S259B. Poets as Translators: Versionists, Revisionists, or Vehicles? Sponsored by ALTA

Room 203AB, Washington Convention Center, Level Two
Saturday, February 11, 2017
3:00 pm to 4:15 pm

 

Do poets who translate produce a new poem that imitates the source material, or do they bring across the idiom and word in the full definition of the word "translating"? Are poets vehicles for the work they translate, or are they called on to recreate? If the latter, what is permissible within the context of literary translation? The following languages are used as examples in this panel: Danish, French, Hebrew, Kurdish, and Romanian.


Participants

Moderator:

Barbara Goldberg, author of five prizewinning books of poetry including the Felix Pollak Poetry Prize for Royal Baker's Daughter, also translates from the Hebrew. As series editor of the Word Works International Editions, her 2016 selection is Handful of Salt, translations of Kurdish poet Kajal Ahmad.

David Keplinger is the author of five books, most recently The Most Natural Thing. He's the recipient of an NEA fellowship, the T.S. Eliot Prize, the Colorado Book Award, and the Cavafy Prize. He has appeared PoetryAmerican Poetry ReviewPloughsharesThe Paris Review, and elsewhere.

Nancy Naomi Carlson has authored seven titles, including The Nomads, My Brothers, and Go Out to Drink from the Big Dipper (translations of Abdourahman Waberi), a BTBA finalist. She is a recipient of grants from the NEA, Maryland Arts Council, and Arts & Humanities Council of Montgomery County.

Mark Irwin is the author of eight collections of poetry, which include American Urn: Selected Poems (1987–2014), Tall If, and Bright Hunger. Recognition for his work includes four Pushcart Prizes, two Colorado Book Awards, and fellowships from the Fulbright, Lilly, NEA, and Wurlitzer Foundations.

Alana Marie Levinson-LaBrosse is a research fellow at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS) where she taught for four years. Her work has appeared in the Iowa Review, Words Without Borders, and the Poetry Society of America. She is a cotranslator of Handful of Salt.

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