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Crowe, Watkins to read love poetry Friday at City Lights
By Lynn Hotaling
When talking with local writers Nan Watkins and Thomas Crowe about their newest project, it's hard to escape the "L-word."
"We love this book," Watkins said.
"It was truly a labor of love," said Crowe.
And the book itself, 10,000 Dawns, is a translation of love poetry that chronicles the passionate and sometimes tumultuous 30-year relationship of French/German writers Yvan and Claire Goll.
Nan Watkins and Thomas Crowe of Tuckasegee have collaborated on 10,000 Dawns, a translation of the love poetry of Yvan and Claire Goll. The 60-poem volume is just out from White Pine Press; Crowe and Watkins will read and sign books Friday, Oct. 29, during a 7 pm event at City Lights in Sylva. – Herald photo by Lynn Hotaling
Crowe and Watkins will be at Sylva's City Lights Bookstore to read and sign books Friday, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m.
The collection was originally published in France in 1951 and is now available in English for the first time. The book includes eight drawings by Marc Chagall, who was a friend of the Golls, which appeared in the original edition.
Born in 1891 in Alsace-Lorraine, Yvan Goll became a central figure in German expressionism and French surrealism during the early 20th century. He was an influential playwright, poet, publisher and translator, working with luminaries like Chagall, James Joyce, Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.
Claire Goll was born in 1890 in Nuremberg, Germany. A well-known writer of novels, short stories, and poetry, she and Yvan were married in Paris in 1921. The couple emigrated to the United States in 1939 when the Nazis invaded France during World War II.
10,000 Dawns is a collection of love poems exchanged between Yvan and Claire over the course of their marriage.
"Not since Robert and Elizabeth Browning have we had such engaging love poetry between husband and wife," Watkins said.
Crowe translated Yvan Goll's poems from the original French; Watkins translated Claire Goll's poems from the German.
"Poetry is the most difficult thing to translate because part of its beauty is the actual use of language," Watkins said. "You have to find a way to express the same thought while keeping the language musical."
"The most important thing to remember when translating poetry is its essence," Crowe said. "It's impossible to be perfectly literal. And, if you did, it wouldn't be poetry. You make choices to get the most poetic version."
According to Watkins, she tried to find the "voice" of Claire, while Crowe did the same for Yvan.
Crowe, who studied French and lived in France for a year, brought a male perspective to Yvan's poetry, which was originally written in French. Watkins, a German scholar, was likewise able to translate Claire's original German writings from a female point of view.
10,000 Dawns' initial French and German publications grouped Yvan's poems and then Claire's, though the verse was arranged chronologically. Crowe and Watkins alternated Yvan's writing with Claire's to produce a conversation between the husband and wife.
"It follows the arc of their 30 years together," Crowe said. "They move through young love, passionate love, turbulence, infidelity, jealousy and finally to reconciliation."
Watkins' and Crowe's Friday reading will also take a conversational tone, with the translators taking turns reading Yvan's and Claire's poems.
Though the project began some 10 years ago when Crowe stumbled onto a volume of Yvan Goll's poetry in a friend's bookcase, it took awhile to secure all the necessary releases to allow the new translation to be published, Watkins said.
White Pine Press includes the volume as part of a series called "Companions for the Journey," which the publisher describes as "inspirational work by well-known writers in a small-book format designed to be carried along on your journey through life."
Crowe is the author of several books of poetry and translations including The Laugharne Poems (published in Wales and written from the Dylan Thomas home in Laugharne, Wales) and Writing the Wind: A Celtic Resurgence, The New Celtic Poetry, which he edited. He helped resurrect Beatitude magazine in San Francisco during the 1970s, and was a founding editor of Katuah: A Bioregional Journal for the Southern Appalachians and former editor-at-large for Asheville Poetry Review. His literary archive has been purchased and is collected at the Duke University Special Collections Library.
Born and raised in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Watkins holds degrees in German from Oberlin College and Johns Hopkins University and studied music at the University of Munich and the Academy of Music in Vienna. A CD of her original compositions, The Laugharne Poems, another collaboration with Crowe, was released in 1995 by Fern Hill Records. Her German translations have appeared in numerous magazines and journals including Nexus, Dimension and the Asheville Poetry Review. Her travel memoir, East Toward Dawn: A Woman's Solo Journey Around the World, was published in 2002 by Seal Press/Avalon Books.
For more information about Friday's event, call City Lights at 586-9499.
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