from Vol. #6, Fall 2015

The Translation of Poetry (1970)

In 1970, from April 13-15, under the general chairmanship of Library of Congress Consultant in Poetry William Jay Smith, poets from eight nations gathered with American poet-translators for an International Poetry Festival. Each foreign guest read selections from his work, and translations were read by the Americans. Foreign poets participating were Jorge Carrera Andrade; Nicanor Parra; Yehuda Amichai; Francis Ponge; Philippe Thoby-Marcelin; Vasko Popa; Zulfikar Ghose; and Shuntaro Tanikawa. The American translators were John Malcolm Brinnin, Miller Williams, William Jay Smith, Donald Finkel, Serge Gavronsky, and Harold P. Wright.

Noteworthy among the festival proceedings were an address given by Allen Tate-poet, critic and himself a former Consultant in Poetry-on the 14th, and, on the morning of the 15th, a panel discussion, chaired by poet-critic Louis Untermeyer-another former Consultant in Poetry-and including Tate, Smith, Ghose, Gavronsky, Williams, Amichai, Finkel, Wright, and Brinnin.

In 1972, the Library of Congress published a pamphlet titled "The Translation of Poetry" (see the cover image at right), containing Tate's address and an edited transcription of the panel discussion, "presented to the wider audience which they merit." Both the pamphlet publication and the conference out of which it came were organized under the auspices of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund, established at the Library of Congress in 1950 "through the generosity of Mrs. Gertrude Clarke Whittall, in order to create a center in this country for the development and encouragement of poetry, drama, and literature."

The text which follows is a transcription of that pamphlet, unaltered except for formatting and the addition of endnotes added to clarify references which are not likely to be accessible via common knowledge. - ZB

Contents

• A Lecture, by Allen Tate
• A Panel Discussion, with William Jay Smith, Louis Untermeyer, Allen Tate, Zulfikar Ghose, Serge Gavronsky, Miller Williams, Yehuda Amichai, Donald Finkel, Harold P. Wright, and John Malcolm Brinnin

A note about publication rights: A public domain document, since federally funded, this text appears in Pusteblume with the authorization of the Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress, sponsor of the Poet Laureateship and an ongoing source of support and vision for the role of literary culture in the United States.

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