TRANSLATING TRANSLATING APOLLINAIRE — GALLIFREYAN (2021, Edition of 1)
The Canadian poet, bpNichol, once strove to translate the modern, French poem, ‘Zone’ (by Guillaume Apollinaire), but after failing to do so adequately, bpNichol decided to apply a series of procedural variations to his original drafting of the work, translating his translation (so to speak), revising it and altering it, using as many ‘recipes’ for writing as he could imagine, eventually publishing the collection of these results under the title Translating Translating Apollinaire. He then invited other poets to join him in this exercise.
‘Translating Translating Apollinaire – Gallifreyan’ adds to the repertoire of these interventions by creating a work of visual poetry, whose animation translates the poem by bpNichol into an alien argot: Gallifreyan — the imaginary, clockwork discourse, spoken by Doctor Who.