E. Rowan Mena

The Same Old Song

January 7, 2010 by E. Rowan

So I’m a fan of The Atlantic in general. I like their politics, I like their writers and I like that they include poetry which fewer and fewer non-literary publications do with any seriousness. And generally I like their poets and the poems they select. But this month it struck me that it’s been some time since I’ve seen anything really surprising or new in their selection of poetry. Now, to be fair, they are not a poetry publication, and […]

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Nano Poetry

January 6, 2010 by E. Rowan

I’m thrilled that Poetry International Web (not to be confused with the excellent print publication Poetry International) is starting the year by ramping up their publications to bi-monthly – I always look forward to their email in my inbox and taking the few minutes to discover new poetry. PI is an interesting project that has the potential to be the most important resource for poets interested in reading around the world, and they keep on making the right moves. Each […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Israel, Japan, nano poetry, poetry, Poetry International Web, translation

Finally

January 4, 2010 by E. Rowan

I finally, for the first time since quitting my day job in July to pursue a non-career in literary translation, got my Google Reader subscriptions down to 0. When I started this morning, it was somewhere around 360… I unsubscribed myself from some blogs, and in following links subscribed myself to some new ones. And found that the only way I could get through everything was by saving for later the wealth of intriguing reviews on The Quarterly Conversation. But […]

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Chilean Poetry

January 1, 2010 by E. Rowan

It’s the middle of the afternoon of first day of the new year, and according to some the new decade. And I’ve decided that I’m going to spend my day planning my reading for the next few months. So the first thing I did was download the updated 2009 Translation Database from Three Percent (my favorite blog ever) and sort it by poetry and language. I’m sure Chad will do a more comprehensive analysis of the statistics, but for my […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Chile, poetry, Three Percent, translation

Alluringly Short?

January 1, 2010 by E. Rowan

Why not? Susan Harris, the brilliantly witty editor of Words Without Borders coined the phrase in an ongoing joke with the brilliant Chad Post, director of Open Letter Books, about how literary translators in large part tend to be on the shorter side. We all agree this is brilliant. Susan has cast our collective stature in a more positive light with the addition of “alluring” and thus it is that alluringly short comes into being. While I have always aspired […]

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