methaphors with Nina Cassian

MATCHING WORDS : CUVINTE POTRIVITE.2 : methaphors
Join us on a language & poetry playground with Nina Cassian, instigated by Calin-Andrei Mihailescu


RCINY is pleased to announce the second event of the special series inviting both Romanian and English speakers to flirt with Romanian language and literature in English translation, to play with words and explore how translation works.

Following the kick-off event on May 11, this second meeting invites the audience to take part in a more structured workshopping experience.

We will be playing with metaphors, those figures which bring language to life, life to language, and defend both against coercive meaninglessness. For as soon as language is born, it can congeal into a prison with many cells. If too long a time time is spent in them, tongues will become woody; the mind will limp its way aided by those tongues' wooden crutches, to turn into a tourist of the commonplace; now diminutive, imagination won't fence off the world's violence anymore.

Against the shady dynasties of tongue numb-ers, you are invited to join in this play, to bring to light the banners' underwear, and to heal the linguistic imagination hurt by the ceaseless assault of the TV and computer screens. Metaphors can't be taught, but they can be played with; they can be neither deduced nor deducted; their usefulness, though, goes beyond the usual.

We will be playing, thus, with metaphors that change our perspectives on the differences between inside and outside, and between the feminine and the masculine, starting from two of Nina's English poems, "Cast," and "Snow Man," respectively (both printed in her 'Take My Word for It,' W.W. Norton, 1998), but expanding to other poets' poems, in both English and Romanian. Bring pen and paper. Non-Romanian speakers are encouraged to join.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• nina cassian
• RCINY
• poetry
• methaphors