Wednesday, July 09, 2008

UNDRESSING THE NIGHT -- review

Thanks to those who left congrats on the post below, and to the many more who emailed me.

At the risk of this seeming a gloating-over-ones-own-successes blog (good news with me usually comes in dribs and drabs -- this is quite unprecedented), fellow poet/translator/hispanophile Indran Amirthanayagam has written a rather eloquent post on Undressing the Night, my translation of Francisco Santos' selected poems:

The book satisfies like a clear morning. There is no pretense in the poetry. Santos writes directly from experience and hides his agency in bringing beauty to the reader. There is no dismantling of language so that readers can meditate on broken phrases and dollops of white space. Neither does Santos attempt to dazzle readers with rhetorical catwalks or peacock displays. He shoots straight and is lucky to have a translator who has worked hard to deliver the same transparency in English.

In the same post he has also selected 5 poems with their translations, as examples.

More also can be read about -- and from -- the book here. The book can be ordered direct by writing to beedeecee@videotron.ca It's $20 including postage (Canadian or US).

Soon -- on the weekend, I imagine -- my Newfoundland Slide show will continue. I have pictures of an in-situ reading in pristine boreal forest, ice bergs, Bird Island (the largest puffin island on the globe), and Witless Bay, one of my favourite places on this planet.

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