WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.780 align:middle line:90%


00:00:00.780 --> 00:00:03.420 align:middle line:84%
It's my pleasure to welcome
up Joshua Marie Wilkinson,

00:00:03.420 --> 00:00:06.012 align:middle line:84%
a good friend, a colleague in
the Department of English here

00:00:06.012 --> 00:00:08.220 align:middle line:84%
at the University of Arizona,
who will help introduce

00:00:08.220 --> 00:00:09.660 align:middle line:90%
Forrest Gander to us tonight.

00:00:09.660 --> 00:00:10.620 align:middle line:90%
Thank you so much.

00:00:10.620 --> 00:00:14.113 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:00:14.113 --> 00:00:23.110 align:middle line:90%


00:00:23.110 --> 00:00:28.240 align:middle line:84%
"In the night, he rose
and came out to piss.

00:00:28.240 --> 00:00:32.110 align:middle line:84%
The moon smoldered
like a burnt tick.

00:00:32.110 --> 00:00:34.870 align:middle line:84%
Turning inside, he
stepped on something he

00:00:34.870 --> 00:00:37.600 align:middle line:90%
thought was a clump of hair.

00:00:37.600 --> 00:00:42.280 align:middle line:84%
A wolf spider, with her ball
of children, whose thousands

00:00:42.280 --> 00:00:46.120 align:middle line:90%
spilled over his bare foot."

00:00:46.120 --> 00:00:48.880 align:middle line:84%
That little poem is from
Forrest Gander's second book,

00:00:48.880 --> 00:00:50.320 align:middle line:90%
Lynchburg.

00:00:50.320 --> 00:00:52.900 align:middle line:84%
And I share it with you for
two reasons, because I love it

00:00:52.900 --> 00:00:56.549 align:middle line:90%
and because I can.

00:00:56.549 --> 00:01:01.960 align:middle line:84%
"I come to consider language by
how it uses me," Gander writes.

00:01:01.960 --> 00:01:06.430 align:middle line:84%
"Poetry offers a
transformative summons."

00:01:06.430 --> 00:01:10.060 align:middle line:84%
We're here to encounter
Forrest Gander, the translator.

00:01:10.060 --> 00:01:14.470 align:middle line:84%
And as the translator, editor,
and collaborator on at least 16

00:01:14.470 --> 00:01:16.660 align:middle line:84%
collections from
three languages,

00:01:16.660 --> 00:01:21.220 align:middle line:84%
maybe more, into English,
that is something indeed.

00:01:21.220 --> 00:01:24.310 align:middle line:84%
Julie and Sarah, across the
breezeway here at the Poetry

00:01:24.310 --> 00:01:28.510 align:middle line:84%
Center, helped to locate all 16
of those volumes in the stacks.

00:01:28.510 --> 00:01:30.860 align:middle line:84%
And they remain on
display across the way,

00:01:30.860 --> 00:01:32.230 align:middle line:90%
so I hope you'll check them out.

00:01:32.230 --> 00:01:35.350 align:middle line:90%
And a warm thank you to them.

00:01:35.350 --> 00:01:36.880 align:middle line:84%
When the editors
of Copper Canyon

00:01:36.880 --> 00:01:39.970 align:middle line:84%
wrote to Forrest about
translating Pablo Neruda's

00:01:39.970 --> 00:01:42.970 align:middle line:84%
newly discovered
lost poems, Gander

00:01:42.970 --> 00:01:46.690 align:middle line:84%
writes that he thought, quote,
"about what I'd need to give up

00:01:46.690 --> 00:01:49.420 align:middle line:90%
to focus on a job like this.

00:01:49.420 --> 00:01:53.290 align:middle line:84%
What do I ever give up to
take on a translation project?

00:01:53.290 --> 00:01:55.330 align:middle line:90%
My own writing goes on hold.

00:01:55.330 --> 00:01:58.090 align:middle line:84%
But when, eventually,
I come back to it,

00:01:58.090 --> 00:02:01.720 align:middle line:84%
I bring to it something
new, a feral vocabulary

00:02:01.720 --> 00:02:04.960 align:middle line:84%
I have adopted from the
translation, a fresh set

00:02:04.960 --> 00:02:08.229 align:middle line:84%
of syntactical and
rhythmical strategies,

00:02:08.229 --> 00:02:12.760 align:middle line:84%
the image repertoire of
someone else's imagination.

00:02:12.760 --> 00:02:17.380 align:middle line:84%
I always come back from
translation changed."

00:02:17.380 --> 00:02:20.950 align:middle line:84%
From Mexico, Gander has
edited two anthologies, Mouth

00:02:20.950 --> 00:02:24.490 align:middle line:84%
to Mouth, Poems by Twelve
Contemporary Mexican Women,

00:02:24.490 --> 00:02:27.670 align:middle line:84%
and Connecting Lines,
New Poetry from Mexico,

00:02:27.670 --> 00:02:29.530 align:middle line:84%
as well as individual
collections

00:02:29.530 --> 00:02:34.600 align:middle line:84%
from Valerie Mejer, Pura Lopez
Colome, Alfonso D'Aquino,

00:02:34.600 --> 00:02:36.910 align:middle line:90%
and Coral Bracho.

00:02:36.910 --> 00:02:39.580 align:middle line:84%
From the Chinese,
Gander has translated

00:02:39.580 --> 00:02:43.600 align:middle line:84%
Xue Di's Another Kind of
Tenderness, with Keith Waldrop,

00:02:43.600 --> 00:02:47.200 align:middle line:84%
and from Bolivia, two works
with Kent Johnson, The Night

00:02:47.200 --> 00:02:50.440 align:middle line:84%
and Imminent Visitor
by Jaime Saenz.

00:02:50.440 --> 00:02:53.830 align:middle line:84%
From the Japanese, Gander
has translated three poets,

00:02:53.830 --> 00:02:57.070 align:middle line:84%
Kiwao Nomura's
Spectacle & Pigsty,

00:02:57.070 --> 00:03:01.840 align:middle line:84%
and Kazuko Shiraishi's
My Floating Mother, City,

00:03:01.840 --> 00:03:07.210 align:middle line:84%
and, most recently, Gozo
Yoshimasu's Alice Iris Red

00:03:07.210 --> 00:03:09.010 align:middle line:90%
Horse.

00:03:09.010 --> 00:03:10.630 align:middle line:84%
From his introduction
to that work

00:03:10.630 --> 00:03:13.210 align:middle line:84%
he writes, "Some
readers may question

00:03:13.210 --> 00:03:15.850 align:middle line:84%
whether these innovative
translations represent

00:03:15.850 --> 00:03:17.170 align:middle line:90%
the original.

00:03:17.170 --> 00:03:19.990 align:middle line:84%
But I wonder if the goal of
representing the original

00:03:19.990 --> 00:03:23.440 align:middle line:84%
is the goal of translation at
all, given that the work is

00:03:23.440 --> 00:03:28.060 align:middle line:84%
necessarily subjected to
alteration, transformation,

00:03:28.060 --> 00:03:31.390 align:middle line:90%
dislocation, and displacement."

00:03:31.390 --> 00:03:33.910 align:middle line:84%
To name just a couple
of the latest works,

00:03:33.910 --> 00:03:37.510 align:middle line:84%
Pinholes in the Night, Essential
Poems from Latin America,

00:03:37.510 --> 00:03:42.400 align:middle line:84%
with Raúl Zurita, Panic Cure,
Poems from Spain for the 21st

00:03:42.400 --> 00:03:46.630 align:middle line:84%
Century, and of course, a
little known poet from Chile

00:03:46.630 --> 00:03:50.560 align:middle line:84%
and a brand new edition
of Neruda's lost poems.

00:03:50.560 --> 00:03:54.790 align:middle line:84%
Forrest Gander is the author of
at least eight books of poetry

00:03:54.790 --> 00:03:58.540 align:middle line:84%
of his own, an essay collection,
an ecopoetics collaboration

00:03:58.540 --> 00:04:01.775 align:middle line:84%
with John Kinsella,
and two novels.

00:04:01.775 --> 00:04:04.150 align:middle line:84%
He's been a finalist for the
National Book Critics Circle

00:04:04.150 --> 00:04:07.570 align:middle line:84%
Award and the Pulitzer
Prize, among dozens

00:04:07.570 --> 00:04:10.000 align:middle line:90%
of other honors and awards.

00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.260 align:middle line:84%
Forrest's late wife was the
beyond-missed, beyond-loved

00:04:14.260 --> 00:04:17.779 align:middle line:84%
poet CD Wright, who passed
away just last year.

00:04:17.779 --> 00:04:20.290 align:middle line:84%
It's hard to think of
Forrest without CD.

00:04:20.290 --> 00:04:22.900 align:middle line:84%
And in this moment
in history, whatever

00:04:22.900 --> 00:04:24.910 align:middle line:84%
it will become to
be known as, it's

00:04:24.910 --> 00:04:28.060 align:middle line:84%
hard to imagine a
world without her.

00:04:28.060 --> 00:04:30.700 align:middle line:84%
"All poems," writes
Forrest, "are

00:04:30.700 --> 00:04:35.440 align:middle line:84%
untranslatable until the
right translator shows up."

00:04:35.440 --> 00:04:39.490 align:middle line:84%
Well, tonight it would appear
that the right translator

00:04:39.490 --> 00:04:43.300 align:middle line:84%
and poet and teacher,
editor, publisher,

00:04:43.300 --> 00:04:47.170 align:middle line:84%
novelist, and recently inducted
chancellor to the Academy

00:04:47.170 --> 00:04:49.250 align:middle line:84%
of American Poets, has
shown up in Tucson.

00:04:49.250 --> 00:04:50.980 align:middle line:84%
Please help me to
welcome Forrest Gander.

00:04:50.980 --> 00:04:54.330 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]