Transcending Translation: A UNESCO Transcultura Experience

Barbadian poet Cyndi Celeste at the Marché de la poésie in Paris, France, June 2023: discovering how not to get (too) lost in translation.  Photo Copyright © 2023 by Kamille John.  

 

THE CONVERSATION between me and the Vincentian and Grenadian participants in the departure lounge of the Grantley Adams International Airport is a triadic harmony. This is our first meeting, and we are speaking in the same language. 

The cause célèbre, ironically, is translation.

Two Poems from Girl Before Country

 

Blind Date

My Black
and my Caribbean
walk into a room
and the air is
still

My Black breaks the silence first
and says: "Wassup, where you from, fam?"
to root itself in the present
where it has made a home for itself
in places meant to be its hell