Gabriel Rosenstock is the author/translator of over 150 books, including 13 volumes of poetry and a volume of haiku, as well as numerous books for children, mostly in Irish (Gaelic). Prose work includes fiction, essays in The Irish Times, radio plays and travel writing.
A member of Aosdána (the Irish Academy of Arts and Letters), he has given readings in Europe, South, Central and North America, India, Australia, Japan and has been published in various leading international journals including Akzente, Neue Rundschau, and die horen (Germany), Poetry (Chicago), World Haiku Review, Irish Pages, Poetry Ireland Review and Sirena. He has given readings at major festivals, including Berlin, Bremen, Struga (Macedonia), Vilenica (Slovenia), Medellín, Ars Poetica (Slovakia) and twice at the nomadic Kritya festival in India. Rosenstock taught haiku at the Schule für Dichtung (Poetry Academy) in Vienna. Among his awards is the Tamgha I Kidmat medal for services to literature.
He has brought out Irish-language versions and translations of among others, Francisco X. Alarcón, Seamus Heaney, Rabindranath Tagore, Günter Grass, W M Roggeman, Said, Zhāng Ye, Michele Ranchetti, Michael Augustin, Peter Huchel, Georg Trakl, Georg Heym, Hansjörg Schertenleib, Hilde Domin, Johann P. Tammen, Munir Niazi, Ko Un, Günter Kunert, Iqbal, Michael Krüger, Kristiina Ehin, Nikola Madzirov, Agnar Artúvertin, Walter Helmut Fritz, K. Satchidanandan, Elke Schmitter, Germain Droogenbroodt and Matthias Politycki as well as Irish-language versions of classical haiku and modern haiky by amongst others John W. Sexton (Ireland), J W Hackett (USA), Andres Ehin (Estonia), Petar Tchouhov (Bulgaria) and Janak Sapkota (Nepal).
Rosenstock is the Irish-language advisor for the poetry journal THE SHOp and a Foundation Associate of The Haiku Foundation. Rosenstock’s vast output includes plays, work for TV, novels and short stories, children’s literature in prose and verse, including Irish versions of such classics as The Gruffalo. Recent succcesful picture books include Sa Tóir ar an Yeití (Cló Mhaigh Eo) and his retelleings of ancient and medieval Indian tales, Birbal (Cló Iar-Chonnacht). He is the Irish-language translator with the new imprint Walker Éireann. Among the anthologies in which he is represented is Best European Fiction 2012 (Dalkey Archive Press, USA).
His Selected Poems / Rogha Dánta (Cló Iar-Chonnachta) appeared in 2005 and the the bilingual volume Bliain an Bhandé / Year of the Goddess came out in 2007 (Dedalus). He is the Irish translator of numerous films and TV shows including Watership Down and The Muppet Show. He is also well known as a translator of song lyrics into Irish by Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and others.
Two books on haiku as a way of life, Haiku Enlightenment and Haiku, the Gentle Art of Disappearing from Cambridge Scholars Publishing are available from Amazon. Uttering Her Name (Salmon Poetry) is his début volume of poems in English. Dialann Anama (2007) is an interactive diary drawing on the world’s wisdom traditions, mostly Advaita. The Pleasantries of Krishnamurphy is a new title from Non-Duality Press, www.non-dualitypress.org
May 2010
díríd ar ár bhfoinse –
ar ár dtriall
pirimidí
pointing to where we’ve come from
where we’re going
pyramids
Gleann na Ríthe
buidéil phlaisteacha a mhairfidh
míle bliain
Valley of the Kings
plastic bottles that will last
a thousand years
fear bréige
i ngort –
seargán beo!
a scarecrow
in a field –
a mummy come to life!
is é ag siúl thar reilig
luascann an t-asal
a eireaball
walking past the graveyard
a donkey
swishes his tail
ag teacht
is ag imeacht i gcéin –
meabhalscáil
coming and going
in the distance –
a mirage
An Níl um thráthnóna
ciúnas na gcrogall
nach bhfuil ann níos mó
The Nile in the evening
the silence of extinct
crocodiles
réalta an tráthnóna
ar léir di ón mball seo í?
Cléópátra
evening star
did she spy it from this spot?
Cleopatra
iairiglifí ar an uisce
startha amach anseo
ag leá
hieroglyphs on the water
future histories
vanishing
loiteog ag bláthú
san uisce is fós
sa chroí
a lotus blossoming
in the water
and in the heart
For other contributions by Gabriel Rosenstock, please follow the links below:
Poetry in this post: © Gabriel Rosenstock
(Original in Irish, translation to English by author)
Published with the permission of Gabriel Rosenstock