E. Rowan Mena

Poet | Book Artist | Translator

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Tag: translation

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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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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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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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FSG Book of 20th Century Latin American Poetry Reviewed

June 10, 2011 by E. Rowan

The work of an anthologist is violent, like that of a translator, dismembering a whole cultural context and transporting limbs of it to a new environment. And like translation, the result can always be termed as loss—a loss of wholeness (i. e. context), a loss of embodiment in time and place (i. e. culture). The pieces become relics, deadened in a museum of pages instead of alive in their usefulness. The act of collecting them, framing them and presenting them, […]

Categories: Reviews, Translation • Tags: anthology, Ilan Stavens, Latin America, poetry, review, reviews, translation, twentieth century

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Strategies of translation, translation as strategy

June 8, 2011 by E. Rowan

Strategies of translation Last class we talked about Robert Bly’s “Eight Stages of Translation” in which he somewhat artificially maps out eight things a translator must (or should) do in translating. Briefly, they are: 1. Create a literal version (a trot) 2. Read closely for deep meaning 3. Turn the literal into English 4. Turn it into spoken English 5. Focus on the tone and mood 6. Focus on the sound, meter, rhythm, rhyme 7. Have it read by someone […]

Categories: Teaching, Translation • Tags: Lawrence Venuti, read translation, review translation, Robert Bly, teach translation, teaching, translation, translation as art, Words without Borders

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Teaching Translation as Art

May 31, 2011 by E. Rowan

Translation as Art. That’s the name of the class I’m starting tomorrow. I’m very excited – I’m teaching at my alma mater, in my field, a course of my design. It’s the dream, or at least, my dream. Summer session is condensed, seven weeks of two long meetings a week, and of course when I started the syllabus I was overly ambitious. I thought we’d do a book a week, and in my crazy head that made sense. I’ve come to […]

Categories: Teaching, Translation • Tags: Action Books, Autumn Hill Books, experimental translation, New Directions, Open Letter Books, Small Beer Press, syllabus, teaching, translation

6

Translation Good is to be

May 27, 2011 by E. Rowan

This is a guest post by CalebJRoss as part of his Stranger Will Tour for Strange blog tour. He will be guest-posting beginning with the release of his novel Stranger Will in March 2011 to the release of his second novel, I Didn’t Mean to Be Kevin in November 2011. If you have connections to a lit blog of any type, professional journal or personal site, please contact him. To be a groupie and follow this tour,subscribe to the Caleb […]

Categories: Translation • Tags: Caleb J Ross, Caleb Ross, Stranger Will Tour, Stranger Will Tour for Strange, translation

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New Poems in Asymptote

April 17, 2011 by E. Rowan

Asymptote is a stunning new online journal of literary translation. Their first issue came out in February, and blew me away. And I’m thrilled that four of my translations of poems by Dominican poet José Mármol are included in the new April issue here, along with the Spanish originals and audio of the poet reading his originals. Also in the issue, an interview with the astounding Susan Bassnett, scores of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction and a bunch of reviews and […]

Categories: Poetry, Translation • Tags: Dominican Republic, José Mármol, poetry, translation

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The sky goes missing

April 6, 2011 by E. Rowan

This year I was asked to be on the committee for the Best Translated Book Award given out by Open Letter Books for newly-translated works of poetry and fiction published within the last year. It was great, not only did I get to read tons of great translated poetry, I got to talk seriously about it with other amazing poets and translators. And the award will be announced just after the translation slam at PEN World Voices! In the meantime, […]

Categories: Poetry, Reviews, Translation • Tags: Best Translated Book Award, Open Letter Books, PEN World Voices, review, Three Percent, Time of Sky & Castles in the Air, translation

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Reading the World #9: Martha Collins

March 28, 2011 by E. Rowan

Erica Mena (that’s me!) and special co-host Mike Schorsch talk with translator and poet Martha Collins about translation as political action, and translation of Vietnamese poetry. Martha is an amazing poet, my first translation workshop teacher, and big influence in my work and in my life. We recorded this last year (!) at AWP in Denver, and it was such a treat to get to talk with her about her work. This is one of my favorite podcasts to date, […]

Categories: Podcasts • Tags: Martha Collins, podcast, poetry, political poetry, Reading the World, translation, Vietnam, Vietnamese poetry

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