S128. “How difficult it is to remain just one person”: Translating the Autobiographical Poem

Room 17, Tampa Convention Center, First Floor
Saturday, March 10, 2018
9:00 am to 10:15 am

 

This panel gathers poet-translators to discuss the complexities of the contemporary autobiographical poem. How might translation reveal the lyric self as fluid, elusive, and relational? Through translation, this conversation will explore questions of authority and embodiment in the autobiographical poem itself. Poet-translators from Spanish, Korean, and Russian will highlight the personal and cultural dimensions of shifting subjectivity, and the dissonance of lived vs. written experience.


Participants

Moderator:

Michelle Gil-Montero is a poet and translator. She has translated several books of poetry by contemporary Latin American writers, including Maria Negroni, Valerie Mejer Caso, and Andres Ajens. Her work has been supported by the NEA, Howard Foundation, and Fulbright.

Don Mee Choi’s books of poetry include Hardly War and The Morning News Is Exciting. She has received a Whiting Award, Lannan Literary Fellowship, and Lucien Stryk Translation Prize. Her most recent translation of Kim Hyesoon, a contemporary South Korean poet, is Poor Love Machine.

Sasha Dugdale is a poet, translator, and editor. She has published three collections of poetry, the most recent of which is Red House. She translates poetry and plays from Russian. She is editor of Modern Poetry in Translation and coeditor of the international anthology Centres of Cataclysm.

Valerie Mejer Caso is a Mexican poet, painter, and translator. Her books in English translation are Rain of the Future and This Blue Novel. She has been the recipient of the Gerardo Diego International Poetry Award (Spain). Her unfolded book Untamable Light was part of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

Anna Deeny Morales has translated poetry by Raúl Zurita, Mercedes Roffé, Alejandra Pizarnik, Nicanor Parra, and Gabriela Mistral among others. Deeny is currently writing a book about sound dissent, translation, and Latin American poetry. She teaches at Georgetown University.

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February 7–10, 2024
Kansas City, Missouri

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