Song of a Reformed Headhunter

Thursday evening, Oct 27 , it was lovely to hear George Kalogeris read his poetry again. Friday, Oct 28 , bright and early at 8 am a thought-provoking seminar "Poetry and Translation": Marco Antolin's "Overcoming the Abysm of Creative Stagnation: Philip Levine on Translating Antonio Machado, Garcis Lorca, and Cesar Vallejo"; Mary Maxwell's "Correspondences: Baudelaire's Fleurs du mal and the Translation Tasks of Richard Howard and Walter Benjamin"; Diana Senechal's "Translating an Understanding of Poetry Itself: Tomas Venclova's 'Pestel Street'"; Nicholas Pesques' "Translating: Acting". Followed by an exciting plenary panel "Literature in Painting, Painting in Literature": Deborah Epstein Nord's "George Eliot and John Everett Millais: The Ethics of Ugliness"; Rebecca Ranof's "The Occluded Portraits of Dickens and Van Goh"; Ruth Bernard Yeazell's "Henry J...

Heard Philip Lopate and Patricia Hampl read their essays at an ALSCW salon on Monday. The essays were about many things, and one of the things was about the writing of an essay. In reflecting on writing, both essayists traced their inspiration back to Montaigne. I particularly enjoyed hearing Lopate, whose writing was suffused with irony directed at himself. A modest life modestly lived. The essay will never attain the prestige accorded to the novel and to poetry. It is capable of great beauty and even profundity, but it is not as various as the novel nor as sublime as poetry. early morning smell of diesel in the garden

Heard Gerald Stern read on Monday in a private home just around the corner from where I live. The reading was organized by PL, held under the auspices of the ALSCW, of which I am a new council member. Talked with SS about the conference and the panel on translating Asia. HS introduced me to RW, who seemed very nice. Then Stern read, and talked, for about half an hour. I liked the more compressed poems better, especially a powerful one about the uselessness of cultural assimilation. You still have to pack your leather bag and go when they tell you to. "Tell" is, of course, an euphemism. Stern's parents were Polish and Ukrainian immigrants. There is a lot of truth-telling in his poetry. During the Q&A, I asked him about the controversy over Rita Dove's anthology of American verse, whether his sympathies lie with the editor's principle of "diversity" or with Helen Vendler's "aesthetic" critique of Dove's choices. Given the hedgi...

The Association of Literary Scholars, Critics and Writers announces four awards of $2000 each, in poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and high school student writing. Only one entry is accepted from each person. All entries should be previously unpublished. The entry must be postmarked not later than December 1st 2012. The winner will be announced towards the end of December, 2012. There is no entry fee for current members of The Association of Literary  Scholars, Critics, and Writers. For everyone else membership in the ALSCW is required, which is $32 for students and $37 for all others — all members will receive the annual three issues of our literary journal/magazine Literary Imagination, and our newsletter, as well as being able to attend our conferences and local gatherings—see ALSCW website (alscw.org) for details about how to join the ALSCW. • For the Meringoff Poetry award, each entry can be one poem, or a group of poems that add up to no more than 150 lines. The judge for the ...

The last three weekends were busy ones. S and R drove up from D.C. to stay with us overnight on September 29. We went up to the roof of the Met and enjoyed the glittering autumnal view there. Then we had a very nice dinner at le Paris , which I strongly recommend. Columbus Day weekend began on Friday with drinks with DW. We hadn't seen each other for a long time, and the time at Suite Bar passed very pleasantly, so pleasantly that we both wondered afterwards why we were not meeting more often. Then on Saturday, dinner with P and J at Spring Natural Kitchen on the UWS because J wanted to try its organic cooking. Dinner was a success. It was so easy to be with them, so relaxing.  On Sunday G and I went to Philly for the day. We both loved the new Barnes Foundation building, designed by Tod Williams. I was mesmerized by the Matisse dance mural but liked "The Joy of Life" much less than I thought I would. I had the unwanted feeling that the Picasso works in the coll...

... to the October 1 deadline for papers for Translating Asia panel !  “A good translator is an exquisite ambassador,” writes poet and scholar Waqas Khwaja in his introduction to the 2010 anthology Modern Poetry of Pakistan . “Just as the creative artist suggests new ways of looking at the commonplace, the translator opens up to readers a whole new world, a whole new mode of perception and experience, they may hardly have suspected of existing.” The comparison with an ambassador suggests that a translator be conversant not only with the languages of composition and translation, but also with the different cultures. As Khwaja puts it, “How, despite what are seen as virtually insurmountable odds, can translation happen so that it does not undervalue, misrepresent, or (not an unknown phenomenon) utterly dispense with the original?” The panel aims to consider literature from South, East, and South-east Asia.