translation | E. Rowan Mena

Anomalous Press

March 15, 2011 by E. Rowan

After weeks of not sleeping, or eating, or really doing much of anything other than this, it’s finally here and ready and shiny and new. Anomalous Press, my new literary journal, launched this morning! What do Nancy Reagan and Mr. T have in common? How about Venantius Fortunatus and Sarah Jessica Parker? The answer to these burning questions, and more, at Anomalous Press. It’s pretty awesome. My husband and I built the site from scratch (despite being sorely tempted to […]

Categories: Publishing • Tags: 21st century publishing, Anomalous Press, audio literature, fiction, hybrid literature, multi-modal, new media, nonfiction, poetry, translation

Reading The World #8

March 14, 2011 by E. Rowan

I’ve been woefully bad about posting all the interesting things I’ve been up to lately because of the imminent launch of my new journal/press Anomalous Press but the latest Reading the World went up a little bit ago. In this one I talk with translator Mark Schafer about his translations of David Huerta’s poetry and his new translation out from City Lights, The Scale of Maps by Bélen Gopegui. Listen to it in iTunes here. Or stream it on Three […]

Categories: Podcasts • Tags: Bélen Gopegui, City Lights, David Huerta, Mark Schafer, poetry, Reading the World, Three Percent, translation

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Objectively Dangerous: There's the Hand and There's the Arid Chair by Tomaž Šalamun

March 1, 2011 by E. Rowan

Tomaž Šalamun’s latest book of poems to be translated into English,There’s the Hand and There’s the Arid Chair, is as difficult as the title suggests. The book has to be read slowly, carefully, over and over for it to unfurl; the poetry is not immediately accessible and requires commitment, dedication. It is demanding, complex and strange. It can’t be absorbed in the span of a single read. Rather, this is the kind of book that I want to come back […]

Categories: Reviews, Translation • Tags: Cerise Press, poetry, review, Tomaz Salamun, translation

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Voices from the Bitter Core

February 17, 2011 by E. Rowan

Voices from the Bitter Core by Ursula Krechel, trans. Amy Kepple Strawser (Host Publications, 2010). Ambitious in scope, and stunningly executed. The voices that blur together and pull apart are simultaneously sympathetic and horrific, the collage technique at once jarring and unifying. This is a work of paradoxes, of dissonance and contradiction, an utterly human work. In its examination of the voices of war it implicitly questions the rationale for killing, without falling into propaganda. The work collapses time, moving […]

Categories: Reviews, Translation • Tags: experimental poetry, poetry, political poetry, review, translation

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say song you say

February 13, 2011 by E. Rowan

My review of engulf — enkindle is up at Three Percent. I really liked this book. As Chad said: But today, Erica is gushing rather than screeding . . . Based on the first paragraph alone, I think Erica kinda sorta likes this collection . . . (And be sure to scroll to the bottom to hear a recording Erica did of one of the poems): engulf — enkindle is a stunning book of poetry. It literally stunned me into […]

Categories: Reviews, Translation • Tags: Anja Utler, experimental poetry, Kurt Beals, poetry, review, Three Percent, translation

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Mateo Morrison (DR Books #2)

February 12, 2011 by E. Rowan

Ojos de madre, vientos de guerra by Mateo Morrison. Mateo Morrison (1946-) is a poet-lawyer who upholds the tradition of advocacy in his work. He’s published 36 books of poetry, criticism and essays. In 2010 he was awarded the National Literature Prize, which is the most significant literary prize in the Dominican Republic. He’s incredibly prolific, and clearly indebted to Neruda in his work. This book is written for the 45th anniversary of the revolution in April 1965 which led […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Dominican Republic, Mateo Morrison, poetry, political poetry, translation

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Femi-lision, Dominican women and VIDA

February 11, 2011 by E. Rowan

I’m about done writing up my book purchases from the Dominican Republic, which I’ll begin posting soon enough, and more for me to keep track of them in one place than anything else (though perhaps someone will find them interesting/useful). Anyway, there’s been a lot of hubbub this past week since VIDA released their study on the representation of women in publishing. Unsurprisingly, the situation is not so good. Fewer (by half or more) women are published or reviewed by […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Dominican Republic, gender theory, poetry, translation, VIDA, women poets

This Lamentable City

February 10, 2011 by E. Rowan

This Lamentable City by Polina Barskova, translated by Ilya Kaminsky and others. Tupelo Press, 2010. I was deeply impressed with this slight volume packed with sensual, visceral language that borders often on the grotesque. It is startling, rhythmically potent work that uses lines and enjambment to great effect, something I often find lacking in contemporary poetry both in original-language and in translation. Here, the English of the (collaborative) translation works carefully with rhythm and sound, but without drowning out the […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Ilya Kaminsky, poetry, Polina Barskova, review, translation, Tupelo Press

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Reading the World #7 – Fady Joudah

January 13, 2011 by E. Rowan

The latest episode of Reading the World is finally up, you can listen on Three Percent or through ITunes. This episode of the Reading the World Podcast, with the wonderful Annie Janusch filling in for Chad Post, features Fady Joudah, Palestinian-American poet, physician, and translator. He won the Yale Younger Poets Competition in 2007 for his collection The Earth in the Attic (Yale) and was just awarded the 2010 PEN USA Literary Award for Translation for his rendition of Mahmoud […]

Categories: Podcasts • Tags: Fady Joudah, Mahmoud Darwish, podcast, poetry, Reading the World, Three Percent, translation

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Praises & Offenses

January 12, 2011 by E. Rowan

I finished reading this morning the anthology Praises & Offenses: Three Women Poets from the Dominican Republic. The poets are Aida Cartagena Portalatin, Angela Hernandez Nunez and Ylonka Nacidit-Perdomo (those names are all missing their accents, because my little cheap portable pc sucks and won’t accept key-commands for accents). The translator is Judith Kerman, the publisher is Boa Editions, it came out in 2009. I started writing what I thought would be a brief summary of the book to put […]

Categories: Reviews, Translation • Tags: Aida Cartagena Portalatin, Angela Hernandez Nunez, BOA Editions, Dominican Republic, Judith Kerman, poetry, review, translation, Ylonka Nacidit-Perdomo

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E. Rowan Mena

Poet | Book Artist | Translator

Tag: translation

Reading The World #8

Objectively Dangerous: There's the Hand and There's the Arid Chair by Tomaž Šalamun

Voices from the Bitter Core

say song you say

Mateo Morrison (DR Books #2)

Femi-lision, Dominican women and VIDA

This Lamentable City

Reading the World #7 – Fady Joudah

Praises & Offenses