Education by Stone

Nostalgic for Colombia and things Latin American after yesterday’s post. Dug out from deep depths Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology edited by Stephen Tapscott. Proof that I used to walk around with my head in a paper bag where poetry was concerned: I have focused for the first time on the translators in this anthology. Holy cow! James Wright translating Cesar Vallejo; W.S. Merwin, Richard Wilbur and John Updike translating Borges; Elizabeth Bishop on Carlos Drummond Andrade; Robert Bly, James Wright and William Carlos Williams on Neruda, Allen Ginsberg on Nicanor Parra, and so on and so forth. My faith in translations is a little bit restored.

Here’s Bly and Merwin doing Neruda – note especially Bly’s rendering of Ode to My Socks.

Pick of the afternoon is James Wright translating Cabral de Melo Neto – Education by Stone.

About these ads