Tag Archives: Poetry
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 […]
The Invisible Swell: José-Flore Tappy’s Sheds
Reviewed by Emily Thompson To hold an author’s complete works between two fingers is wonderful and disorienting—how can it be possible to condense so much experience and so many years into an inch of shelf space? Yet José-Flore Tappy’s recent collection of poetry, Sheds (in the original French, Hangars) does just that, benefitting from the […]
What His Shadow Did: Karl Krolow’s Selected Poems, Translated by Stuart Friebert
Reviewed by Joshua Daniel Edwin As a poet, translator, critic, and essayist, Karl Krolow’s influence is enormous. In his remarks on the back jacket of Puppets in the Wind: Selected Poems of Karl Krolow, translator Stuart Friebert notes that “[f]ew writers who lived during Krolow’s lifetime were without his direct or indirect support.” In addition […]
Beautiful Monstrosity: Leopoldo María Panero, translated by Arturo Mantecón
Reviewed by Lucina Schell, Editor “…almost all [critics] agree that he is the greatest living poet in Spanish, and the most significant one since García Lorca and Aleixandre,” Arturo Mantecón writes in his introduction to his selected translations of Leopoldo María Panero Like an Eye in the Hand of a Beggar (17). A big claim, […]
The Dark Territory in Ana Minga’s Tobacco Dogs, Translated by Alexis Levitin
Reviewed by Emily Thompson In his preface to Ana Minga’s Tobacco Dogs, translator Alexis Levitin sets the scene for the collection’s thirty-four poems: “Let us think of Hieronymus Bosch. Let us think of Francis Bacon. Let us think of Goya. These, to my mind, are her anguished compatriots” (viii). That the poet should find herself […]
Donald Wellman on Antonio Gamoneda’s Description of the Lie
Donald Wellman joins me virtually upon the release of his latest translation of Antonio Gamoneda’s Description of the Lie for a conversation about the breakthrough poetic work in post-fascist Spain, from one of the country’s most celebrated contemporary poets. “I’ve been haunted by his voice…The power of the voice is irresistible.” “I am learning from [Gamoneda […]
Tips for Reviewers: Comparative Analysis
[or how to review a translation from a language you don’t know] Eric M. Gurevitch’s review of Mani Rao‘s new translation of the Bhagavad Gita is exemplary. It does what translators wish more reviewers would do. Gurevitch illuminates Rao’s highly original approach to the oft translated epic poem that nevertheless remains unfamiliar to many Western readers, explaining […]
Tips for Reviewers: Translators’ Introductions Are Your Cheatsheet
Years ago, a friend shared with me Richard Pevear’s introduction to his and Larissa Voloknonsky’s translation of War and Peace. In it, Pevear writes, “Translation is not the transfer of a detachable ‘meaning’ from one language to another, for the simple reason that in literature there is no meaning detachable from the words that express […]
Between Words: Juan Gelman’s Public Letter, translated by Lisa Rose Bradford
Reviewed by Lucina Schell, Editor All acts of translation pose challenges, but as an art form concerned with articulating the inexpressible, the nascent meanings underlying language, poetry is particularly complicated. The process of carrying meaning from one language to another requires navigating a sometimes wide chasm between words, and it is in the spaces between […]
Emilio Prados’ Jardin cerrado and the Spanish tradition in exile
Reviewed by Lucina Schell, Editor Donald Wellman’s lyrical translation of Emilio Prados’ Jardin cerrado (Enclosed Garden) introduces a major poet of Spain’s Generation of ’27 to English-speaking audiences. By choosing to translate a complete work of the poet, Wellman also gives us the gift of appreciating Prados’ full and complex vision at work in his […]
Black Tulips: The Selected Poems of José María Hinojosa, translated by Mark Statman
Reviewed by Lucina Schell, Editor Continuing on the theme of my last post, it is my pleasure to introduce a major literary recuperation via translation of another poet lost to the Spanish Civil War: José María Hinojosa. A contemporary of Federico García Lorca and other poets of the famed Generation of ’27, Hinojosa aligned himself […]