<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal">Dear Friends and Fellow Poeticians,</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">I am writing to report on last week’s session, but first I
wanted to remind everyone that our next session will be next Friday, Oct 22
from 3-5 in rm 116 of the Whitney Humanities Center. We will be discussing the work of C.D. Wright. Specifically we’ll be focusing our
discussion of Wright’s 2008 collection (her most recent, though a new one is
due next month) <i>Rising, Falling, Hovering</i>.
We distributed copies at our last session, but just a few are left and can be
found in our mailbox in the main office of the Whitney Humanities Center.
Wright will then join us to discuss her work on November 5. This will be a rare opportunity to
discuss poetry with one of America’s most acclaimed poets.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.google.com/url?url=http://www.projo.com/books/content/Rhode-Wright-nomination-1017_10-17-10_8UKD80V_v9.34d82a.html&rct=j&sa=X&ei=NK-4TK3qM8L-8AbCwbTaDg&ved=0CD8QpwIwBA&q=cd+wright&usg=AFQjCNF-g2lS3otgWXeqNI5uOK8g3e4uSA"><span style="color:windowtext;text-decoration:none;text-underline:none"><span style="color:blue;mso-no-proof:yes"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype id="_x0000_t75"
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</span></a></p><p class="MsoNormal">Here’s Wright’s official bio:</p><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">C.D. Wright,
one of America’s most compelling and idiosyncratic poets, was born and raised
in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas. She is a radically restless writer, a
composer of hybrid works such as <em>Deepstep
Come Shining</em> and distilled lyric collections such as <em>Tremble</em>. Every title takes her further inside her
subjects and extends the means and measure of her reach. Wright is concerned
with a density of language, setting up a chain reaction using the least amount
of verbal material.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">She has
published a dozen collections, most recently, <em>Rising,
Falling, Hovering</em> (2008). In 2007 <em>Like
Something Flying Backwards, New and Selected Poems</em> was published in
England. Her collaboration with photographer Deborah Luster, <em>One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana</em> was awarded the
Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize; and a text edition was also released in 2007.
<em>Steal Away</em> was on the
international shortlist of the Griffin Trust Award. <em>String
Light</em> won the 1992 Poetry Center book Award and <em>Rising, Falling, Hovering</em> won the 2009 International
Griffin Prize for Poetry.<o:p></o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; "><o:p> </o:p></div><div style="margin-top: 0.1pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-bottom: 0.1pt; margin-left: 0in; ">Wright is a
recipient of a Macarthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Award, the Robert
Creeley Award, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
She is the Israel J. Kapstein Professor at Brown University and lives outside
of Providence with her husband, poet Forrest Gander.<o:p></o:p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p>Here is a link to a NYTimes review of Rising, Falling,
Hovering</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/books/review/Brouwer-t.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/books/review/Brouwer-t.html</a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Here is a link to an interview with Wright by friend of
WGCP, Kent Johnson</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/cdwright/johnson.htm">http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/cdwright/johnson.htm</a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Here is a longer review of Wright’s three most recent books
by John Cotter</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/january-2009-cd-wright/">http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/january-2009-cd-wright/</a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">And two links to Wright reading at the Beinecke in
2004. The first link is to Nancy
Kuhl’s introduction.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Wright-CD/Yale-Reading/Wright-CD_01_Introduction_Beinecke-Library_Yale_2-3-04.mp3">http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Wright-CD/Yale-Reading/Wright-CD_01_Introduction_Beinecke-Library_Yale_2-3-04.mp3</a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Wright-CD/Yale-Reading/Wright-CD_02_Complete-Reading_Beinecke-Library_Yale_2-3-04.mp3">http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/Wright-CD/Yale-Reading/Wright-CD_02_Complete-Reading_Beinecke-Library_Yale_2-3-04.mp3</a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">And breaking news—C.D. Wright has just been nominated for
the National Book Award!</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">***********</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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</div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">On Friday, October 8<sup><font class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">th</span></font></sup>, Hilary Kaplan led a
discussion of the work of the contemporary Brazilian poet Angelica
Freitas. Our discussion was centered
on Rilke Shake, the poet’s first collection, which Hilary has been translating
into English. The conversation
ranged from specifics about Freitas and her work to more general thinking about
the process of translation and how one best serves that activity. For instance, the question was asked, does
one strive to create a fairly precise representation at least to the letter of
the poem (in terms or form and connect) or does one strive to preserve the
spirit of the original poem, even if that means introducing new elements or
elements from the target cultural milieu rather than the original context?</p><p class="MsoNormal">But we began by discussing how it was that Hilary came to be
translating the work. She described the amount of freedom or least flexibility
she feels translating a poem close to the beginning of her career rather than a
figure who has become a vested cultural authority. The fact that Freitas was a kind of peer and the fact that she
was young, queer, plugged into both literary as well as pop culture meant that
Hilary could hear the work by way of a shared cross-cultural zeitgeist, one
made up by a form of cosmopolitan and heterogeneous frames of reference. Freitas’s publisher is <i>Cosacnaify</i>, whose list is comprised
mainly of young, contemporary Brazilian poets. Among these poets is Ricardo Domeneck, with whom Freitas
edits the journals Hilda (<a href="http://hildamagazine.com/home.html">http://hildamagazine.com/home.html</a>)
and Modo de Usar (<a href="http://revistamododeusar.blogspot.com/">http://revistamododeusar.blogspot.com/</a>).
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The covers of the books produced by <i>Cosacnaify/</i> 7 Letras—black with a sticker indicating the author and
title—create a visual association amongst the different writers. This doesn’t
indicate a movement or “school” per se, but it does help indicate a set of
elective affinities. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href=""><span style="color:windowtext;mso-no-proof:yes;text-decoration:none;text-underline:
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</v:shape><![endif]--><img border="0" width="187" height="125" src="file://localhost/Users/richarddeming/Library/Caches/TemporaryItems/msoclip/0clip_image006.jpg" alt="http://editora.cosacnaify.com.br/_img/fotos_editora/6.jpg" v:shapes="Picture_x0020_1"></span></a></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">In looking at a handful of books, one sees the recurrence of
Gertrude Stein in epigraphs, quotations, and allusions. The presence of Stein indicates a move
beyond cultural and national provincialisms, even as Freitas’s distinction emphasizes
her regional background.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The permeability and instability of culture and language,
rather than some fealty to the universality of national and cultural identity informs
her work. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Freitas herself translates from French, Italian, American,
and Spanish, and these different sites of reference make themselves felt in the
work in the range of her allusions, from Rilke to Stein. Despite the high cultural context much of
the tone and diction of Freitas’s work indicates the mark of her upbringing in
the South of Brazil. While this
indicates a kind of irreverence, her attitude is also shaped by her proximity
to the Argentine border. Her
upbringing drew upon Portuguese as well as Spanish influences and foundations,
which gives the background for her tendency to create a polyvalent work.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Again and again we saw in the poems that Freitas seeks to
explode norms and expectations largely by way of her allusions, her irony, and
her humor. These point to Freitas’s irreverent reverence. The way that she pokes fun at writers
such as Stein, Pound, Rilke, and others illuminates her—and her
contemporaries’—desire to note their genealogy not only by the invocations but
by the way they treat that genealogy. It becomes something chosen rather than
simply inherited.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">The issue of cultural translation was raised specifically
because Freitas’s work is both ironic and humorous. It is hard enough being funny and the challenge of bringing
humor from one language and culture to another is daunting to be sure. Of
course there is no formula for deciding this, but Hilary noted that the fact
that she and Freitas are share many things because of their age and thus
generational well of associations, experiences, information, and so forth make
it somewhat easier to navigate the humor divide. Interestingly, this caused us to discuss the moments in translation
where the activity depends less on direct exchange and something like the felt
experience of the poems. This felt
sense allows a translator a certain band of possibilities in order to recreate
an experience in the new language.
Thus, whereas in Portuguese a poem might have extremely subtle allusions
to relatively obscure Brazilian poetry, the American version might employ words
that are apt to turn those allusions into ones that Americans would be more apt
to catch because they would be informed by the translator’s own sense of her
milieu.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Clearly, Freitas is a fascinating poet with a deft sense of
humor that both challenges traditional while establishing a form of playful
homage that fashions connections to previous generations. She becomes, then, a figure of
international, transhistorical irony.
All agreed that Hilary not only elegantly contextualized Freitas in
terms of contemporary Brazilian poetry, but also showed how this poet’s work
raises questions about tone, diction, and cultural identity. Hilary’s comments perceptively laid the
groundwork for a conversation of a translator’s responsibilities and burdens. In fat, the discussion was so engaging
it went into extra innings.
Although our usual stopping time was called sharply at 5, most everyone
stayed at the table discussing the work for another 30 minutes. Our thanks to Hilary for her
contributions and for bringing this compelling poet to our attention.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">So, once again, we meet next week on Friday from 3-5.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Thus,</p><p class="MsoNormal">Richard Deming, Coordinator.</p>
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