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Index: Poetry and prose in translation

from ‘Blind Distance’.

From the editorial note: Pierre Chappuis is an essential French-language poet in a generation that includes Philippe Jaccottet, Yves Bonnefoy, André du Bouchet, Jacques Dupin, and Jacques Réda. His many published works include collections of critical essays, poetic prose, and poetry. Among his most recent books, all published by the Éditions José Corti, are Dans la foulée (2007), Comme un léger sommeil (2009), and Muettes emergences (2011). Distance aveugle (2000) and À la portée de la voix (2002), also brought out by Corti, are collections of short poetic prose. For his writing, he has won the two most prestigious Swiss literary prizes: the Schiller Prize in 1997 and the Grand Prix C.F. Ramuz in 2005.

A portfolio from ‘Openwork’.

André du Bouchet: ‘and so the most beautiful poems have led to some blank texts
like a sheet of blank paper—are available: that is,
they have not ceased to act. Like everything that has begun
to act.

‘I always write to make myself worthy of the poem that is not
yet written.’

Lorenzo Calogero: Six poems.

Lorenzo Calogero: ‘SO ALONE I am looking at poor clouds
and objects in the emptiness
of the high sunray; then hiding away
where no shadow dwells anymore
or no one at all.’

Venezia vista da un veneziano.

Michele Casagrande: ‘Da veneziano posso facilmente esprimere la prospettiva locale. Da due decadi ormai l’Amministrazione della città ha imposto una nuova varietà di turismo. L’obbiettivo è di massimizzare il numero di turisti, favorendo tutti i servizi che possano produrre un breve passaggio per la città ed un incremento delle entrate per il comune e privati. Il risultato è un’illusoria immagine di Venezia, estremamente superficiale, dove Piazza San Marco non è altro che un bellissimo spazio di fronte a una magnifica chiesa, habitat di simpatici e sporchissimi piccioni. Sfortunatamente per noi, questa piazza è il centro della città in cui viviamo, e l’immane numero di turisti è così fitto da non poter consentire una libera circolazione. Questo intasamento si estende sostanzialmente per tutta la città e talvolta in spazi angusti si rivela ancor più fastidioso, rendendo una semplice camminata uno sgradevole percorso ad ostacoli. Una politica pubblica a favore della quantità piuttosto che la qualità può produrre solamente visitatori che hanno “visto venezia” piuttosto che “vissuto Venezia”.’

Homero Pumarol: Poemas en el original en español.

Homero Pumarol: Hay algo descompuesto en el rostro
triste y alegre del poeta,
oculto al fondo de los ojos
como al fondo del vocablo Personae.

Frank Báez: Poemas en el original en español.

Frank Báez: ‘Llegar a los treinta gordo y con las posibilidades
de disfrazarte de Santa Claus en Navidad.
Tomando pastillas. Jugando la lotería.
Comprando productos bajos en calorías.
Empeñando prendas, licuadoras, anillos. ‘

Homero Pumarol: New poems.

Hoyt Rogers: Homero Pumarol is one of the foremost younger poets in the Dominican Republic. He has published six books of verse, among them Fin de Carnival (Carnival’s End) and Poesía Reunida 2000-2011 (Collected Poems 2000-2011). Pumarol’s work has appeared in several major anthologies of contemporary poetry, such as the Latin American Twenty-First Century anthology and the Essential Anthology of Dominican Poetry. Along with Frank Baez, he is a founding member of the musical group and poetry collective El Hombrecito.

Frank Báez: New poems.

Hoyt Rogers: Acknowledged as one of the Dominican Republic’s most important younger poets and short-story writers, Frank Baez has won the Book Fair First Prize for Short Stories in 2006 and the National Poetry Prize Salomé Ureña in 2009. He has published five books, including Jarrón y Otros Poemas (Vase and Other Poems), Postales (Postcards) and En Granada no duerme nadie (In Grenada Nobody’s Sleeping). As editor and translator for the online poetry review, Ping Pong, he has published scores of poets from Latin America, North America, and Europe.

Two Dominican poets.

 Selections from  El HOMBRECITO Two Dominican Poets: Frank Báez and Homero Pumarol Selected, Translated, and Introduced by Hoyt Rogers. FRANK BÁEZ AND Homero Pumarol might both be described as homegrown versions of Junot Diaz: native Dominican authors rather than a son of the diaspora like Diaz, but with the same hip originality and with-it verve. […]

Three poems by Osip Mandelstam.

Osip Mandelstam: ‘Watch me grow stronger, then blind,
as I follow these humble roots.
What a park! My eyes come alive
now thunder is passing through.’

Three poems by Alain-Fournier.

Alain-Fournier: Firstly…no…well…in the evening…perhaps…
I will dare to take her hand, le petit pas;
If this takes too long, and the evening is fresh,
I will speak the truth until I’m out of breath,
And her eyes will be wet with words so tender
And with no-one overhearing, she will answer.

Two poems from the hôpital Broussais, September 1893.

Nicolson: ‘The real centre of his hospital life was, however, to be the Hôpital Broussais, in the rue Didot, which he first entered in December 1886. Verlaine always had a weakness for this particular hospital. ‘