Friday Finds: Samira Negrouche’s ‘Alba Rosa’

Pleiades has published “Alba Rosa” bilingually, in Samira Negrouche’s originally French and Marilyn Hacker’s English translation, along with Negrouche reading from the French:

Alba Rosa was originally published in 2019, as a letterpress chapbook that includes artwork by Yves Olry, who also did the cover art for Hacker’s translation of Negrouche’s The Olive Trees’ Jazz and Other Poems. Pleiades writes:

We would like to honor the life of Yves Olry by sharing “Alba Rosa,” and some images of the chapbook’s artwork and letterpress process, as well as a video of Samira Negrouche reading the poem. 

The poem opens: “Tu n’as pas abandonné la maison / c’est la maison qui t’a abandonné” and “You didn’t leave home  / your home left you.”

Read the rest at Pleiades.

Also read:

Algerian Writer Samira Negrouche on Her 3 Mother Tongues, Translating Poetry, and Collaborative Writing

Samira Negrouche’s ‘Seven Little Jasmine Monologues’

Cover Reveal and 7 Poems: ‘The Olive Trees’ Jazz’

On Translation, Collaboration, and ‘Exploring the Impossible Between Us’