticky note to my forehead or something. It's dumb. Anyway, so on this channel I do some tutorials and I label them as tutorials because usually when I do a tutorial I know what I'm doing. It's a pretty well established assumption that if you're going to teach somebody how to do something the teacher knows how to do it. Other times I do these learn along with me style videos where I set myself a task and I have no idea how to accomplish the task and I just do the video in hopes that you learned from my mistakes. That's what today's video is going to be. Today we're going to get started with X-Monad. Now X-Monad is a dynamic tiling window manager. I think maybe that's what you call it. It's a tiling window manager for sure. I'm just not sure if it's dynamic or not. I think it's like DWM and Spectre WM or whatever in terms of how it tiles. I've only been using it for about five minutes. I've got so far as to install it. I've got it running on bare metal in Arco. I've found the configuration files and I've changed the configuration file so that the mod key is the windows key and not the alt key. I've also changed it so that the binding to quit the windows is a little bit different. It's like mod shift C or something is the default. I just want mod Q. I also got mod shift Q to quit Q tile and mod shift. I think my shift Q is to restart. I don't know. I've changed it. That's that's all I've done. I have found that the I did try to change the default terminal. I have not succeeded in doing that yet. So that's going to be one of the things. So here are the things that I want to do today. I want to so let's actually just jump into the so you can see what's what I'm doing here. This is Xmonad. This is that's literally all you get. There's no bar. There's nothing that this wallpaper here is just the default Arco Linux wallpaper.  So I don't know how that's being pulled up or where it's being pulled up from. But I don't have even a wallpaper really set yet. I don't have a bar. But the things I want to do today I want to get a bar. I want to get it so that when it has hit mod enter I actually get a terminal which right now I do not.  My OCD just is not you know. Anyway so I'm going to bar terminal. I also would like to do some coloring you know because right now if we do mod P which is D menu which I'm going to have to change that to and open up terminal you know the long way this border right here is red. I want to get rid of that and probably match my Dracula thing right now. And I also want to if I have time on this video transfer some of the key bindings over to an SXHKD file which means I'm going to have to figure out how Xmonad does auto start files. So we've got a little bit of road ahead of us. I don't know how much of it I will get done in this video. I'm assuming that this is probably going to be part one of me messing around with Xmonad. So just make sure you subscribe and hit the notification icon if you want to see part two if this doesn't turn out to be a complete farce which it may very well be. So Xmonad stores its configuration files in dot Xmonad in the home directory. Okay. And this is what the file looks like it has some things here. Now my Xmonad config is Xmonad dot HS. And this is just the bog standard default configuration files which I believe comes from this folder here. I actually found it on the internet because I didn't know that folder was there. I just found that out right now. So that's how like I said that's how smart I am. So it will make this bigger. I think that should be big enough. Yeah. Okay. So for those of you who don't know Xmonad is written in Haskell I know absolutely jack shite about Haskell. Now for some reason the first let's first see if we can troubleshoot why the terminal thing is not working because because termite should work. I think that's the class. So it might maybe the maybe the class is different. So let's open up X prop. So let's do control P terminal termite. Okay. X prop. All right. So let's see if we do this with a capital T. If that works change letter. Okay. And write right quick. I'm just quick and do Xmonad recompile. Okay. So it didn't succeed which is good. Okay. So if we do mod shift and queue that should do now if I do mod enter. No. My enter did nothing.  I think I did see that because you notice when I press mod enter the windows switched around.  So what if I do my shift enter. No. Okay. So the. Okay.  Where'd my config file go. Oh it's because I'm in the wrong. Close that. Okay. All right. So the. Okay. And then let's go down here to the key bindings. I bet you I have a duplicate. So I have right now I have my shift return should start a terminal. My shift return does not do that. Why my shift return should terminal.com. I'm I don't know anything about Haskell. This doesn't make any sense because my term. They define up here. They define defined the terminal as my terminal. But down here where we have the launch the terminal thing they don't use that variable. They just use terminal weird. All right. But still right now I have mod enter. My enter swaps the master around. So what if we just comment that out for right now and we'll come back to you. We'll just come we'll eventually we'll find a different this mod enter for to swap the master around. It's just really weird. Why don't you use modern them key or something. Anyway so why don't we just you want to run it. We'll just do this. We will whoops. We will we'll leave this and do comma. So these are two parentheses mod m. Okay. Comma. There's some spaces here. X K underscore return parentheses comma spawn termite. I mean what's it going to hurt. We'll see if that works. Okay. We'll right quit this here and we'll recompile that that you want to it would help if I if I actually you know. Oops typos are the dickens. I actually got to spell things right. Who knew. That's actually really cool. When you make an error it shows you exactly where it is. It doesn't do that in DWM or even Q tile doesn't do that. Now I three will do that. That's if you have it set up properly. Okay. So actually see look at this. I spelled spawn with an M change letter and like a moron Q and now we can recompile and now we and now my shift Q and my enter has a now that's only for temp temporarily because eventually that can be deleted and move to S X H K D which I'm going to use. Okay. So quit out of that and back into our config file. So the next thing we have to do is go to a different workspace. So we'll just go to six here and open up mod P and Firefox. All right. And we're in Firefox. Now we need to learn how to use XMO bar or do we want to use? Let's see how to use auto start in X modad. I'll start programs in X modad. I want to start some programs in X modad. I've read that you have to write them in a dot X session file. The problem is that they will all be auto started in my other window managers too. That's dumb. There's no way that's true. If that is true, that's dumb. I'm currently configuring testing next moment and so I don't want to affect the startup programs my other window managers I have. Is there another way use that and excellent RC. You can have a look at the X session of the group. For example, you really have to use that X and R C. There's no other way to do auto start files in because excellent RC is going to be used for every window manager. If you use slim with the focus slim, then it will send us in the sense of people can read it. If you lose use some that it will send a session name as an argument to the excellent because I know you can use different X and R C files maybe. I think I saw that on a video somewhere but still that's not what I want. The other option would be to use the startup hook in your X monitor HS. I'm using the first method though. So best as someone. Okay, so startup hook. You want to search Google for startup hook X moment zooming in. Okay, let's see do do do do so do start up hook over here. Easy enough. Modifying the okay to run a desktop the desktop startup hook plus add further actions to be running each time X one and starts or restarts use the plus. I don't know what that means to combine actions as in the log with something like this. I'm gonna start up. Alright, so let's go ahead and go to one here and search for startup hook. That's the only okay let you want to let's go look at DT's. I mean when in doubt look at DT's config file so we'll do this one here tonight. I happen to have his dot files CD downloads, get things DT dots LS CD dot files. Okay, so CD dot X won't add LS. Okay, so then X won't add HS. Okay, so start up hook. That's the only startup key is he has autos. Hey, look at that. I learned how to make video make windows bigger. Cool. Okay, I don't know any of these things mean. That's a lot of stuff DT. That's a lot of stuff.  Okay, I don't know the true selection is going to be for that menu that he did. Um, it doesn't do me any good. My startup hook do okay this is what I want to do. Um, what if I okay, that's good. Alright, so let's do this. Okay, my startup hook equals do okay. So I'm going to change that at the dollar sign. Let's see here. So do. Okay, I'm not going to add this line here. But I'm probably going to have to because mine doesn't have that by default. But let's just see. Alright, so we want to do on once. And we do want to quotation marks nitrogen dash, just restore for amper stand. Okay, spawn once pi com and the ampers stand. Okay. Do I spell that right? No, see, look at this. That's better. Do there doesn't need to be a space after the ampersand. No, okay, spawn. I don't know what's it again, once. And we want, hmm, S X H K D. I can't remember. I think I'm going to hold on off on SSHKD because I'm going to have to go look and see what the flag is in order to, to, to, it's either going to be dash C or dash dash config. I can't remember which one it is. I think that's good right there. Okay, so let's go. We may end up having to do this line here. I'm not sure yet. Okay, and then X monad recap pile that did not work. Variable not in scope spawn months.  Okay, and we will do this my startup hook. Yep, two colons. X. And this here. Okay. And see if that will allow to compile. No, still won't. Okay. Variable not in scope. What does that mean? Don't know Haskell. My limitations in Haskell are proving to be my downfall. So let's go back to see this is one. I think I was on six for the browser without a bar telling me where my damn that works the same way as other ones. All right. You got some little artifacting over here. This is the way it start up hook do. It isn't called my startup. It just calls it startup hook. Do do do. Well, let's go see if this works instead, because I'm using I'm not using DT's config volume using the default one. So it makes sense to do because this one doesn't have spawn once it just says startup hook desktop config spawn. Okay, let's go back to one and get rid of these. Okay, we can get rid of DT's because his obviously don't his thing doesn't actually work. Okay, my startup. Okay, so we will delete this line here and just call this startup hook. Okay. And I think that's what it was a startup hook equal to with a capital H. Yep. Weird syntax. I can't believe I've already been recording for 20 minutes. Crazy stuff. Okay, so if I wanted to do I'm assuming desktop config is a program and this is how you do a script. But I bet you if you spawn, I bet you spawn is done for the same way as program. Okay, so we just use spawn. Okay, go back to one. Okay, I'm going to leave the ampersand and see if that work. I'm going to take the ampersand out. I was going to say, I don't probably gonna need to put the ampersand back in. I'm exploring ad recompile. Still no. Okay, ambiguous recurrence. Can we further to start up hook? I'm so confused. So if we let's go in here and call it my startup hook then that worked. Okay, so if we quit this out here and do my shift Q. That worked. And my preview for for OBS died. So I'm hoping that my recording is still going. But that worked because I know it worked because Huzzah here's my wallpaper. Okay, and turn my end pi commas working because I have transparency. We're so good. Okay, so now I need to go check and see so CD dot DWM SS, SSHKD, then SSHKD RC. I wanted to see. Well, that's not what I needed to do. That's the wrong one. So CD them auto start. Here we go. This is what I want to need to check for SSHKD. It's dash. It's a dash C flag. Okay, so we want to do here is go to want to quit this. Actually, we're just going to spawn another one. And and make this bigger. So CD into X more and make directory SSHKD. Okay, and CD into that directory and we're going to touch SSHKD RC. Okay, and we're going to then we're going to quit this. Okay, and we're going to them SSHKD RC, and we're going to open a vertical split of let's see here. It doesn't really matter there because the top ones are going to be the same anyways. So if we do total slash dot DWM SSHKD SSHKD RC. Okay, and we and go into visual mode here. And while that transparency really makes it hard for. So we're going to do is all the way down here to the none. Yeah, we can leave those there. I think we want the volume ones. And honestly, I'm pretty sure all this stuff can actually go right here. It doesn't matter. So technically, I could just use this file, but we'll do yank. And we'll do okay, and we'll do oops. Oh, no. I was in the wrong one apparently. That isn't undo. Okay, so visual mode, capital G, yank. Okay, and we need to go into the other buffer, which this one here, I think, and paste. There we go. Okay, and then we just right quit that. And right quit that. We can just quit that. Okay. All right. And then we want to do CD up a level, and then into oops, x, oops, x moda.hs, and do my startup hook. Okay. And we want to do this one. I got a quotation marks sxhkd dash c till the slash dot x monad slash sxhkd martin like that. Okay. And slash sxhkd RC. Why does it do that time? Humbug. Okay. Now, we need to do some removing of key bindings here. So we want to get out of insert mode, we want to remove this one here. So DD, we want to remove the menu. We definitely want to keep this open so I can undo these changes just in case. When we're going to remove that one, we want to remove. I'm going to keep the kill one, because I don't I think that's good. This is going to be different one. I don't think we want to remove to do do we want to remove. None of these restaurants out there. I don't think I'd remove any of these other ones. Nope. I think we can just leave all that for now. Because I don't think that I'm going to be and do be able to do any x monad specific key bindings like this recompile thing. You know, with sxhkd, I just don't think that that's going to be possible. So we should be able to do this W when we're right because we're going to stay in this and open up a new one here and do x monad dash and recompile. And that worked. Okay, so we do mod shift and queue. And now we should we should be able to still do mod enter for yes, yes, sxhkd success. This is a successful video so far. As long as I remember to repress the record button. All right, so we can quit out of that and we want to keep we can keep that open. We want to. Okay, so the last thing we want to do before maybe maybe mess around because we're at 28 minutes so far in this video. Wow. I want to see if I can do get a bar running. So the question I have is do I use xmo bar? So if we go here to our things here and search for xmo bar. So xmo bar continues to we have a tutorial here. Well, okay, cool. Well, this looks like the cutile config file or documentation. Here's what's inside my xmo bar over RC. Okay, so blah, okay, I don't know any of those things mean you just run weather. I mean, it's a little weird. Okay, that's a lot of options. Let's break it down here. So border color this defines border colors black. Tell this person is British. There's an extra letter in the word color border is throughout the border. Background colors define the background color. That's really easy, but it doesn't say where to put this. Do, do, do, do, do, do. So you're like, I can download xmo not xmo bar from the what I'm thinking about doing is just using polybore. Why can't I just use polybore? Why do I have to make myself, you know, why must I hurt myself so badly trying to learn something new? I mean, why why push myself to learn xmo bar when I could just use what I know? I think for now, that's exactly what I'm going to do. So we'll go back here and we'll because we're going to need two terminals. So we want to go to my startup hook. I wonder what the key binding is to switch focus right now. I don't really want to use my freaking mouse every time. I suppose we could mod k is focus sync. So that's going to change mod. It's my jk, my jk. Oh, there we go. Haha. Hey, look at this. I'm learning stuff. All right. So slash my startup hook. Okay, and we want to do this spawn. Oh, man, I can't remember. I think it's I think you just have to use I you just have to do the launch.sh command. So what I want to do here is, I don't know if that's going to work. Do I still have xmonet? I think I do. So if I do cd.config polybar, and then config slash xxmonet, I do good. Okay, so what I should should be able to do is get out of this and just do ls. If we just go over here and do launch tilde slash dot config slash polybar slash launch dot sh. Okay, and do colon w. And go over here and cd here, xmonet dash dash recompile. I think actually when I think if I just do, I think I looked and saw just now that if I just do my shift q that actually recompiles automatically, that didn't work. Spawn. Okay. I bet you if okay, we can close this, go to six and go backwards right here, though, that should xmonet sh won't let you do so won't let you do a very confused. So you can't use spawn. I don't want to move this to path. I really don't want to because I have multiple I use polybar and in BSPWM as well. And I have that as its own configuration file. So I don't want I mean, I could theoretically I can move it to path, but call it something differently. I don't want to do that. So the startup here, this would be calling a this is going to be a script as well.  What does this mean? I don't know what that means. Okay. All right. So we're going to stop there for now. This video is gone on for 35 minutes. We were not successful with a bar, but overall, pretty successful. We've got a lot of key bindings changed. We can close this and go back to one. We got some auto start with things working, which is more bueno. So good. I haven't got that, you know, working yet, but the poly bar, but I will. The next time I do a video on xmonet, we'll work on the bar. We'll work on the coloring inducing right doing some ricing. That'll probably be in January. When I get to that because I got a whole list of videos, I'm going to be doing, but that's still overly very successful. So if you enjoyed this long meandering video on how to do things that I didn't know how to do, give us a thumbs up or give us a thumbs down if you really hated it for some odd reason. Thumbs downs are so not nice.  Make sure you subscribe for when the eventual part two of this video comes out and we continue to do my explorations of xmonet and also the notification icon notification bell icon thing. Well, I'll alert you to videos that I upload because I do upload new videos every single day. Some of them are tutorials. Some of them are rant. Some of them we do a weekly podcast and I'm still working on increasing production value. I hope I've, if you watched the first few videos that I did this, these are definitely better. Not that much better, but they're better. And they're even better when I remember to press the record button, which I did do this time. I checked four or five times now. Okay. So anyways, hopefully, hopefully, yep, Audacity is still recording. I would have been so mad. Anyways, thank you for watching. We'll see you next time.