poems. translations. reflections edited by Nedra Rodrigo & Geetha Sukumaran ISBN: 9781775256786 Poetry | Translation | Tamil trace: translating [x] series *Unfortunately, tariffs & duties are making it expensive for us to mail books outside of Canada. We encourage US, UK, Europe customers to ask local bookstore to order our titles from Ingram US, & to ignore the 'out of stock notice.' Their order will reactivate regular shipping from our Canadian distributor LitDistCo. What happens when a two-thousand-year-old language, rooted in a classical poetics of land, is moved, along with its peoples, through colonial and postcolonial upheavals, war and forced or voluntary migrations? Questioning traditional concepts of time, place, labour, love, purity and gender, this prismatic collection of poems, translations and transcreations draws connections between ancient Sangam landscapes and North America’s Indigenous lands, and between classical Tamil love poems and Southeast Asian migrant labour songs––tending, with care, the wounded memories of fisher-people, plantation workers, and undocumented refugees. Our own vazhinool runs through this book: our sense of indebtedness to the lands that hold us, and the lands we hold within us: நெஞ்சநிலம், the landscape of our hearts. It is not without some sense of trepidation that we set it afloat now, across unknown lands and waters, into unknown hands. ––Nedra Rodrigo & Geetha Sukumaran (introduction) Poets & Translators Aadhavan Dheetchanya, Abi Jeyaratnam, P. Ahilan, Akkini Sugu, Alari, Ammoovanar, Avvaiyar, Cheran, Enbah Nilah, Geetha Sukumaran, Gobiga Nada, V. Iswarya, Jayashree Panniker, Kasro Ponnuthurai, Kalaivani Karunakaran, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Nedra Rodrigo, Nillanthan, Rashmy, Regini David, S. Bose, Sathimutha Pulavar, shalan joudry, Subhanya Sivajothy, Subramaniya Bharati, Sukirtharani, Thamilini Jothilingam, Tharmini, Yalini Jothilingam. trace: translating [x] invites readers to think about writing, place, and community; and to consider what is gained, lost, or missing, in processes of translation. REVIEWS This thoughtful book unspools a thousand-year-long lyrical thread connecting Tamil bodies and lands. It will resonate well beyond the Tamil diaspora, particularly because it attends to the relation between Tamil contemporary poets, literary heartlands and Indigenous homelands here on Turtle Island. – Suvendrini Lena, The Grind This collection is profoundly important as a piece of Tamil literature: a work that prides itself in its diversity of Tamil and therefore Tamil experience and knowledge. It breathes new life into one of the oldest languages in the world. – Namitha Rathinappillai, ARC Poetry [The book was created] ... from an intentional point of care and inclusivity, to translate in an anti-racist, feminist, and decolonial way. Rather than having one definitive authorial translation, as in the Western tradition, the subjectivity of the nature of transferring information and emotion across language and culture was made part of the goal of the process. – Pearl Pirie, The Miramichi Reader This volume, reflective of the collaborative spirit of the workshops that led to it, offers an opportunity to appreciate the many complex ways Tamil speaking people, and their descendants who may be spread far and wide, can maintain a connection to the landscapes, traditions, and histories of their respective homelands through poetry and other cultural elements such as art and film. Reaching from the Sangam era (300BCE – 300CE) to the present day, the translations, transcreations, and reflections gathered here combine to make reading this book a very dynamic and moving experience. – Joseph Schreiber, Rough Ghosts As I read the collection of poems, this reality [the challenge of finding a seat and leisure to read] only sharpened with the stories of countless Tamils who, like me, yearn to be in dialogue with one another, regardless of geography or place. – Miru Yogarajah, Herizons
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