Podcasts

I Wanted to Ask by Salome Benidze

Featuring: Salome Benidze, Helen Mort, Natalia Bukia-Peters

Poetry is an important part of Georgian literature, and dates back to the 4th century AD. The first known woman poets are Queen Borena and Queen Tamar, who reigned in medieval times. Contemporary Georgian women’s poetry has its origins in the Soviet period, when a new form of free verse appeared.

Salome Benidze is a poet, writer, blogger and translator. She has been nominated for and has received many prestigious awards, and her poems have been translated into more than 10 languages. She writes both in a traditional poetry mode and in free verse.

Salome’s poems are a journey through the dramatic historical and social changes in Georgia’s recent history and her own experience of life and love. They are conveyed in a rich and romantic language, highly charged with passion and love. In some ways, her work is a call for women’s voices to be taken more seriously.

If you enjoy this podcast and would like to support the work of the Poetry Translation Centre then please visit poetrytranslation.org/support-us.