E. Rowan Mena

Caribbean Poetry

November 22, 2011 by E. Rowan

Did I fail to mention that the new Words Without Borders (and it’s not so new anymore, but still awesome) features writing from the Caribbean and I have four poems that I translated in it? Oh, Erica… Well, it does, and I’m pretty happy with them. Two by the Dominican poet José Mármol, one by the Dominican poet Aurora Arias, and one by the Puerto Rican poet José María Lima. You can read them here.

Categories: Poetry, Translation • Tags: Aurora Arias, caribbean poetry, erica mena, José María Lima, José Mármol, poetry, translation, Words without Borders

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Nathalie Handal's Poet in Andalucia

October 24, 2011 by E. Rowan

A few weeks ago the exceptional poet Nathalie Handal contacted me about a project of hers, Poet in Andalucía, which is an interesting reversal of Federico Garcia Lorca’s Poet in New York. The book is being translated into Spanish, and she asked me to look over a few of the translations and give some feedback. It was a pleasure to do, and now I’m even more excited about the book. I first met Nathalie Handal in Chile in 2004 during the […]

Categories: Poetry, Translation • Tags: Martín Espada, Nathalie Handal, Poet in Andalucía, poetry, Rattapallax, translation

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Submitting Myself

October 14, 2011 by E. Rowan

Starting last year I began seriously working on my own poetry again, making it a priority. I had an idea, and wanted to see it through the same way I have with my translations. And I’ve been really satisfied with that. So now that it’s been through my editorial-brain wringer a few times, and I’m sure I’m not going to embarrass myself, I’m starting to think about places to send it. And that’s a hard question. I’m thinking about starting […]

Categories: Poetry, Publishing • Tags: journals, literary journals, poetry, publishing, submit, submitting

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Antigone, Pride and Teaching

October 12, 2011 by E. Rowan

I have the class I’m teaching today, Literary Classics and Film Adaptations. I’m having several difficulties with the class. Not the students, the students are amazing – I’m so lucky to have such a wonderful, engaged, class. But, the syllabus. Haven’t had a single film adaptation, and don’t have one on the syllabus. The professor said to one of the students in my section that the only reason it has “film adaptations” in the title is to trick students into […]

Categories: Teaching • Tags: antigone, atheist, teaching

Collaborative Comics

October 10, 2011 by E. Rowan

This past weekend I had the joy of getting a crash-course in contemporary comics criticism during a conference at my home university – so I didn’t even have to travel! I was super excited, not only because I’m translating a comic series/graphic novel for my MFA thesis, but because I think comics have an interesting place in culture as sort of between high and low. Because this was being sponsored by a lot of university programs and departments, the framing was seriously […]

Categories: Comics, Translation • Tags: collaborative, comics, graphic novels, James Strum, Jessica Abel, John Porcellino

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Anomalous & Translation at Molossus

October 8, 2011 by E. Rowan

David Shook over at the amazing Molossus interviewed me about Anomalous. It’s here. I’m especially impressed by the range of translations on Anomalous, from Steve Bradbury’s translations of the Taiwanese poet Hsia Yü to Mani Rao’s Śankara. What brings them together? What do you look for when assessing translations? What actually brings them together is me, and another editor Sara Gilmore, who is also a translator. Translators, we’ve found, have to be sought out and luckily we have read and […]

Categories: Publishing • Tags: Anomalous Press, David shook, literary translation, mani rao, molossus, poetry, Steve Bradbury, translation

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Permanence, Changability and Online Publishing

September 22, 2011 by E. Rowan

A few weeks ago I wrote about an editor asking me to change an author’s bio in Anomalous issue 2. I sort of didn’t follow up, at least here, because I was still thinking it through. Now I’ve got a guest-post about it over at WriteByNight where I think I deal with the issue in perhaps a more thought-out way: So there are a couple of issues this raises. One is etiquette. But the other, perhaps more interesting, is about medium and changeability. […]

Categories: Publishing

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My hard drive hates you and other things I learned

September 17, 2011 by E. Rowan

Things I learned doing production for Anomalous 3: 1. Back up. My hard drive hates me. It might also hate you. I think they come pre-filled with hate, at least the replacement hard drives do. It’s in a 6 year old MacBook, which apparently they don’t even make anymore, which is bullshit. It’s also died three times in the past two years, and always right before a major deadline. The first time it was a paper for a class. Last […]

Categories: Publishing

Zombie Issues & Rolling Releases

September 8, 2011 by E. Rowan

I wrote a guest-blog entry about Anomalous for Write By Night: After discussing different approaches with the editors, luckily some of whom have online journal publishing experience, we decided to try what we’re calling “rolling releases.” Issue #2 was shaping up to be a monster issue (and it is; the pdf is over 100 pages long!!) and so we decided to sort of parse the writing out over the “life” of the issue. I’m using “life” in quotes because since it’s digital, it’s […]

Categories: Publishing • Tags: Anomalous Press, online literary journal, online publishing, publishing, rolling releases, Write By Night, zombie issues

Review of False Friends on Iowa Review

August 23, 2011 by E. Rowan

“The project of the book is to toy with language and meaning, with things that sound similar and even the same across languages but mean strange, funny, unusual, and odd things. This is the joy of cognates, as any language learner will tell you—the surprise they can bring to the familiar. By defamiliarizing these phrases, Bernofsky brilliantly constructs an unfamiliar reading experience in English.” Read the rest of my review of False Friends by Uljana Wolf, translated by Susan Bernofsky (Ugly […]

Categories: Poetry, Reviews, Translation • Tags: chapbook, cognates, experimental translation, False Friends, poetry, review, Susan Bernofsky, translation, Ugly Duckling Presse, Uljana Wolf

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