ANNE STEWART


     Romanian visitors, a UK tour, a bilingual anthology and CD all at the same time, and a local poetry adjudication to deal with in the middle... Had I bitten off more than I could chew? Was it all going to go disastrously wrong?

On my way to Heathrow, despite the eeriness of there being hardly any traffic on the M25, I was somewhat comforted by the knowledge that the And the Story So Far CDs were in hand and that the anthology, And the Story Isn’t Over, having been delayed by (luckily minor) print problems, was due in the next day, 19th March; but still, our first poetry pRO Romanian UK Tour 2009 reading event was set for the 20th – talk about tight! So, what an immense relief it was, given that I’d promised Lidia Vianu I’d look after them every step of the way and return them without a scratch and in full working order, to see Lavinia Zainea and Elena Nistor coming safely through the arrivals gate.

And Lo! the M25 was again fast-moving and the anthologies were delivered unto us the next day. So began 14 days of the craziest good luck any tour organiser could wish for.

Lavinia and Elena brought with them a ‘good luck’ gift – a beautiful brooch, the traditional Romanian spring ‘good luck’ offering to ladies. We travelled 1,000 miles, most of it on the M25 and M1, without significant incident; but for one jam on the M25 and, even then, the luck held out. We were bang in the middle of the Queen Elizabeth Bridge, high over the Thames, late at night, and came to a complete standstill which enabled Elena, a keen photographer, to get some fantastic shots of the hundreds of cars, ranks and ranks of them in both directions, red brake-lights on the cars in front and white headlights on the cars heading for the Dartford tunnel – and we were stopped only just long enough for the shots to be taken.

We read at Camden, York, Cambridge, Teddington and Southsea and the Romanian Cultural Institute hosted the Grand Finale in Belgrave Square, inviting us to join the Enescu Society Young Musicians concert (which was superb) after the reading. None of the poets cancelled – thank you, Poets, particularly Carolyn O’Connell who, having been taken into hospital with broken bones just 2 days before the Camden event, had the foresight and selflessness not only to let me know, but to arrange for another of the poets to read on her behalf; all read beautifully, as did Lavinia and Elena, representing all the poetry pRO translators, and all the venues were well organised and promoted – thank you, Organisers.

When we weren’t travelling, we were working. 3 lap-tops, all busying away on my dining table – 4 at one point. Lavinia and Elena prepared over 100 poems for the readings, liaising with the 20+ poets about which poems would be read and fine-tuning the translations. We re-planned and finalised the details of the translation workshop we were to present at the University of Middlesex, which included a change in the ‘introducing the concept’ poem we would use. This resulted in Lavinia making a last-minute translation of a little-known poem called “Paradise Lost” – little known because it’s the wonderful 12 line version in rhyming couplets written by Noel Petty. I was pleased to note she tittered as she worked, a good sign that the poem was the right choice for our introduction!

Aside from reading at the Middlesex event, the poets there sat in with the workgroups as ‘mentors’. Katherine Gallagher did a remarkable job of concealing her knowledge of the poem being translated, her own poem “Circus Apprentice”, which she dutifully and graciously revealed – leaving her ‘team-mates’ suitably non-plussed – after the workgroups had read their translations and talked about their engagement with the process.

We even found time to produce a little basketful of I’m poetry pRO buttons (badges, fridge magnets etc) to offer the readers and organisers and for sale at the events.
It was very rewarding to have played my part in all of this. All the pre-planning, planning, re-planning, putting together the anthology, figuring out how to produce the cd, and all the correspondence with poets and publishers, organisers, advertisers – our one £250 sponsor, Arc Publications (thank you, Tony) – and all the while knowing something would go wrong and need some pretty fancy footwork on the night... But I wore the beautiful brooch everywhere we went and nothing went wrong. Amazing.

As well as all the tour events, we managed to fit in a few other things. A wander round York (sunny, paid a visit to the cathedral) and Cambridge (cold wind and drizzle) and some sightseeing in Southsea: a walk along the beach with Maggie Sawkins and her dog, Millie (who we’d happily have dog-napped – Millie, that is!), visits to old Portsmouth and the Spinnaker Tower, fish and chips – really good – in a traditional English pub by the sea. We made a traditional English meal too (Shepherd’s pie, duly photographed by Elena!), went to Poetry Unplugged at the Poetry Café in Covent Garden, visited the Shortlands Poetry Circle to join their poetry appreciation reading on the topic of “Colour” and Lavinia and Elena also attended the adjudication event I was committed to (The Bromley Festival of Music and Speech), and all the while we were sending back little reports to Lidia on how the events were going.

And when it was all over, after all the hugs and ‘miss you’s at the airport, the eerie feeling of being in a road movie coming to an end, what an immense relief it was to hear from Lavinia and Elena when they were home safe in Bucharest. Our email chatter has increased significantly – long may it continue!

Of course, something did have to go wrong. I’ve just discovered I’ve put the wrong ISBN number on the anthology. Oops, never mind, it’s hardly going to crash the world economy... oh, wait, that’s already happened. Anyway, I still have 180 copies of the anthology for sale. If they sell, I break even on the costs... (hint hint and wink wink). Next time, we do it with proper funding so we can pay the poets and readers!