Each episode of This is Not a Poem delves into the intricacies of translation, poetry, and language.

Host, Elliott KB often talks with a featured poet or translator about the craft of translation and the many poets who capture our hearts in both French and English.

This week on This is Not a Poem, host Elliott KB and poet Camille Adnot discuss William Blake and his dark poem A poison tree.

They reckon with the poem’s message on the consequences of bottled up emotions and revenge, the difficulty of translating simplicity, and how for William Blake, text and image were one. 

Guest Speaker

Camille Adnot is a poet and academic, having just defended thesis on English poet William Blake at Université Paris Cité. Currently teaching at Université Paris-Est Créteil, her French and English language poetry has been published in magazines such as the Opiate and Paris Lit Up. She also performs at the Poetry Brothel, an international immersive literary cabaret.

Our Host

In Paris via New York and Iowa, Elliott KB is a poet and translator whose work explores themes of estrangement, place, body, gender and intimacy. They have published award-winning poetry in online and print publications alike, and currently work both in the publishing industry and as a professional translator. A part of an interdisciplinary artistic scene, they have now joined the world of radio to host This is Not a Poem.

This week on This is not a poem, host Elliott KB speaks with Ariane Lefauconnier about Ukrainian poet Ella Yevtouchenko’s poem Sans Bric-à-Brac.

They discuss working with other translators as a publisher or editor, translating through multiple languages, as well as nostalgia and childhood in poetry.

Guest Speaker

Ariane Lefauconnier is a poet and editor, currently working at Éditions Bruno Doucey. In 2020, she co-founded 10pagesaucarre with Flora Monnin, which promotes poetry from the young generation in a unique format: 10-page editions in a square format. All poets under the associative publishing house are under-35 year old, with the aim of bringing poetry to a large audience. 

Who is Ella Yevtouchenko

Young Kyiv born poet Ella Yevtouchenko works as a translator adapting poetry and prose from English and French into Ukrainian, as well as Ukrainian poetry into French and English. In 2022, she was the main translator for the anthology Ukraine – 24 poètes pour un pays, which was “born out of the war in Ukraine”. Her poem Sans Bric-à-Brac was published in the collection Au cœur de la maison by Éditions Bruno Doucey in 2023, bringing us into her home in Ukraine.

Our Host

In Paris via New York and Iowa, Elliott KB is a poet and translator whose work explores themes of estrangement, place, body, gender and intimacy. They have published award-winning poetry in online and print publications alike, and currently work both in the publishing industry and as a professional translator. A part of an interdisciplinary artistic scene, they have now joined the world of radio to host This is Not a Poem.

This week, host Elliott KB and World Radio Paris’ own Yannick Champion-Osselin discuss Jewish poet and photographer Claude Cahun, and their poem Prisonnier du verbe.

As Elliott is the translator behind an English version of the poem, Prisoner of language, we discussed how the poem shrugs off the shackles of the traditional poetic form, the text’s multitude of binaries and art as political in the historical context of the resistance against German occupation.

Our Host
In Paris via New York and Iowa, Elliott KB is a poet and translator whose work explores themes of estrangement, place, body, gender and intimacy. They have published award-winning poetry in online and print publications alike, and currently work both in the publishing industry and as a professional translator. A part of an interdisciplinary artistic scene, they have now joined the world of radio to host This is Not a Poem.

Guest Speaker
With years of bilingual education under his belt and a taste for literature and culture, Franco-British WRP journalist Yannick Champion-Osselin is both a producer and occasional co-host of This is Not a Poem.

This week in This is not a poem Elliott KB speaks with poet and translator Patrick Williamson about the marks translation leaves on a poetic text, the challenge of writing to a theme, and the unique relationship each translator has with a source text and its author.

Having been translated into multiple languages, including French and Italian, Patrick Williamson describes how each language has a different poetic impact, the references that inspired his latest poems, and how his translator Guido Cupani truly understands his poetic voice.

This week in This is not a poem Elliott KB looks into American poet Mary Oliver’s Spring alongside poet and artist Clairette Durand-Gasselin, who has a personal translation of the text.

Bringing up questions like “why does this poem make me cry?” and “how do we translate the untranslatable?”, they discuss how a person’s reading of a poem can be intimately personal, the beauty of nature, and how seemingly plain English can evoke overwhelming emotions. 

This week in This is not a poem we discussed poetic snobbery, literary assumptions and cultural perspectives between the English and French language. We asked “what is a poem?”, and where can we find fun while engaging with art?

We discuss the poem Ceci n’est pas un poeme by Brian Bilston and consider it as translated into French by Yannick Champion-Osselin.