Tag Archives: Poetry
Hothouse Flower: Olvido García Valdés’s And We Were All Alive, translated by Catherine Hammond
Reviewed by Jessica Sequeira “There were those who compared her to Santa Teresa, others who said she was too serious, even sullen, and people who swore her pride was chilling to those who met her,” wrote Roberto Bolaño of Olvido García Valdés. When he read her work, however, it “dazzled [him] the way that only […]
“island under our skin”: tasks by Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, translated by Katherine M. Hedeen
Reviewed by Kelsi Vanada I often find myself explaining my desire to translate by expressing that it is an inherently collaborative project, one in which my voice gets to support another’s. tasks, which was longlisted for the 2017 Best Translated Book Award, is the most recent, luminous product of years of collaboration between poet Víctor […]
Kernel of the Future: Hirato Renkichi’s Spiral Staircase, Translated by Sho Sugita
Reviewed by Jordan A. Y. Smith Spiral Staircase, an engaging collection of poems and works by the dynamo of Japanese futurism, Hirato Renkichi, ably fulfills the translator and editor’s declared mission: “providing English-language readers a focused survey of Hirato’s life-long literary output” (8). Considering the brevity of his life (1893-1922), Hirato accomplished much, experimenting with […]
Forrest Gander on editing untranslatable poet Yoshimasu Gozo
Yoshimasu Gozo is a one-of-a-kind artist. While he’s usually referred to as a poet, such a categorization almost always comes with some sort of qualification. His work is often called “unconventional” or “unorthodox.” Others stress that his poetry draws heavily from performance, music, and/or multimedia art. In a word, he writes the sort of poetry that’s […]
Invisible Currents: Kyn Taniya’s Radio, Translated by David Shook
Reviewed by Brian McLaughlin As Arthur C. Clarke famously stated, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” a claim which has obviously assumed the status of proverb, not only in science fiction but also in any vein of cultural criticism. Yet, as early as 1924, Mexican poet Kyn Taniya was already demonstrating the truth […]
Burnt Generation: Alireza Taheri Araghi’s anthology of Seven Younger Iranian Poets
Reviewed by Fatemeh Madani Sarbarani At first I was reluctant to read I Am a Face Sympathizing with Your Grief, an anthology of seven younger Iranian poets edited and translated by Alireza Taheri Araghi, thinking that the book, like many others, would be a dark representation of Iran or the Middle East. This representation seems […]
Truths Juxtaposed: Kim Kyung Ju’s I Am a Season That Does Not Exist in the World, Translated by Jake Levine
Reviewed by Heather Lang I Am a Season That Does Not Exist in the World by Kim Kyung Ju, as translated from the Korean by Jake Levine, is a raucous and surrealist read. Yet, this poetry collection remains anchored in the natural world. Our physical world is, for the most part, unyielding, and oftentimes its concreteness feels […]
Subverted Eden: Poems by Ramón López Velarde, Translated by M.W. Jacobs
Reviewed by Charlotte Whittle Ramón López Velarde enjoys the status of a national poet in Mexico, where his best-known work, “Suave patria” (Gentle Homeland), is recited in classrooms across the country. Yet López Velarde’s work is all but unknown to English-language readers. López Velarde, who was active around the time of the Mexican Revolution, came […]
Two to One: Periscope’s Eastern European Poets in Translation
Reviewed by Lucina Schell, Editor Periscope, a new imprint of A Midsummer Night’s Press focusing on poetry in translation by women, launched in 2014 against long odds. Among the 3% of books published in the United States which are translations, only 26% of works from all languages and genres are by women writers. Periscope’s first […]
Not One: Asymmetries. Anthology of Peruvian Poetry by Cardboard House Press
Reviewed by Charlotte Whittle Asymmetries, an anthology of Peruvian poetry produced by new bilingual press Cardboard House, introduces readers to an extraordinary diversity of voices that represent the course of Peruvian poetry since the post-avant-garde moment of the 1940s. Edited by Paul Guillén, Giancarlo Huapaya, Cristian Medina, and Maggie Messerschmidt, the collection includes the work […]
