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Luis Quintais (1968-)
You can read about Luis Quintais, a poet writing in Portuguese as well as this translation and four other others by clicking on the link below. It will open in a new page..
This is a good example of what happens when one fine poet translates another. We live in a great age of translation. Which means we have access to poetry in languages you’ve probably never considered
This is the second reading from ‘Nominy Dominy’ Two rivers press, 2019.
I love this because it celebrates something I care about.
Whether you call it culture, or civilisation, it’s the result of a fragile paper trail, and it relies on the saints and scholars and scribes, and the anything but saintly students of the word, whether the word is Greek or Latin or Arabic, whether the religion is Christian or Muslim, Hindu or Bhuddist, whether sacred text or medical treatise, this thing called culture relies for its survival on the humans who often stuffed a book in their pocket or their bag before they ran, and on the men and women who spent lifetimes translating, copying, deciphering, who were curious and cared for something both precious and fragile in their own varied ways.
And despite the barbarians and their barbaric indifference, there have always been those who cared.
‘The infidel tribe of philologues’ doesn’t make the history books that often. But without them there are no books, and no history.
Saunders dedicated ‘Ephemera’ to Jo Balmer.
This is taken from ‘Nominy-Dominy’ (Two Rivers Press-2018)
For once the blurb on the book is right: ‘Nominy-Dominy is a praise-song for the Greek and Latin literature Lesley Saunders grew up with as a schoolgirl’. It’s also well-written, enjoyable and thought provoking even for people like me with precious little Latin and absolutely no Greek.
In this poem, Anchises sleeps with the Goddess. According to the Matter of Britain, which I do know, their son will found Rome and his grandson, or great grandson, will found Britain.
I’ve written at length about this particular poem and you can read why I think it’s so good here: https://ladygodivaandme.blogspot.com/2018/05/leslie-saunders-praise-song-for-pair-of.html