WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.600 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.600 --> 00:00:05.710 align:middle line:84% I thought I'd spend the rest of my time 00:00:05.710 --> 00:00:07.450 align:middle line:84% talking a little bit about translation 00:00:07.450 --> 00:00:12.160 align:middle line:84% poetry and the acquisitions and editing process-- 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:13.990 align:middle line:84% a process that hasn't changed much 00:00:13.990 --> 00:00:16.540 align:middle line:90% since the early days of indie. 00:00:16.540 --> 00:00:22.900 align:middle line:84% Here's one emblematic lineage of how certain titles came 00:00:22.900 --> 00:00:24.830 align:middle line:90% to new directions. 00:00:24.830 --> 00:00:29.020 align:middle line:84% Ezra Pound told Laughlin to publish Henry Miller. 00:00:29.020 --> 00:00:32.200 align:middle line:84% Miller recommended Hermann Hesse Siddhartha 00:00:32.200 --> 00:00:35.230 align:middle line:84% which Laughlin found, quote, "pretty sugar-candied 00:00:35.230 --> 00:00:37.900 align:middle line:90% Buddhism." 00:00:37.900 --> 00:00:39.100 align:middle line:90% But he still published it. 00:00:39.100 --> 00:00:40.690 align:middle line:84% And fortunately, it went on to become 00:00:40.690 --> 00:00:45.010 align:middle line:84% a huge hit that helped him publish more obscure authors. 00:00:45.010 --> 00:00:48.010 align:middle line:84% I found my job, as an editor, has many things in common 00:00:48.010 --> 00:00:52.610 align:middle line:90% to both poetry and translation. 00:00:52.610 --> 00:00:54.190 align:middle line:84% They each demand careful attention 00:00:54.190 --> 00:00:56.560 align:middle line:84% to how words are being used on the page 00:00:56.560 --> 00:01:00.490 align:middle line:84% and how individual books are structured. 00:01:00.490 --> 00:01:04.700 align:middle line:84% The tools and skills required for each feed into one another. 00:01:04.700 --> 00:01:08.020 align:middle line:84% So that the three are quite happy in the company 00:01:08.020 --> 00:01:10.090 align:middle line:90% of the other. 00:01:10.090 --> 00:01:14.370 align:middle line:84% And all three embody a kind of spirit of the age. 00:01:14.370 --> 00:01:16.320 align:middle line:84% As an editor, I'm always noting down 00:01:16.320 --> 00:01:19.800 align:middle line:84% authors and books that might be of interest to the press. 00:01:19.800 --> 00:01:22.230 align:middle line:84% Whether it's a recommendation from another author 00:01:22.230 --> 00:01:25.950 align:middle line:84% or a translator or if I read an interesting excerpt 00:01:25.950 --> 00:01:29.520 align:middle line:84% in a literary journal or if something unexpected pops up 00:01:29.520 --> 00:01:32.170 align:middle line:90% in an article or a book review. 00:01:32.170 --> 00:01:34.870 align:middle line:84% We also get submissions from agents here and abroad, 00:01:34.870 --> 00:01:38.230 align:middle line:84% as well as from publishers and cultural foundations 00:01:38.230 --> 00:01:40.910 align:middle line:90% around the world. 00:01:40.910 --> 00:01:43.420 align:middle line:84% I feel like a certain kind of intuition 00:01:43.420 --> 00:01:46.930 align:middle line:84% develops as an editor as my feelers 00:01:46.930 --> 00:01:50.290 align:middle line:84% are constantly on the lookout for possible books 00:01:50.290 --> 00:01:53.770 align:middle line:84% that fit the particular vision of the press. 00:01:53.770 --> 00:01:56.710 align:middle line:84% And in this sense, trying to build a list of authors 00:01:56.710 --> 00:02:01.240 align:middle line:84% at a press is a creative act akin to writing or translating 00:02:01.240 --> 00:02:02.140 align:middle line:90% a poem. 00:02:02.140 --> 00:02:05.650 align:middle line:84% Though I'd say the editor is the most surreptitious 00:02:05.650 --> 00:02:08.410 align:middle line:90% of the three. 00:02:08.410 --> 00:02:12.280 align:middle line:84% So when I see a book I've edited on a shelf in a bookstore, 00:02:12.280 --> 00:02:14.590 align:middle line:84% I sometimes secretly feel like one of those scientists 00:02:14.590 --> 00:02:19.750 align:middle line:84% who manufacture synthetic tastes and scents in hidden factories 00:02:19.750 --> 00:02:22.570 align:middle line:84% as he walks the aisle of a supermarket. 00:02:22.570 --> 00:02:24.400 align:middle line:84% And his heart beats with knowing excitement 00:02:24.400 --> 00:02:27.970 align:middle line:84% as he catches a glimpse of a box of Cocoa Puffs, 00:02:27.970 --> 00:02:30.950 align:middle line:84% knowing he's responsible for that particular addictive 00:02:30.950 --> 00:02:31.450 align:middle line:90% taste. 00:02:31.450 --> 00:02:34.030 align:middle line:90% 00:02:34.030 --> 00:02:37.660 align:middle line:84% Not long after I started working at the front desk at New 00:02:37.660 --> 00:02:40.900 align:middle line:84% Directions in the fall of 2000, another editor 00:02:40.900 --> 00:02:43.120 align:middle line:84% had a psychotic episode and left. 00:02:43.120 --> 00:02:48.380 align:middle line:84% So I was quickly ushered into the official world of editing. 00:02:48.380 --> 00:02:52.510 align:middle line:84% The first thing I worked on were cloth to paperback conversions. 00:02:52.510 --> 00:02:53.980 align:middle line:84% Then I became an assistant editor 00:02:53.980 --> 00:02:57.640 align:middle line:84% on certain titles, writing catalog and back ad copy 00:02:57.640 --> 00:02:59.530 align:middle line:84% and eventually joined our biannual sales 00:02:59.530 --> 00:03:01.960 align:middle line:84% conference where we pitch each season's books to the sales 00:03:01.960 --> 00:03:03.280 align:middle line:90% reps. 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:04.900 align:middle line:84% I believe the first book I actually 00:03:04.900 --> 00:03:08.500 align:middle line:84% acquired was a volume of short stories called Where Europe 00:03:08.500 --> 00:03:11.740 align:middle line:84% Begins by Yoko Tawada, translated from the German 00:03:11.740 --> 00:03:15.130 align:middle line:84% by Susan Bernofsky and from the Japanese by Yumi Selden. 00:03:15.130 --> 00:03:18.700 align:middle line:84% And I just heard Tawada was here a few years ago, reading 00:03:18.700 --> 00:03:20.920 align:middle line:90% in the German department. 00:03:20.920 --> 00:03:27.580 align:middle line:84% Tawada who also-- she writes in both Japanese and German. 00:03:27.580 --> 00:03:29.980 align:middle line:84% I'd fallen in love with her work as a graduate student 00:03:29.980 --> 00:03:33.630 align:middle line:84% in a class on Japanese literature and theory. 00:03:33.630 --> 00:03:36.990 align:middle line:84% One time, I saw her read with a jazz pianist 00:03:36.990 --> 00:03:41.640 align:middle line:84% where she threw ping pong balls onto the open piano strings 00:03:41.640 --> 00:03:44.550 align:middle line:84% as the pianist pounded out some chords and runs, 00:03:44.550 --> 00:03:47.130 align:middle line:84% making the little balls dance into the air 00:03:47.130 --> 00:03:50.100 align:middle line:84% as the hammer struck the strings. 00:03:50.100 --> 00:03:51.810 align:middle line:84% I had noticed some stories Bernofsky 00:03:51.810 --> 00:03:53.820 align:middle line:84% had translated in a literary journal 00:03:53.820 --> 00:03:57.120 align:middle line:84% and contacted her out of the blue. 00:03:57.120 --> 00:03:58.410 align:middle line:90% She responded positively. 00:03:58.410 --> 00:04:00.130 align:middle line:84% And together, along with Yumi Selden, 00:04:00.130 --> 00:04:02.580 align:middle line:84% we put together a collection of stories 00:04:02.580 --> 00:04:06.210 align:middle line:84% that bridge Tawada's work in both languages. 00:04:06.210 --> 00:04:09.000 align:middle line:84% I also included a little homage to Tawada 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:12.530 align:middle line:84% that Wim Wenders wrote as a preface. 00:04:12.530 --> 00:04:16.190 align:middle line:84% Strangely, a Japanese foundation caught wind of our book 00:04:16.190 --> 00:04:20.600 align:middle line:84% and decided to buy a couple thousand copies of the print 00:04:20.600 --> 00:04:25.050 align:middle line:84% run and distribute them for free as publicity. 00:04:25.050 --> 00:04:27.090 align:middle line:84% We've since published two more books by Tawada, 00:04:27.090 --> 00:04:29.760 align:middle line:84% including a novel called The Naked Eye where 00:04:29.760 --> 00:04:32.160 align:middle line:84% the protagonist is a young Vietnamese woman who 00:04:32.160 --> 00:04:35.370 align:middle line:84% gets stranded in Paris and becomes infatuated 00:04:35.370 --> 00:04:37.610 align:middle line:90% with Catherine Deneuve. 00:04:37.610 --> 00:04:40.700 align:middle line:84% That was also the first time we worked with translator Susan 00:04:40.700 --> 00:04:41.690 align:middle line:90% Bernofsky. 00:04:41.690 --> 00:04:44.190 align:middle line:84% And since then, she has translated other books for us, 00:04:44.190 --> 00:04:47.120 align:middle line:84% including work by the Swiss writer Robert Walser 00:04:47.120 --> 00:04:52.220 align:middle line:84% and the young German fiction writer Jenny Erpenbeck. 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:55.790 align:middle line:84% In celebration of our 75th anniversary 00:04:55.790 --> 00:04:58.550 align:middle line:84% last year, I edited this anthology of nature poetry 00:04:58.550 --> 00:05:01.310 align:middle line:84% called Birds, Beast and Seas that 00:05:01.310 --> 00:05:04.610 align:middle line:84% was culled from the very long poetry backlist. 00:05:04.610 --> 00:05:06.800 align:middle line:84% I spent a few months in the office library 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:09.320 align:middle line:84% reading and rereading poetry collections, 00:05:09.320 --> 00:05:11.450 align:middle line:84% trying to figure out an interesting, fun way 00:05:11.450 --> 00:05:14.450 align:middle line:90% of organizing the book. 00:05:14.450 --> 00:05:17.810 align:middle line:84% I described the result a little in the preface. 00:05:17.810 --> 00:05:20.910 align:middle line:90% And this is from there. 00:05:20.910 --> 00:05:24.150 align:middle line:84% Structurally, the collection is arranged chronologically 00:05:24.150 --> 00:05:27.260 align:middle line:84% by each poet's birth year, opening 00:05:27.260 --> 00:05:31.110 align:middle line:84% with a few ancient poems of China, Greece, Rome, Japan, 00:05:31.110 --> 00:05:35.530 align:middle line:84% India, and Persia then dipping briefly into the Troubadour 00:05:35.530 --> 00:05:39.010 align:middle line:84% Renaissance and Elizabethan periods 00:05:39.010 --> 00:05:42.250 align:middle line:84% before blossoming into a constellation of poets 00:05:42.250 --> 00:05:45.520 align:middle line:84% from the 19th and 20th centuries, 00:05:45.520 --> 00:05:48.850 align:middle line:84% crossing movements in schools, geographies and cultures 00:05:48.850 --> 00:05:51.520 align:middle line:90% into our present. 00:05:51.520 --> 00:05:53.470 align:middle line:84% Usually, only one poem or a section 00:05:53.470 --> 00:05:56.830 align:middle line:84% of one poem by each poet has been selected in order 00:05:56.830 --> 00:05:59.920 align:middle line:84% to present the widest range of indie poets 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:02.950 align:middle line:84% within the limits of this edition. 00:06:02.950 --> 00:06:05.410 align:middle line:84% But this limitation has its benefits, too, 00:06:05.410 --> 00:06:10.100 align:middle line:84% as poets rub directly against their peers, poem to poem. 00:06:10.100 --> 00:06:13.250 align:middle line:84% Well, connecting threads between poems are heightened. 00:06:13.250 --> 00:06:15.260 align:middle line:84% And lines from distant times and places 00:06:15.260 --> 00:06:19.190 align:middle line:84% converse with one another, all in the splendors and shadows 00:06:19.190 --> 00:06:21.660 align:middle line:90% of nature. 00:06:21.660 --> 00:06:24.300 align:middle line:84% Choices were made in the spirit of this conversation 00:06:24.300 --> 00:06:29.280 align:middle line:84% so that the book can be considered as linked whole. 00:06:29.280 --> 00:06:32.430 align:middle line:84% The criss-crossing of cultures and ages, 00:06:32.430 --> 00:06:35.550 align:middle line:84% the constant translation of the present through the past 00:06:35.550 --> 00:06:38.310 align:middle line:90% is fertile soil for poetry. 00:06:38.310 --> 00:06:43.080 align:middle line:84% That translation reinvigorates language and culture 00:06:43.080 --> 00:06:46.380 align:middle line:84% and has been a pivotal practice for American poets 00:06:46.380 --> 00:06:50.820 align:middle line:84% from the last century into this one is evident in these pages. 00:06:50.820 --> 00:06:55.440 align:middle line:84% And here, I'd like to read "Two Poems" by Danish poet Inger 00:06:55.440 --> 00:06:57.960 align:middle line:84% Christensen that are in the anthology 00:06:57.960 --> 00:07:01.710 align:middle line:84% and from her collection Butterfly Valley, translated 00:07:01.710 --> 00:07:02.775 align:middle line:90% by Susanna Neid. 00:07:02.775 --> 00:07:05.950 align:middle line:90% 00:07:05.950 --> 00:07:09.150 align:middle line:90% So this is Christensen. 00:07:09.150 --> 00:07:12.720 align:middle line:84% "With peace of mind and fragments of sweet lies, 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:15.720 align:middle line:84% with downy sheen of emerald and jade, 00:07:15.720 --> 00:07:17.970 align:middle line:84% the iris butterfly's bare caterpillars 00:07:17.970 --> 00:07:21.510 align:middle line:84% can camouflage themselves as willow leaves. 00:07:21.510 --> 00:07:24.150 align:middle line:84% I saw them eating their own images which 00:07:24.150 --> 00:07:27.090 align:middle line:84% then were folded into chrysalis, hanging, at last, 00:07:27.090 --> 00:07:29.040 align:middle line:90% like what they simulated-- 00:07:29.040 --> 00:07:32.840 align:middle line:84% a leaf among the other clustered leaves. 00:07:32.840 --> 00:07:35.540 align:middle line:84% When with their image-language, butterflies 00:07:35.540 --> 00:07:39.200 align:middle line:84% can use dishonesty and so survive. 00:07:39.200 --> 00:07:42.290 align:middle line:84% Then why should I be any less wise? 00:07:42.290 --> 00:07:44.660 align:middle line:84% If it will soothe my terror of the void 00:07:44.660 --> 00:07:48.678 align:middle line:84% to characterize butterflies as souls and some revisions 00:07:48.678 --> 00:07:49.595 align:middle line:90% of the vanished dead-- 00:07:49.595 --> 00:07:52.210 align:middle line:90% 00:07:52.210 --> 00:07:54.730 align:middle line:84% and some revisions of the vanished dead. 00:07:54.730 --> 00:07:57.910 align:middle line:84% The Hawthorne butterfly that hovers like a white cloud 00:07:57.910 --> 00:08:00.970 align:middle line:84% splashed with deep pink traces of flowers interwoven 00:08:00.970 --> 00:08:02.960 align:middle line:90% by the light. 00:08:02.960 --> 00:08:05.240 align:middle line:84% My grandmother enfolded in the gardens 00:08:05.240 --> 00:08:10.300 align:middle line:84% thousand fathoms, stock, wallflower, baby's breath. 00:08:10.300 --> 00:08:12.010 align:middle line:84% My father who taught me first names 00:08:12.010 --> 00:08:16.590 align:middle line:84% of all the creatures that must creep before they die. 00:08:16.590 --> 00:08:20.520 align:middle line:84% Walk with me into the butterfly valley where everything exists, 00:08:20.520 --> 00:08:25.280 align:middle line:84% only apart, or even the dead hear the nightingale. 00:08:25.280 --> 00:08:29.450 align:middle line:84% Its songs glide with an oddly mournful lilt. 00:08:29.450 --> 00:08:31.940 align:middle line:84% From lack of suffering to suffering, 00:08:31.940 --> 00:08:37.429 align:middle line:84% my ear gives answer with its deafened ringing." 00:08:37.429 --> 00:08:40.070 align:middle line:84% Christensen is another typical example 00:08:40.070 --> 00:08:43.730 align:middle line:84% of how an author came to New Directions. 00:08:43.730 --> 00:08:45.540 align:middle line:84% Years ago, the translator Susanna Neid 00:08:45.540 --> 00:08:49.250 align:middle line:84% saw Denise Levertov read at San Diego State University. 00:08:49.250 --> 00:08:53.530 align:middle line:84% She introduced herself to Levertov and found the courage, 00:08:53.530 --> 00:08:56.780 align:middle line:84% she said, to show her some translations. 00:08:56.780 --> 00:08:59.120 align:middle line:84% She had been working on Christensen's collection 00:08:59.120 --> 00:09:02.470 align:middle line:90% Alphabet. 00:09:02.470 --> 00:09:04.390 align:middle line:84% Levertov liked them so much she passed them 00:09:04.390 --> 00:09:06.640 align:middle line:84% on to James Laughlin, who published 00:09:06.640 --> 00:09:08.320 align:middle line:84% an excerpt in New Directions in poetry 00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:13.100 align:middle line:90% and prose number 49 in 1985. 00:09:13.100 --> 00:09:16.420 align:middle line:84% In 2001, New Directions published Alphabet and later 00:09:16.420 --> 00:09:20.620 align:middle line:84% published her cosmic epic It with an introduction 00:09:20.620 --> 00:09:22.570 align:middle line:90% by Anne Carson. 00:09:22.570 --> 00:09:26.380 align:middle line:84% Butterfly Valley, her novel Azorno and most recently, 00:09:26.380 --> 00:09:30.880 align:middle line:84% her early poems and one volume called Light, Grass and Letter 00:09:30.880 --> 00:09:33.020 align:middle line:90% in April. 00:09:33.020 --> 00:09:37.010 align:middle line:84% I like to read another poem in the Nature anthology 00:09:37.010 --> 00:09:42.170 align:middle line:84% by Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer, translated 00:09:42.170 --> 00:09:45.000 align:middle line:90% by Robin Fulton. 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:46.770 align:middle line:84% And it's called "The Blue Windflowers." 00:09:46.770 --> 00:09:50.610 align:middle line:90% 00:09:50.610 --> 00:09:54.990 align:middle line:84% "To be spellbound, nothing's easier. 00:09:54.990 --> 00:09:57.780 align:middle line:84% It's one of the oldest tricks of the soil and springtime, 00:09:57.780 --> 00:09:59.850 align:middle line:90% the blue windflowers. 00:09:59.850 --> 00:10:02.900 align:middle line:90% They are, in a way, unexpected. 00:10:02.900 --> 00:10:04.850 align:middle line:84% They shoot up out of the brown rustle 00:10:04.850 --> 00:10:07.810 align:middle line:84% of last year in overlooked places 00:10:07.810 --> 00:10:10.300 align:middle line:90% where one's gaze never pauses. 00:10:10.300 --> 00:10:11.620 align:middle line:90% They glimmer and float-- 00:10:11.620 --> 00:10:14.650 align:middle line:90% yes, float from their color. 00:10:14.650 --> 00:10:19.520 align:middle line:84% The sharp violet-blue now weighs nothing. 00:10:19.520 --> 00:10:22.670 align:middle line:90% Here is ecstasy but low-voiced. 00:10:22.670 --> 00:10:25.220 align:middle line:90% 00:10:25.220 --> 00:10:29.050 align:middle line:90% Quote, "career," irrelevant. 00:10:29.050 --> 00:10:33.320 align:middle line:84% "Power and publicity," ridiculous. 00:10:33.320 --> 00:10:36.500 align:middle line:84% They must have given a great reception up 00:10:36.500 --> 00:10:42.500 align:middle line:84% in Nineveh with pompe and trompe up, raising the rafters. 00:10:42.500 --> 00:10:46.310 align:middle line:84% And above all those brows, the crowning crystal chandeliers 00:10:46.310 --> 00:10:48.730 align:middle line:90% hung like glass vultures. 00:10:48.730 --> 00:10:52.840 align:middle line:84% Instead of such an overdecorated and strident cul-de-sac, 00:10:52.840 --> 00:10:56.310 align:middle line:84% the windflowers open a secret passage to the real 00:10:56.310 --> 00:10:57.690 align:middle line:90% celebration-- 00:10:57.690 --> 00:10:59.070 align:middle line:90% quiet as death." 00:10:59.070 --> 00:11:01.820 align:middle line:90% 00:11:01.820 --> 00:11:04.550 align:middle line:84% New Directions first published 15 poems by Transtromer 00:11:04.550 --> 00:11:10.190 align:middle line:84% in 1966, again, in the annual number 19. 00:11:10.190 --> 00:11:12.830 align:middle line:84% In 2006, we published his complete works The Great 00:11:12.830 --> 00:11:15.420 align:middle line:90% Enigma: New Collected Poems. 00:11:15.420 --> 00:11:17.760 align:middle line:84% At that time, there was only one or two slim volumes 00:11:17.760 --> 00:11:20.250 align:middle line:90% of Transtromer still in print. 00:11:20.250 --> 00:11:22.830 align:middle line:84% Transtromer's UK publisher Bloodaxe Books 00:11:22.830 --> 00:11:25.350 align:middle line:84% had published an earlier edition of the New Collected 00:11:25.350 --> 00:11:29.630 align:middle line:84% Poems, which we completely revised with the translator, 00:11:29.630 --> 00:11:34.680 align:middle line:84% adding missing sections plus the whole of Transtromer's most 00:11:34.680 --> 00:11:38.610 align:middle line:84% recent collection called The Great Enigma. 00:11:38.610 --> 00:11:40.800 align:middle line:84% And when Transtromer and his wife came to New York 00:11:40.800 --> 00:11:43.380 align:middle line:84% a few years ago for a couple of readings, 00:11:43.380 --> 00:11:45.450 align:middle line:84% I asked them what they wanted to do. 00:11:45.450 --> 00:11:48.120 align:middle line:84% And without hesitation, they said that they 00:11:48.120 --> 00:11:50.600 align:middle line:90% would love to tour Harlem. 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:53.220 align:middle line:84% And actually, this was not a couple of years time. 00:11:53.220 --> 00:11:55.480 align:middle line:90% It's more like seven years ago. 00:11:55.480 --> 00:11:57.900 align:middle line:84% I was living in Harlem at the time. 00:11:57.900 --> 00:11:59.280 align:middle line:84% And my roommate not only happened 00:11:59.280 --> 00:12:01.740 align:middle line:84% to drive a car for a living but has lived 00:12:01.740 --> 00:12:03.960 align:middle line:90% in Harlem for over 35 years. 00:12:03.960 --> 00:12:07.620 align:middle line:84% So we hired my roommate for the day 00:12:07.620 --> 00:12:10.650 align:middle line:84% and gave the Transtromers a driving tour of Harlem, 00:12:10.650 --> 00:12:15.090 align:middle line:84% which I actually filmed with my cheap video camera. 00:12:15.090 --> 00:12:17.730 align:middle line:84% In the spring of 2011, Bloodaxe then 00:12:17.730 --> 00:12:22.470 align:middle line:84% published our edition of the New Collected Poems in the UK. 00:12:22.470 --> 00:12:24.600 align:middle line:84% And it ended up being a positive example 00:12:24.600 --> 00:12:27.780 align:middle line:84% of how two publishers in two different countries 00:12:27.780 --> 00:12:32.140 align:middle line:84% could collaborate on a single project. 00:12:32.140 --> 00:12:36.000 align:middle line:84% And I remember soon after I started working at the press, 00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:37.650 align:middle line:90% I had dinner with Bei Dao-- 00:12:37.650 --> 00:12:41.880 align:middle line:84% ND has been his US publisher since the late 80s-- 00:12:41.880 --> 00:12:45.060 align:middle line:84% And after a few beers, I asked him to name his three 00:12:45.060 --> 00:12:46.860 align:middle line:90% favorite poets. 00:12:46.860 --> 00:12:51.460 align:middle line:84% And with hardly a pause, he said Georg Trakl Tomas Transtromer, 00:12:51.460 --> 00:12:54.310 align:middle line:90% and Gennady Aygi. 00:12:54.310 --> 00:12:55.540 align:middle line:90% The first two I had read. 00:12:55.540 --> 00:12:57.460 align:middle line:90% The third I hadn't. 00:12:57.460 --> 00:13:01.920 align:middle line:84% A few weeks later, I was browsing in a used book shop. 00:13:01.920 --> 00:13:04.830 align:middle line:84% And by great fortune, happened upon a little chapbook 00:13:04.830 --> 00:13:08.370 align:middle line:84% of Gennady Aygi's work translated by Peter France, 00:13:08.370 --> 00:13:13.320 align:middle line:84% published by Duration Press, it used to be out in Sausalito. 00:13:13.320 --> 00:13:16.063 align:middle line:90% 00:13:16.063 --> 00:13:18.230 align:middle line:84% I flipped the pages of the chapbook in the bookshop, 00:13:18.230 --> 00:13:21.570 align:middle line:90% totally mesmerized. 00:13:21.570 --> 00:13:23.680 align:middle line:84% The others in the office also liked his poetry. 00:13:23.680 --> 00:13:27.180 align:middle line:84% So eventually, I contacted Peter France who lives in Scotland. 00:13:27.180 --> 00:13:28.590 align:middle line:84% And together along with Aygi, who 00:13:28.590 --> 00:13:31.290 align:middle line:84% was living in a village in an autonomous region in Russia 00:13:31.290 --> 00:13:34.830 align:middle line:84% called Chuvashia where he was born and raised. 00:13:34.830 --> 00:13:38.130 align:middle line:84% We put a collection together called Child and Rose which 00:13:38.130 --> 00:13:40.530 align:middle line:90% is passing around as well. 00:13:40.530 --> 00:13:42.930 align:middle line:84% The first section: Veronicas book 00:13:42.930 --> 00:13:45.600 align:middle line:84% is a series of poems written about the first six months 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:47.790 align:middle line:90% of Aygi's daughter's life. 00:13:47.790 --> 00:13:51.090 align:middle line:84% It's a celebration of childhood and fatherhood 00:13:51.090 --> 00:13:54.330 align:middle line:84% and about the growing awareness of an infant's life Aygi calls 00:13:54.330 --> 00:13:57.930 align:middle line:84% quote, "the period of likenesses" 00:13:57.930 --> 00:14:01.080 align:middle line:84% where he sees the first weeks of life 00:14:01.080 --> 00:14:05.460 align:middle line:84% up to about the age of three, children experience, undergo, 00:14:05.460 --> 00:14:09.630 align:middle line:84% and bear both in and upon themselves moments, days, 00:14:09.630 --> 00:14:12.630 align:middle line:84% and, weeks of likeness and likenesses 00:14:12.630 --> 00:14:17.820 align:middle line:84% with a multitude of relations, both living and departed. 00:14:17.820 --> 00:14:21.150 align:middle line:84% Here is his poem "Beginning of the Period of Likenesses" 00:14:21.150 --> 00:14:24.820 align:middle line:90% translated by Peter France. 00:14:24.820 --> 00:14:28.970 align:middle line:84% "And the forces of the tribe are stirred 00:14:28.970 --> 00:14:33.170 align:middle line:84% and they float and turn like wind and light. 00:14:33.170 --> 00:14:36.980 align:middle line:84% Carrying over your face, cloud after cloud, 00:14:36.980 --> 00:14:41.360 align:middle line:84% all expressions of vanished faces 00:14:41.360 --> 00:14:46.350 align:middle line:84% to manifest to confirm the definitive appearance, 00:14:46.350 --> 00:14:47.330 align:middle line:90% your own. 00:14:47.330 --> 00:14:51.800 align:middle line:84% With fire, standing firm in turbulence. 00:14:51.800 --> 00:14:56.510 align:middle line:84% Is it not with this same heat that, peering, I 00:14:56.510 --> 00:15:04.940 align:middle line:84% shudder as if amid some singing, pain came in like the wind." 00:15:04.940 --> 00:15:08.540 align:middle line:84% Not long before Aygi passed away suddenly in 2007, 00:15:08.540 --> 00:15:10.790 align:middle line:84% we brought out another collection called Field Russia 00:15:10.790 --> 00:15:16.230 align:middle line:84% and have plans for another one called Time of Gratitude. 00:15:16.230 --> 00:15:20.100 align:middle line:84% So I've just read poems by three different poets, translated 00:15:20.100 --> 00:15:22.170 align:middle line:90% from three different languages. 00:15:22.170 --> 00:15:24.960 align:middle line:84% Each conveys an intensity of emotion and thought, 00:15:24.960 --> 00:15:26.850 align:middle line:84% as well as the stillness and quietness 00:15:26.850 --> 00:15:29.610 align:middle line:90% in their new existence. 00:15:29.610 --> 00:15:34.320 align:middle line:84% Each points to that quote, "invisible poem" as Transtromer 00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:35.080 align:middle line:90% calls it. 00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:39.420 align:middle line:84% That's beyond language while making our language 00:15:39.420 --> 00:15:41.730 align:middle line:90% into something new. 00:15:41.730 --> 00:15:44.220 align:middle line:84% In other words, poetry's resonances 00:15:44.220 --> 00:15:47.250 align:middle line:84% are transformed across languages, 00:15:47.250 --> 00:15:52.800 align:middle line:84% a transformation that is at once ordinary and miraculous. 00:15:52.800 --> 00:15:56.040 align:middle line:84% Perhaps the cliché of being lost in translation persists 00:15:56.040 --> 00:15:59.010 align:middle line:84% because of incompetent translators and our own 00:15:59.010 --> 00:16:03.150 align:middle line:84% prejudices and ignorance as readers. 00:16:03.150 --> 00:16:05.970 align:middle line:84% In thermodynamic terms, translation 00:16:05.970 --> 00:16:10.710 align:middle line:84% is like a steady state system in an ever-changing world. 00:16:10.710 --> 00:16:14.160 align:middle line:84% It keeps language, culture, poetry alive-- 00:16:14.160 --> 00:16:16.490 align:middle line:90% a living presence. 00:16:16.490 --> 00:16:19.490 align:middle line:84% As a Chilean, Roberto Bolaño writes in his collection 00:16:19.490 --> 00:16:22.070 align:middle line:90% of essays between parentheses-- 00:16:22.070 --> 00:16:25.460 align:middle line:90% translated by Natasha Wimmer. 00:16:25.460 --> 00:16:27.680 align:middle line:90% "How to recognize a work of art? 00:16:27.680 --> 00:16:31.190 align:middle line:84% How to separate it, even if just for a moment, 00:16:31.190 --> 00:16:36.520 align:middle line:84% from this critical apparatus, its exegetes, its tireless 00:16:36.520 --> 00:16:41.560 align:middle line:84% plagiarizers, its belittlers, its final lonely fate? 00:16:41.560 --> 00:16:42.860 align:middle line:90% Easy. 00:16:42.860 --> 00:16:44.620 align:middle line:90% Let it be translated. 00:16:44.620 --> 00:16:46.840 align:middle line:84% Let its translator be far from brilliant. 00:16:46.840 --> 00:16:48.580 align:middle line:90% Rip pages from it at random. 00:16:48.580 --> 00:16:50.590 align:middle line:90% Leave it lying in an attic. 00:16:50.590 --> 00:16:53.470 align:middle line:84% If after all of this, a kid comes along and reads it, 00:16:53.470 --> 00:16:57.310 align:middle line:84% and after reading, makes it his own and is faithful to it 00:16:57.310 --> 00:17:00.700 align:middle line:84% or unfaithful, whichever, and reinterprets 00:17:00.700 --> 00:17:03.370 align:middle line:84% it and accompanies it on its voyage to the edge, 00:17:03.370 --> 00:17:07.180 align:middle line:84% and both are enriched, and the kid adds an ounce of value 00:17:07.180 --> 00:17:11.050 align:middle line:84% to its original value, then we have something before us-- 00:17:11.050 --> 00:17:16.780 align:middle line:84% a machine or a book capable of speaking to all human beings. 00:17:16.780 --> 00:17:19.280 align:middle line:84% Not a plowed field, but a mountain. 00:17:19.280 --> 00:17:22.150 align:middle line:84% Not the image of a dark forest, but the dark forest. 00:17:22.150 --> 00:17:27.500 align:middle line:84% Not a flock of birds, but the nightingale." 00:17:27.500 --> 00:17:31.880 align:middle line:84% Yael Evelev who runs the world music label Luaka Bop 00:17:31.880 --> 00:17:35.330 align:middle line:84% that David Byrne founded once said, "Luaka Bop doesn't 00:17:35.330 --> 00:17:37.280 align:middle line:90% follow a traditional plan. 00:17:37.280 --> 00:17:39.260 align:middle line:90% We're trying not to grow big. 00:17:39.260 --> 00:17:41.540 align:middle line:84% It's a balance between enjoying our lives, 00:17:41.540 --> 00:17:45.980 align:middle line:84% being true to our artists, and managing to stay in business." 00:17:45.980 --> 00:17:48.860 align:middle line:84% New Directions chugs along with a similar tune. 00:17:48.860 --> 00:17:52.790 align:middle line:84% If we followed a traditional plan of expansion and profit, 00:17:52.790 --> 00:17:56.030 align:middle line:84% we wouldn't be publishing literature. 00:17:56.030 --> 00:18:00.950 align:middle line:84% The success we've had in recent years with Bolaño, W.G. Sebald, 00:18:00.950 --> 00:18:03.860 align:middle line:84% new editions of the plays of Tennessee Williams, 00:18:03.860 --> 00:18:08.090 align:middle line:84% and books like Leonid Tsypkin's Summer in Baden-Baden 00:18:08.090 --> 00:18:12.950 align:middle line:84% and Carson's Knox and Helen DeWitt's novel Lightning Rods, 00:18:12.950 --> 00:18:17.720 align:middle line:84% along with continuing steady sales of our long backlist 00:18:17.720 --> 00:18:20.810 align:middle line:84% allow us to publish other unknown writers who need 00:18:20.810 --> 00:18:25.580 align:middle line:84% the time and space to hopefully find patient readers. 00:18:25.580 --> 00:18:28.940 align:middle line:90% It's a precarious balancing act. 00:18:28.940 --> 00:18:32.870 align:middle line:84% But sometimes, there are unexpected surprises 00:18:32.870 --> 00:18:36.140 align:middle line:84% like just last week, Cornell University 00:18:36.140 --> 00:18:40.010 align:middle line:84% wanted to order 40,000 copies of Romain Gary's novel 00:18:40.010 --> 00:18:42.980 align:middle line:84% The Life Before Us to give to their students 00:18:42.980 --> 00:18:46.640 align:middle line:84% as a university-wide summer read, which 00:18:46.640 --> 00:18:49.070 align:middle line:90% is always welcomed surprises. 00:18:49.070 --> 00:18:52.225 align:middle line:84% And so that's the bright note I'll end on. 00:18:52.225 --> 00:18:53.600 align:middle line:84% And I thought let's take the rest 00:18:53.600 --> 00:18:56.680 align:middle line:90% of the time for any questions. 00:18:56.680 --> 00:18:58.392 align:middle line:90%