As far as endeavors go, translation has all of the perils one might fear for and virtually none of the guardrails one might hope for. Reasonable activities—baking a blueberry pie, say—have achievable success criteria and known dangers. You know a good final product when you
For the poem to fully exist on the page, it takes full involvement with another’s psyche. The breath of the poem embodies the original writer, in air and nerve. Poetry is a medium of participation, what is called a dyad. It highlights our embedded unconscious
The other day a member of our hardworking staff turned to me and said “You really should write something about the name of the Press. People are curious. Why ‘stenen’?” She said this with a glint in her eye because she knew it would send
The heavy, leathery hope of a turtle carrying her eggs. In her poem “Move,” Alicia Ostriker imagines the labor of our migration home. Ostriker’s compelling brand of inevitability, the “right spot” as she puts it, is born of both ugliness and grace, and embodies the
