The Lone Wolfe: Interview with a poet part II

I caught up earlier this year with Roger Wolfe, a bilingual poet with roots in Alicante and Kent. He told me about his upbringing in Alicante and studies in Kent, as well as his rationale behind writing in Spanish. Here is the second part of our discussion, where we talked about the merits of translation, whether literary movements will still happen in the twenty first century, and Roger’s latest projects.

Image credit: Roger Wolfe

Looking forward to the next year, many language students will be scratching their brains over translation and finding the “right answer” to convey a sentiment in another language. But can we ever really translate a work into another language, or do we have to accept that some element will be lost.

Octavio Paz said translation was metaphor. A translated work is indeed another work, meaning a different work. Yes, it’s possible to recreate the same work in another language, and that in fact is what the best translations do. But the key word here is ‘recreate’. You’ve got to get in there and rip the guts out of the original, and then put it back together, so that it sounds right, and natural, in the new language. In the end it’s a different work, technically, but the spirit is, or should remain, the same. Even if the original author might not recognise his own baby if he had the chance to get a proper look at it.

Translating other authors is just part of Roger’s work, and his own creative work is rich and varied. Keen to find out from an author who appears to defy definition, I asked him about his views on literary movements.

“I’ve never conceded them the slightest importance. They usually have more to do with the creation of power groups and pressure groups, and the safeguarding of special interests, and getting certain people into print and into positions of power. Literature, like everything else, is in the hands of cliques, and different groups of more or less powerful ruling elites. Literary movements have served a purpose, in addition to that, in the past. I’m thinking about Surrealism, for instance, or German Expressionism. It’s not all bad. There’s a legacy there – a freeing up of discourse, and the potential for breaking new ground and introducing things that had never been done in exactly the same way before.”

“Of course, that can also be achieved by single writers who operate as ‘lone wolves’ (as in my case). It’s much more difficult, and recognition is not usually forthcoming until the author in question is either very old or dead – but such is the nature of things. Literary movements today, like practically everything else that has to do with so-called ‘minorities’ and ‘collectives’ of every shade and hue, are nothing but pressure groups struggling for power and influence.”

Image credit: Roger Wolfe

It seemed to me that with his latest work, Roger was taking a step away from the creative scene. I wondered if this was just the natural cycle of an author’s work, or whether it was a conscious progression to the next stage of his career.

“I’ve always combined genres. I’ve recently finished a long creative effort, as it happens: the first volume of my memoirs, which I’m writing in the form of a long biographical novel which should take up several books, by the time it’s finished. I plan on writing about five volumes, covering a span of time that will reach from my earliest childhood to about the age of 40. This first volume covers my childhood, from my earliest experiences until the age of 14. It’s been a wonderful experience, although it has taken years, and a huge effort, to write.”

“My main problem as a writer of long narrative projects is combining the writing with my bread-and-butter work (translations, interpreting), which gobbles up about 70% of my time. So I’m forced to get up at the crack of dawn and work in the very early hours of the morning, every day for months or years, if I really want to get anything serious done. The hard life of the struggling writer! A familiar story if there ever was one.”

In addition to his ongoing autobiography, I wanted to know what was next for the author: “A ‘megabook’ of aphorisms, short pieces, fragments, micro-essays and sundry reflections collected over the last five years. There’ll be a bit of everything in there, as there has been in some of my celebrated ‘patchwork’ books in the past. But this one’s going to be a whacker. It will even include all the material I wrote on Twitter and Facebook during the brief spells I ran an account on those social media in 2012.”

 

Marie Notermans

Visit Roger’s website here.

Follow @exeposearts on Twitter and like us on Facebook here.

 

 

Ditch the bitch?

Photo credits to rihannafentyforum.com

Ali Lines discusses the use of loaded words in the music industry today.

I’m a bad bitch, no muzzle. (Minaj, Nicki, Pound The Alarm, 2012)

White girl team full of bad bitches. (Azalea, Iggy, My World , 2011)

You are now-now rocking with, will.i.am and Britney, bitch. (Spears, Britney, Scream & Shout, 2012)

On September 2nd 2012, Kanye West mused on his twitter whether the term ‘bitch’ was now acceptable in the world of hip-hop, and whether the word now had positive connotations – “Is it ok to use bitch as long as we put BAD in front of it? Like you a BAD BITCH” – positive enough at least that he considered it a term of endearment when creating the track “Perfect Bitch” for his now pregnant girlfriend Kim Kardashian. The question is: can ‘bitch’ ever really be acceptable in the music world?

Notable parallels are drawn between the positive re-branding of the word ‘bitch’ and the reclamation of the word ‘nigger by black artists. As a derivative of the Spanish/Portuguese word ‘negro’, ‘nigger’ was originally used to describe African slaves shipped out to American colonies in the early 17th century. In its early days, the word carried little weight and was used as a simple descriptor. Its impact remained fairly neutral up until the mid 19th century; however, after the civil war and the abolition of slavery in the United States, the word gained an altogether more negative, derogatory meaning, evocative of a time when white masters still had control over black slaves. With the emergence of the Black Civil Rights movement, and figureheads like Martin Luther King, black activists fought to shake off the ‘nigger’ tag which had become inextricably associated with the inequality between black and white Americans, favouring the term ‘African-American’ instead.

Despite the torment affixed to the term, in the late 80s and early 90s, ‘nigger’ or ‘nigga’ witnessed a rebirth with the increased popularity of gangsta rap and hip-hop, perhaps the best example of this being Compton gangsta-rap outfit “Niggaz Wit Attitude”, and their frequent employment of the word. Many explanations have been given as to why the word became so ubiquitous in rap music – from a shared sense of irony between rapper and audience, to its “undertones of warmth and goodwill – reflecting…a tragicomic sensibility that is aware of black history (Dictionary of Afro-American Slang)”, as well as a desire amongst Afro-Americans to fully reclaim it for themselves, and thus rid it of any negative meaning which white people had previously attached to it. The debate still rumbles on today about whether ‘nigger’ is appropriate to use in popular black culture, with some arguing that no amount of appropriation of can relieve the word of its own violent history.

Regardless of its usage in the black community, decorum surrounding white usage of the word is even less clear – with hip-hop flooding the charts more than ever, white youths have become the biggest consumers of the genre in the US, and this has raised several significant dilemmas: should white people be able to say it when rapping along? Or even use it as a throwaway greeting, as has become increasingly commonplace between friends of different races? Notably, the most famous white MC, Eminem, refused to use ‘nigger’, despite being held dear by his black peers in the rap group D12. Similarly, Deep South artist Yelawolf shares the same view as Eminem – “As a white rapper, it’s always been a big no-no. But as a human being, it’s been an even bigger no-no.” This was in reaction to West Coast female white rapper V-Nasty “dropping the n-bomb” as well as fellow Deep South white rapper Paul Wall’s generous application of the word.

The dispute surrounding ‘bitch’ echoes the issues surrounding ‘nigger’ – a formerly pejorative term that has been reclaimed by one group for their own self-empowerment, but nevertheless, a term whose employment can still divide opinion. ‘Bitch’, simply put, is a female dog, a word which has its roots in the Old Norse language, and emerged in Britain in the 11th century. The word gained its negative connotations in the 14th century according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and the 1811 “Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue” defines ‘bitch’ as:

BITCH. A she dog, or doggess; the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of whore.

The word retained its negative association well into the 20th century. Going back to early 90s gangsta-rap, ‘bitch’ became an all-embracing term for a gold-digging, sexually promiscuous, overly-demanding woman, and this was no more evident than on Dr. Dre’s 1992 track Bitches Ain’t Shit, which includes the lyrics “ How could you trust a hoe? Cause a hoe’s a trick. We don’t love them tricks, cause a trick’s a bitch.” As a reaction to this, many 90s black female artists took a determined position against rap’s misogynistic portrayal of women, like Mary J. Blige and Lauryn Hill espousing values of strength and independence, or rappers like Lil Kim and Missy Elliott going on the offensive to belittle male haters – with Kim declaring on her song Queen Bitch “Most of y’all niggaz can’t eat without per diem, I’m rich, Ima stay that bitch”.

The turn of the millennium, saw a shift in the word’s meaning, with a similar re-appropriation of ‘bitch’ by women to that of ‘nigger’ by the black community. The emergence of strong female characters like Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama turned the previous meaning of ‘bitch’ on its head – headstrong, ambitious women, who challenge the male-orientated status quo. This brings us up to date at the start of 2013, where female rappers have stamped their authority on the word, none more so than chart-resident Nicki Minaj, who frequently reminds her listeners that she is a “bad bitch”. Additionally, “thinking man’s rapper” Lupe Fiasco took a strong stance in his 2012 single Bitch Bad, condemning hip-hop’s subjugation of women. Regardless of this, ‘bitch’ remains a core expression in male rappers’ lyrics, but as is the case with white people using “the n-word”, men using ‘bitch’ still leaves a strange taste in the mouth and harks back to the time of Dre’s “tricks and hoes”. This is evident in Big Sean’s first line in recent single Clique – “I tell a bad bitch do whatever I say” – plus points for using the supposedly respectable “bad bitch”, but again hinting at the term’s rather submissive and male-dominant past with his consequent words.

Despite the re-seizure of both ‘nigger’ and ‘bitch’ by black people and women respectively, question marks remain over their widespread usage. Now that both words are recurrent in modern hip-hop, both terms seem to have gained certain legitimacy, which has led to confusion over who can use it authoritatively, and in what context. Asking black and female music stars to completely drop the terms from their vocabularies is almost certainly an impossible task, and raises more important issues of impinging on artists’ freedom of expression. More importantly, as for white people using ‘nigger’ and men using ‘bitch’, both groups have the undeniable human right to freedom of speech, but must understand the damage done when language is used out of context or with malicious intentions, and how it perpetuates the age-old problems of racism and sexism which are out of place in modern society. It seems that Kanye’s musings were correct – the usage of ‘bitch’/’nigger’ is patently not black and white, and the grey area in which it currently resides does not seem to be getting any clearer.