Culver, Berdeshevsky, Cader, et. al.
Ralph Culver on “October, and the sun burnishes”: More than anything else, “October, and the sun burnishes” is a poem of grieving. Grief, it seems to me, is generally pretty straightforward and uncomplicated, and I hope the reader finds the poem to be the same. Of course, our relationships with the objects of our grieving can be, and often
Voisine, Bassiri, Woloch, et. al.
Connie Voisine on Translating Patron Henekou: Patron Henekou’s Jazz et autres prières (Jazz and Other Prayers) engages with the late 20th and early 21st-century American poetic consideration of the personal as political, or as Henekou says, his is a personal poetry firmly located in the embodied self, where “sensuality turns to challenge us both as a political concern, a social fact, and the wear
Freeman, Sholl, Aizenberg, et. al.
Jan Freeman on “Eating the Madeleine”: This poem began percolating when I was walking by a walled-in garden in the village of Auvillar two years ago. It brought back memories of the rose arbor where I played Mean Mother with neighbors when I was a child. Which opened into thoughts about the solitude of children, and the need to be
Smith, Purpura, Zwart, et. al.
Ron Smith: a prose piece on his poem “August 3rd”: Stroke The August 3rd events in my poem happened many, many years ago. I recorded them the same day they took place (as I discovered last year in the notebook I cannot locate since we have recently moved). I copied the entry out long hand, then typed it up, filling
Ulku, Buckley, Warren, et. al.
Alpay Ulku Regarding “On Reading with an Open Heart”: Since my piece in this issue is non-fiction, I felt like I should write a poem instead for the Poets and Translators section. But I was feeling a tad lazy I guess, so I fed it to ChatGPT 3.5, as that version is free. Below is my prompt and its response.
Camp, Pedone, Pindyck, et. al.
Lauren Camp on “Honest Orbit”: The poem came out of time I spent as Poet-in-Residence at Lowell Observatory, talking to the astronomers and looking through telescopes. In all meanings of the phrase, I was over my head. I was not just trying to understand the origins of the universe, but also the passion the scientists felt for their discipline. Science
Shaughnessy, Scates, Donnelly, et. al.
Lorna Shaughnessy on translating Rafael Alberti: I have been reading Alberti’s poetry since I was an undergraduate, and included it in many poetry modules I have taught over the years. Concerning the angels is a collection that has always fascinated me: what takes me back to it again and again are the ways that Alberti expresses alienation from himself and
Delbos, Johnson, Raab, et. al.
Stephan Delbos on Translating the Poetry of Tim Postovit Tim Postovit is one of the most excitingly imaginative and worldly young poets in Central Europe. Born in Ukraine, he soon moved to Israel with his family, and settled in the Czech Republic at the age of six. An award-winning performer and a university undergraduate who publishes in Czech with one
Groom, Simms, Kellogg, et. al.
Kelle Groom on “TURN IT UP” and “MORE NIGHTS THAN DAYS”: “TURN IT UP” I wrote this poem after reading Tony Hoagland’s beautiful last book of poems, Turn Up the Ocean (Graywolf, 2022). Tony and his wife Kathleen once took me to swim at Herring Cove Beach in Provincetown, Massachusetts. I was carless, staying in a stiflingly hot room while taking a
Hoppenthaler, Bond and Upton, et. al.
John Hoppenthaler on “Nocturne”: My poems typically begin as riffs inspired by whatever landscape the world provides at a given moment: imagery, sensory details, the actions of fellow humans and animals. In this case, fate finds me in Eureka Springs, Arkansas at the Writers’ Colony at Dairy Hollow, coaxing the last poems of what will be my fourth collection of
Bradbury, Bliumis-Dunn, Florczyk, et. al.
Steve Bradbury on translating Wu Yu Hsuan: I took this “headshot” of Frida, as she likes to call herself in English (Frida Kahlo being one of her great inspirations), when she came to visit me in Melrose, Florida earlier this year. It was then and there that we discussed the poems and I made the translations you have accepted. Had she not come, I doubt
Bond, Karapetkova, Hadas, et. al.
Bruce Bond on “Lunette 15”: This poem is part of a book-length cycle of poems composed in dialogue with photographs by my brother, Walt Cochran-Bond. In it, I explore the notion of brokenness—culturally, physically, and psychologically—as a summons. The shape of the lunette sometimes gets invoked in the photographs directly, connoting the waning or waxing moon or an architectural feature,
