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


Poetry is untranslatable. So, how does poetry translation work? How does one dwell in that fictional country situated between languages, English and Romanian, for instance.
 
RCINY is pleased to announce the first of a special series of events 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.
 
Nina Cassian and Calin-Andrei Mihailescu will lead on May 11th at RCINY a first workshop, and draw the audience into a series of interactive playful exercises. These will include short, ad-hoc individual translations of given texts, collective transpositions, and possible word and text invention.
 
We encourage non-Romanian speakers to joins us as well and discover how playful poetry is a great entry point into a language and culture they might know little about.
 
Whether written in Romanian or in English, Nina's poetry moves with the stars – spirited, ground-breaking, scrumptious. She invented a few poetic languages, the most radical being limba spargă (Brokenese). She lives in New York. Călin moves fast. Proof: he hasn't yet been caught. He teaches literature at a Canadian university but drives often to NYC.
 
The series will continue in June. More details soon.


[Image: Nina Cassian. Photo by Oana Radu, RCINY]