Sandra Alland
Biography
Sandra Alland is a writer, multimedia artist and activist. She has published and presented her work in Canada, the US, Mexico, Bermuda, the UK and Spain. Sandra has two full-length collections of poetry: Proof of a Tongue (McGilligan Books, 2004) and Blissful Times (BookThug, 2007). She is currently and perpetually obsessed with (mis)communication, between people and people, and between people and computers. Also a bookseller and micropress publisher, Sandra advocates for the protection and nourishment of independent publishers and bookstores.
Poet's Note
Do we, any of us, speak the same language? With Blissful Times, I try to find out. The collection is 63 “translations” of one poem, mainly from English to English.
I want to discover how many ways there are to say one thing, to see how much of herself the translator inserts (knowingly or unknowingly), to reexamine what constitutes an “accurate” translation (or understanding), to trace the presence of the original text and writer through the process, and to create dialogue between various texts. And hopefully also to write poems that are engaging and moving, even if the reader knows nothing about the process...
In other news, I have fibromyalgia, which has forced me to use voice-activated software for most of my writing. Recently, I have begun to write poems in collaboration with my computer, which likes to take poetic license with my words (based on its careful and scientific study of my personality and documents). Is it possible that computer software, unburdened with human frailty and fear, says what I want to say better than me?
External Link
Alland's site (includes online translations of poems from Blissful Times)