Joe Winter is a British

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

, literary critic and

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

of poetry. A recent long poem is '' At the Tate Modern''. His translations of the Bengali poets

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

and

Jibanananda Das Jibanananda Das () (17 February 1899 – 22 October 1954) was an Indian poet, writer, novelist and essayist in the Bengali language. Popularly called "Rupashi Banglar Kabi'' ('Poet of Beautiful Bengal'), Das is the most read poet after Rabindr ...

are published by Carcanet Press, and his versions in modern English of the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf and the Middle English poem

Pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium carb ...

are with Sussex Academic Press. SAP has also published '' Two Loves I Have: a new reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnets'' and '' Hide Fox'', ''and All After: What lies concealed in Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'?''

Biography

Winter was born in 1943 and educated at

Magdalen College School, Oxford Magdalen College School (MCS) is a public school (English independent day school) in Oxford, England, for boys aged seven to eighteen and for girls in the sixth form. It was founded by William Waynflete about 1480 as part of Magdalen College ...

and

Exeter College, Oxford (Let Exeter Flourish) , old_names = ''Stapeldon Hall'' , named_for = Walter de Stapledon, Bishop of Exeter , established = , sister_college = Emmanuel College, Cambridge , rector = Sir Richard Trainor ...

. He taught

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

in London

comprehensive schools A comprehensive school typically describes a secondary school for pupils aged approximately 11–18, that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude, in contrast to a selective school system where admission is re ...

from 1967 to 1994, when he went to live in

Calcutta, India Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comm ...

(now

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

), returning to England in 2006. While in India he taught part-time in a variety of schools, wrote articles of literary and general interest (in particular for ''

The Statesman A statesman or stateswoman typically is a politician who has had a long and respected political career at the national or international level. Statesman or Statesmen may also refer to: Newspapers United States * ''The Statesman'' (Oregon), a n ...

'' of

), and translated a number of volumes of the poetry and prose of

and the poetry of

from the

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

original (see website Publications), having learnt

during the period. Back in England he continues to teach, and now does so part-time. He has never stopped writing poetry.

Literary works

Winter began to write poetry in 1961. His first book publication was ''A Miracle'' ''and'' ''the Tree'' with Anvil Press in 1972. While in India he wrote literary articles and general essays for the press, in particular ''The Statesman'' of Kolkata.

Writers Workshop Writers Workshop is a Kolkata-based literary publisher founded by the Indian poet and scholar Purushottama Lal in 1958. It has published many new Indian authors of post-independence urban literature. Many of these authors later became widely k ...

of Kolkata has brought out all his original poetry (currently 21 volumes). Winter is gradually uploading all his original poetry onto his website.

Calcutta poems

Winter composed a number of poems during his Calcutta life some of which have been published under the title ''Guest and Host''. The book cover suggests they record 'the experience of being welcomed into the household of another country'. They appear to deal with the commonplace and to touch on the numinous. The volume comprises four long poems. The first is a sonnet-sequence, ''Guest and Host''; the next, ''Earthquake at Kutch,'' is a response in five parts to the 2001 disaster in Gujarat. ''The Undefeated'' is a first-person ''Memoir of an old Indian Infantry Officer of the British Raj'' (so subtitled at the subject's request). The concluding poem, ''Meditation on the Goddess'', is an exploration of the annual festival in celebration of the goddess Durga in the state of West Bengal. The last-mentioned poem begins:

Goddess, Durga, lightning-eyed in the dark fortnight of the moon, mother, daughter, maiden, bride, come. Invisibly you ride a lion to the noble house of first belonging. Mountainous it is, and river-full, and wide. Come ''Grant me beauty, glory, fame and destroy my enemy.'' Mother Durga, who appears like the sun at burning noon, whose sidelong looks will hurtle spears through enemy hearts --- yet whose light rears the heart in pure leaf --- come to us, revisiting your first-born house. We wait in joy, we wait in tears. Come ''Grant me beauty, glory, fame and destroy my enemy.''

Translations

In addition to poetry of his own, Winter has published translations of

's ''

Gitanjali __NOTOC__ ''Gitanjali'' ( bn, গীতাঞ্জলি, lit='Song offering') is a collection of poems by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore received the Nobel Prize for Literature, for the English translation, Gitanjali:'' Song Off ...

'' (as ''

Song Offerings ''Song Offerings'' ( bn, গীতাঞ্জলি) is a volume of lyrics by Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore, rendered into English by the poet himself, for which he was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize in Literature. Contents ''Song Offerin ...

''), '' Lipika'' and other works. ''

'' is Nobel Laureate Tagore's most famous volume: Winter's was the first lyrical poem-by-poem rendition of the entire Bengali original. In collaboration with

Devadatta Joardar Devadatta was by tradition a Buddhist monk, cousin and brother-in-law of Gautama Siddhārtha. The accounts of his life vary greatly, but he is generally seen as an evil and divisive figure in Buddhism, who led a breakaway group in the ea ...

he has also translated Tagore's autobiographical essays '' Atmaparichay'' under the title '' Of Myself''.Of Myself (Atmaparichay) by Rabindranath Tagore tr. Devadatta Joardar and Joe Winter
/ref> Winter translated '' Rupasi Bangla'' of poet

under the title of ''

Bengal the Beautiful Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...

''. Further versions of his of the poems of Jibanananda have been collected in the volume '' Naked Lonely Hand''. He has also rendered 25 of the songs of Lalan Fakir into English. Winter's ''

The Golden Boat ''The Golden Boat'' is a 1990 American low-budget film directed by Chilean filmmaker Raúl Ruiz. Shot in New York City, ''The Golden Boat'' is Ruiz's first film produced in the United States and has been categorized as an absurdist black comedy ...

'' (title derived from Tagore's Bengali volume Sonaar Tori), a wide-ranging collection of Tagore poems in English translation, has been published by Anvil Press (now with Carcanet Press). The texts of Winter's translations are available from the relevant publishers (see website). In addition versions of a few ballads of the mediaeval French poet Francois Villon and some poems from the Bengali of Rachana Kobira appear in the volumes of his original poetry, respectively ''Zimbabwe in August'' and ''Lalon Fakir at the Kolkata Book Fair''.

Publications

Writers Workshop, Kolkata, have brought out all of Winter's original poetry in 21 books (to date). He published ''Calcutta Song'' (Sahitya Samsad Kolkata and Peridot Press UK) which is an account in prose and poetry of living in Kolkata for twelve years. He has translated a notable amount of Bengali poetry into English. This includes: ''Gitanjali'' (the full original ''Gitanjali'' by Rabindranath Tagore), ''The Golden Boat'' (a selection of Tagore's poems from first to last), ''Of Myself'' (Tagore's ''Atmaparichay'', co-translated with Devadatta Joardar), ''Naked Lonely Hand'' (a selection of the poems of Jibanananda Das), ''Bengal the Beautiful'' (translation of ''Rupasi Bangla'' by Jibanananda Das), ''Dark'' (poems of Susmita Bhattacharya) and ''Lipika'' (a volume of prose poems and short stories by Tagore). Carcanet Press has his Tagore and Das translations, and ''Guest and Host'' and ''A Miracle and The Tree''. Sussex Academic Press publish his two critical works on Shakespeare and his transcreations of ''Beowulf'' and ''Pearl''. Writers Workshop (Kolkata) in addition to all his original poetry publish a number of other works of his, including ''An Enquiry into Poetic Method'' (see website).

References

External links

London Magazine
{{DEFAULTSORT:Winter, Joe 1943 births Living people Schoolteachers from London Bengali–English translators Bengali poetry in English translation English male poets