Sometimes they put you in seas
or rivers without telling you.
~ Jill Jones from ‘The Slide’
In 2011, The Red Room Company was approached by Dr Thomas Wohlfahrt of the Literaturwerkstatt Berlin, to become the Australian partner for their international Lyrikline.org platform, which features the work of over 1000 poets from across the globe, in original and in translation, in text and audio. The Red Room Company, as the Australian partner, is bringing Australian poets to new audiences, as well as commissioning translations into English.
We are growing...
Over three years we published and promoted 87 poems by 15 Australian poets. Of these, a number have already been translated into German, French and Chinese, with more translations to come. We have also commissioned 15 Australian poets to translate 80 poems from German, French, Spanish, Turkish, Arabic, Farsi, Indonesian, Swedish, Russian, and Chinese.
Along with the audio recordings of the poems and the translations, we also recorded interviews with poets, which are available to listen to online. In the next few years, we hope to grow this project and take Australian poets overseas, to major festivals in Berlin, Rotterdam and beyond.
We’re extremely proud of this project that celebrates the cultural and linguistic diversity of Australian poetry and enriches dialogues between global literatures.
“Great periods of poetic activity have always been great periods of poetry translation.” ~ Lyrikline poet, Peter Boyle
