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  • Kratka je bila
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Kratka je bila

Milan Jesih

Kratka je bila
noč,
dan jo je
malo podaljšal.


Milan Jesih

from Usta (Ljubljana: Založba Mladinska knjiga, 1985)

Reproduced by permission of the author and translators.

Tags:

Estonian Irish Gaelic night Scots Slovenian Translations Welsh

Translations of this Poem

Short wis...

Translator: Matthew Fitt


Short wis the nicht,
the day has
wrocht it
a bittockie langer.

Short was...

Translator: Milan Jesih


Short was
the night,
the day has
lengthened it a bit.

Lühike...

Translator: Doris Kareva


Lühike
oli öö,
päev pikendas seda
pisut.

Byr fu’r...

Translator: Mererid Puw Davies


Byr fu’r
nos;
estynnodd
y dydd rhyw arlliw arni.

bu ghoirid...

Translator: Rody Gorman


bu ghoirid
an oidhche –
chaidh a cur am faid
leis an là gu ìre

About this poem

‘Voyages & versions / Tursan is Tionndaidhean’ was the title of the translation workshop run by the Scottish Poetry Library and Literature Across Frontiers 12-18 May 2003. The group consisted of Petr Borkovec (Czech Republic), Mererid Puw Davies (Wales), Jakub Ekier (Poland), Matthew Fitt (Scotland), Rody Gorman (Scotland), Milan Jesih (Slovenia),  Doris Kareva (Estonia), Esther Kinsky (England) and Aled Llion (Wales). The group spent days at Moniack Mhor writing centre in the Highlands, returned to the Library in Edinburgh and went up to Dundee Contemporary Arts, and gave multi-lingual readings, producing what was, in effect, an hour’s sound-poem. Several of the poets mentioned their sense of renewed faith in poetry – how refreshed they felt by the chance to look closely at their own and others’ work in company with people whose aesthetics might be quite different but whose skills and passion were recognisably similar.

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Milan Jesihb.1950

Milan Jesih, born in Ljubljana, Slovenia, is a poet, playwright and translator who studied comparative literature in Ljubljana. In the 1960s he was a member of an avant-garde literary-performance group. Now a freelance writer and winner of the Prešeren...
More about Milan Jesih

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