Poetry off the Shelf: Translating Poetry: Reading & Conversations

The Poetry Foundation hosts a continuation of a conversation originated at the American Academy in Rome last May. Four poet-translators will gather for readings and discussion with the intent of exploring current approaches to translating Polish and Italian poetry.

The author of five volumes of poetry, Patrizia Cavalli won the prestigious Premio Viareggio Repaci for Sempre aperto teatro (Theatre Always Open) (1999).  J.D. McClatchy has commented that “her style is hard-bitten, on the edge. The circumstances of a poem, although private, are never merely personal.” Accomplished Italian translator Geoffrey Brock’s poetry has been featured in several anthologies, and his first collection of poetry, Weighing Light (2005), won the New Criterion Poetry Prize. Critic David C. Ward writes: “Brock is a most serious poet and one whose career, on the basis of Weighing Light, must now be followed with close attention.” Recipient of the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, Adam Zagajewski is the author of twelve books of poetry, of which five have been translated into English from the original Polish. Robert Pinsky describes his work as being “about the presence of the past in ordinary life.” Clare Cavanagh is chair of the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at Northwestern University, and her Lyric Poetry and Modern Politics: Russia, Poland, and the West won the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. She has translated numerous collections by contemporary Polish poets such as Zagajewski and Szymborska, and is working on an authorized biography of Milosz.

Doors open 30 minutes before program start time; program will last approximately one hour.

Co-sponsored with the Harriet Monroe Poetry Institute as part of the International Poets in Conversation consortium tour