Poets Translate Poets originates from the perception that while the poetry translated in the Hudson Review over the years from ancient Greek to contemporary Russian constitutes a history of world literature, the translators themselves are among the most distinguished American and British poets. These poems belong as much to them as to the original authors.
The collection features eighty-three poets in twenty-four languages, translated by sixty writers; it represents the best of more than five hundred translated works originally published in the Hudson Review over the last seven decades. The value of this anthology lies in the artistry of its translators, including William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore, combined with the range of its originals, from classical epics to Old French, Middle English, and medieval Japanese, to lesser-known twentieth-century works by Bulgarian and Swedish poets. Among its translations are Ezra Pound s remarkable re-creation of Sophocles Women of Trachis and Richard Wilbur s transformation of Pierre Corneille s alexandrines into English heroic couplets in Le Cid.
Beyond the pleasures it provides as a collection of world poetry translated for an English reader, Poets Translate Poets offers a privileged exploration of the craft of translating poetry. The collection includes an introduction by poet Mark Jarman providing a history of the Hudson Review and its translated literature. The book is organized chronologically by language, and also features an index of the translators, adding another lens for appreciating the collected works. The range and depth of poems found here showcase a singular editorial vision from one of America s oldest and most revered independent literary quarterlies.
Review
The Hudson Review has been the one great quarterly with poetic translation in the core of its identity. Two of its founding editors were poets committed to translation, and they understood that it was a task best done by the best poets. From early issues featuring translations by Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, and Robert Fitzgerald to more recent ones with work by Richard Wilbur, Rhina Espaillat, Robert Mezey, and Charles Martin, the Hudson has cultivated an international sense of the poetic art. This rich and remarkable anthology documents the journal's indispensable contribution to the republic of letters. --Dana Gioia, poet and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts
About the Author
Paula Deitz is the editor of the Hudson Review and a cultural critic who writes about art, architecture, and landscape design for newspapers here and abroad. She is the author of the book Of Gardens: Selected Essays. Mark Jarman is Centennial Professor of English at Vanderbilt University and an advisory editor of the Hudson Review.