NYS Writers Institute: Rosa Alice Branco & Alexis Levitin, April 3

Over the last 30 plus years the NYS Writers Institute has presented free programs of readings & seminars of world-class writers that are free & open to the local community, helping to create & foster a literary culture within our diverse artistic community. This is a gift from from Albany writer William Kennedy & of a string of directors & dedicated staff. The current Director, Paul Grondahl, & his staff are continuing this tradition & the program this particular afternoon was an example of the quality & reach of international writers that the Writers Institute brings to the Capital Region.

On this day, we gathered in the Standish Room of the Science Library, standing-room only with many students, as well as community members, in attendance. Two students in the UAlbany Portuguese Program provided a bi-linguial introduction.  Rosa Alice Branco, a Portuguese poet, read from her book Cattle of the Lord (Milkweed Editions, 2016), translated by Alexis Levitin, a distinguished professor at SUNY Plattsburgh. I had first heard Professor Levitin here in 1988 reading his translations with the late Portuguese poet Eugenio deAdrade.

Rosa Alice Branco (right), Paulina Almeida (left)

Throughout the reading there was an engaging back-&-forth between the writer & the translator &, ultimately, with the audience. Senhorita Branco read a generous selection of poems from her book, each of her poems in Portuguese preceded by Prof. Levitin’s translations. I was fascinated by the music of the words, looking at the text in Portuguese while listening to the poet read. Her poems frequently used images from the Christian New Testament & tradition, though not in a religious way, but in unexpected, often everyday usage, such as in the poem “Proof of the Soul” in which the first line is “You left the resurrection half undone.” Her poems contained images of death (“graves”), meat, sex, love, dogs (“The Dog That Had Me”), even a cat poem (“Only the Cats”). Paulina Almeida, dancer & performance artist, joined in to accent some of the poems with her voice or body movement, most notably on the humorous “The Vespas of Palermo” that is punctuated by the “bzz” of the scooters named after wasps. It was a thoroughly entertaining reading/performance by 3 actors in 2 languages, three if you count dance as a language.

Alexis Levitin

Normally I find the Q&A sessions at the end of readings tedious, but again Senhorita Branco & Prof. Levitin were informative, helpful, & humorous in their responses. Branco telling us she has been reading voraciously since she was 4 year old, thus the influences on her writing are many & varied; she praised her working relationship with Levitin, but was frank in saying she did not like her French translator's versions of her poems. To a student’s question about jobs in translation Levitin was also frank about that while you will not make much money it will be good for you, your soul, if that’s what you want to do. He too talked about the pleasure of translating Branco’s poems, & how helpful she was in the process. It was inspiring to hear these two artists talk about their working together.

This was one of the best readings I’d been to in some time & the joy continues as I return to the poems of Rosa Alice Branco, & the translations of Alexis Levitin, in their book Cattle of the Lord.

For more information about the NYS Writers Institute's programs you can find it at their website https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/index.html