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Poet Quotes

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Poet Quotes

“I will venture to assert, that a just translation of any ancient poet in rhyme is impossible. No human ingenuity can be equal to the task of closing every couplet with sounds homotonous, expressing at the same time the full sense, and only the full sense of his original.”

Humans Sound Impossible Poet Equal Tasks Originals Ancient Venture Rhyme Translations Closing Ingenuity Couplets

Book:The Works of William Cowper: His Life, Letters, and Poems. Now First Completed by the Introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence

Source: The Works of William Cowper: His Life, Letters, and Poems. Now First Completed by the Introduction of Cowper's Private Correspondence

“When I was young I once found a book in a Dutch translation, 'The leaves of Grass'. It was the first time a book touched me by its feeling of freedom and open spaces, the way the poet spoke of the ocean by describing a drop of water in his hand. Walt Whitman was offering the world an open hand (now we call it democracy) and my 'Monument for Walt Whitman' became this open hand with mirrors, so you can see inside yourself.”

“These are crystalline - oftentimes incandescent - translations of Juarroz's powerful metaphysical poems where eternity and silence jut up against a world where “writing infects the landscape” and there are “more letters than leaves” - The kind of match one hopes for where both the translator and the poet are in luck; new poems which don't leak and yet old poems in which the original passion shines.”

World Writing Kind Passion Powerful Silence Poet Letters Eternity Originals Luck Shining Landscape Metaphysical Translations Leaks Translators

Author:Jorie Graham

“Ko Un is a crucial poet for the twenty-first century, and this is an enormously fresh and vivid translation.”

Firsts Century Poet Twenties Crucial Vivid Translations

Author:Robert Hass

“Drill in exact translation is an excellent way of disposing the mind against that looseness and exaggeration with which the sensationalists have corrupted our world. If schools of journalism knew their business, they would graduate no one who could not render the Greek poets.”

Ifs World Way Mind School Poet Journalism Excellent Greek Our World Graduates Translations Exaggeration Drills Looseness

Book:Ideas Have Consequences

Source: Ideas Have Consequences

“I do believe that one's writing life needs to be kept separate from Po-Biz. Personally, I deal with this by not attending too many poetry readings, primarily reading dead poets or poems in translation, reading Poets & Writers only once for grant/contest information before I quickly dispose of it, and not reading Poetry Daily. Ever.”

Needs Writing Believe Reading Deals Information Poet Grants Contests Writing Life Translations Attending Reading Poetry Dead Poets Poetry Reading

Author:Cate Marvin

“I was always interested in French poetry sort of as a sideline to my own work, I was translating contemporary French poets. That kind of spilled out into translation as a way to earn money, pay for food and put bread on the table.”

Way Kind My Own Pay Poet Tables Bread Contemporary Translate Translations Sidelines French Poetry

Author:Paul Auster

“There is an old Latin quotation in regard to the poet which says 'Poeta nascitur non fit' the translation of which is- the poet is born, not made.”

Made Born Poet Fit Regard Latin Quotations Translations

Book:How to Speak and Write Correctly (illustrated): Fully Formatted Version

Source: How to Speak and Write Correctly (illustrated): Fully Formatted Version

“I mainly wanted non-english writing poets, because I loved the idea that I was translating translations.”

Writing Ideas Wanted Poet Translate Translations English Writing

Author:Simone Muench

“Khairani Barokka is a writer, spoken-word poet, visual artist and performer whose work has a strong vein of activism, particularly around disability, but also how this intersects with, for example, issues of gender - she's campaigned for reproductive rights in her native Indonesian, and is currently studying for a PhD in disability and visual cultures at Goldsmiths. She's written a feminist, environmentalist, anti-colonialist narrative poem, with tactile artwork and a Braille translation. How could I not publish that?”