In translation & two Latina poets on POETRY's podcast

In addition to its magazine, POETRY also produces a monthly podcast. This past March, POETRY's podcast was awarded an "Ellie" or National Magazine Award for Digital Media. These are given by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Columbia School of Journalism.

The current podcast, devoted to June's translation issue, is well worth the 30-minute investment of time. The format is fairly straightforward: Editors Christian Wiman and Don Share talk about, "frame" if you will, what listeners are going to hear: in this particular case commentary from a few of the poet-translators who rendered into English the poems in this month's issue, as well as the poems themselves. Wiman and Share also offer their own astute insights on the work presented.

Two selections stood out for me--the translations from the Portuguese of Eugenio de Andrade, which were rendered by Atsuro Riley; and the translation from the German of Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven, which were rendered by Jill Alexander Essbaum.


In both cases we get to hear the translators talk about the poet and the poems. I would highly recommend taking a moment to listen to the entire production since, really, there is no substitute for the sound of the human voice. In the meantime, here are the pieces that grabbed me:


"The Children"

by Eugénio de Andrade

translated from the Portuguese by Atsuro Riley

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/242072

"Goats"

by Eugénio de Andrade

translated from the Portuguese by Atsuro Riley

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/242074

"Fruit Don’t Fall Far"

by Elsa Von Freytag-Loringhoven

Translated from the German by Jill Alexander Essbaum

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/242124

*

But perhaps the best reason to take a moment to listen to this podcast in its entirety is because at the end, both Christian Wiman and Don Share offer a taste of two poets they've been reading and enjoying recently.  It just so happens that the two poets they hone in on this month have a connection to Letras Latinas: both have read in PALABRA PURA, and one is the most recent winner of one of Letras Latinas' flagship initiatives:

Emma Trelles, winner of the Andrés Montoya Poetry Prize for TROPICALIA

&

Joanne Diaz, winner of the Gerald Cable Award for THE LESSONS.

If you'd like to know which of their poems are featured and read aloud, you simply have to click below and enjoy!

POETRY Magazine’s June Podcast

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audioitem/3006

PALABRA PURA: March 18, 2009, Chicago

Joanne Diaz has published poems in various literary journals, including AGNI, The American Poetry Review, The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, and Quarterly West. She holds an MFA from New York University, where she was a New York Times Foundation fellow. She also holds a PhD in English literature from Northwestern University, where served as an assistant editor for TriQuarterly magazine. She is currently an assistant professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University where she teaches courses in creative writing and literature. Among her distinctions are an Illinois Arts Council fellowship for poetry and, most recently, a literature fellowship in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts.

A sampling of her creative work can be found online:

"Thank you, Brian Williams"

“Syringe”
“Larry David on Corregidor”
“Metastasis, Boracay”
“Uncle Ming Pinched Me”
“Linnaaeus’s Patient”

Joanne Diaz will be reading her work with

Dawn Herrera-Terry

at
Décima Musa
restaturant & bar

PALABRA PURA,
now in its fourth season,

is a partnership between
The Guild Complex &Letras Latinas