Friday, March 16, 2012

Translating Pierre Reverdy

One of the happiest things in my very fortunate life is being able to translate French poetry, along with others. For years, I had the great luck of translating with Patricia Terry (now, alas, not with us), and we spent marvelous long moments over and over contemplating how best to render modern poets -- that is, from Mallarme on to the present.
Now, to my joy, Joe Phillips, which is to say, Black Widow Books, will be publishing the translations of Pierre Reverdy we did together -- and all of the Roof Slates Pat did and the Prose Poems I did and the introductions we wrote side by side. Very remarkable, working side by side with someone: my favorite thing.

And then I am preparing a selection of Reverdy poems also, with translations by several different hands -- what a subtle and grand poet he was!

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