WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.660 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.660 --> 00:00:06.010 align:middle line:90% Thank you so much, Tyler. 00:00:06.010 --> 00:00:09.460 align:middle line:84% And before I get started, I would like to thank Tyler Meier 00:00:09.460 --> 00:00:11.710 align:middle line:84% and ask all of your support for him, 00:00:11.710 --> 00:00:13.600 align:middle line:84% and all of the wonderful staff in the Poetry 00:00:13.600 --> 00:00:16.149 align:middle line:84% Center, those who support us, our donors, everyone. 00:00:16.149 --> 00:00:18.340 align:middle line:84% It's a marvelous place and it's a privilege 00:00:18.340 --> 00:00:20.350 align:middle line:84% to be here with them so help me thank them. 00:00:20.350 --> 00:00:26.487 align:middle line:90% 00:00:26.487 --> 00:00:28.070 align:middle line:84% And it's also a great privilege for me 00:00:28.070 --> 00:00:32.000 align:middle line:84% to have this opportunity to introduce Marilyn Hacker. 00:00:32.000 --> 00:00:35.060 align:middle line:84% Of Marilyn Hacker's poetry, the UK newspaper, The Guardian, 00:00:35.060 --> 00:00:38.450 align:middle line:84% notes and I quote, "Hacker convinces us 00:00:38.450 --> 00:00:40.790 align:middle line:84% of the authenticity of a world as it 00:00:40.790 --> 00:00:45.860 align:middle line:84% exists in language through mastery, delight, desire, 00:00:45.860 --> 00:00:48.870 align:middle line:90% passion, and wit. 00:00:48.870 --> 00:00:52.650 align:middle line:84% The wit is sexual and rakish, the passion humane 00:00:52.650 --> 00:00:55.590 align:middle line:84% and dense, the delight is the mastery 00:00:55.590 --> 00:00:58.350 align:middle line:84% that is both formal, yet acrobatically 00:00:58.350 --> 00:01:04.700 align:middle line:84% flexible and free-spirited, often breathtaking." 00:01:04.700 --> 00:01:07.430 align:middle line:84% Hacker's poetry is distinguished by her masterful use 00:01:07.430 --> 00:01:13.040 align:middle line:84% of poetic forms that transcend geography and time, villanelle, 00:01:13.040 --> 00:01:17.300 align:middle line:84% ghazal, renga, or a sonnet cycle. 00:01:17.300 --> 00:01:19.160 align:middle line:84% To these classic forms, she brings 00:01:19.160 --> 00:01:22.220 align:middle line:84% a strikingly contemporary voice, and through them 00:01:22.220 --> 00:01:25.670 align:middle line:84% meditates on decidedly contemporary concerns, 00:01:25.670 --> 00:01:30.170 align:middle line:84% such as AIDS, gay marriage, geopolitics, 00:01:30.170 --> 00:01:33.860 align:middle line:90% and modern city life. 00:01:33.860 --> 00:01:37.190 align:middle line:84% In the New York Times, David Orr recognized Hacker's most 00:01:37.190 --> 00:01:39.680 align:middle line:84% recent book, A Stranger's Mirror, 00:01:39.680 --> 00:01:43.190 align:middle line:84% here to find, New and Selected Poems, 00:01:43.190 --> 00:01:47.780 align:middle line:84% as one of the best poetry books published in 2015, calling 00:01:47.780 --> 00:01:50.870 align:middle line:84% Hacker, and I love this quote, "a swashbuckling wielder 00:01:50.870 --> 00:01:55.460 align:middle line:84% of poetry's most challenging forms." 00:01:55.460 --> 00:01:58.550 align:middle line:84% She is one of our most important and accomplished translators 00:01:58.550 --> 00:02:02.420 align:middle line:84% from the French, and more recently from Arabic. 00:02:02.420 --> 00:02:05.870 align:middle line:84% In his 2009 citation for the PEN award for poetry 00:02:05.870 --> 00:02:09.740 align:middle line:84% and translation, judge Lawrence Venuti recognizes 00:02:09.740 --> 00:02:13.670 align:middle line:84% Hacker's translations of Marie Étienne's King of a Hundred 00:02:13.670 --> 00:02:16.610 align:middle line:84% Horsemen, as follows, and I quote again, 00:02:16.610 --> 00:02:19.820 align:middle line:84% "Hacker's rendering keeps pace with Étienne's metamorphic 00:02:19.820 --> 00:02:24.770 align:middle line:84% French, finding analogous registers and styles, 00:02:24.770 --> 00:02:28.010 align:middle line:84% but she also exploits the heterogeneous resources 00:02:28.010 --> 00:02:32.210 align:middle line:84% of English to release a stream of surprising effects, 00:02:32.210 --> 00:02:37.190 align:middle line:84% each verbal choice becoming an interpretive move that captures 00:02:37.190 --> 00:02:40.970 align:middle line:84% and enriches its French counterpart," end quote. 00:02:40.970 --> 00:02:44.750 align:middle line:90% The essence of translation. 00:02:44.750 --> 00:02:48.290 align:middle line:84% Marilyn Hacker is the author of 15 books of poems including A 00:02:48.290 --> 00:02:56.240 align:middle line:84% Stranger's Mirror, 2015, Names, 2010, Desesperanto, 2003, 00:02:56.240 --> 00:03:00.770 align:middle line:84% an essay collection called Unauthorized Voices, 2010, 00:03:00.770 --> 00:03:03.860 align:middle line:84% and 13 collections of translations of French 00:03:03.860 --> 00:03:09.410 align:middle line:84% and Francophone poets, including Emmanuel Moses, Marie Étienne, 00:03:09.410 --> 00:03:15.470 align:middle line:84% Venus Khoury-Ghata, Habib Tengour, and Rachida Madani. 00:03:15.470 --> 00:03:19.280 align:middle line:84% Diaspo/Renga a collaborative sequence 00:03:19.280 --> 00:03:22.160 align:middle line:84% written with the Palestinian-American poet Deema 00:03:22.160 --> 00:03:27.230 align:middle line:84% Shehabi, was published by Holland Park Press in 2014. 00:03:27.230 --> 00:03:30.080 align:middle line:84% Her awards include the National Book Award, 00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:34.550 align:middle line:84% the Lenore Marshall prize, two Lambda Literary Awards, 00:03:34.550 --> 00:03:39.050 align:middle line:84% the 2009 PEN award for poetry and translation, 00:03:39.050 --> 00:03:43.790 align:middle line:84% the 2010 PEN-Faulkner award, and the international Argana prize 00:03:43.790 --> 00:03:47.600 align:middle line:84% for poetry from the Beit as-Shir/House of Poetry 00:03:47.600 --> 00:03:50.000 align:middle line:90% in Morocco in 2011. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:51.710 align:middle line:90% It's amazing. 00:03:51.710 --> 00:03:56.630 align:middle line:84% She is a former Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. 00:03:56.630 --> 00:03:58.970 align:middle line:84% Please do help me welcome, and let us 00:03:58.970 --> 00:04:01.340 align:middle line:84% all delight in this opportunity to engage 00:04:01.340 --> 00:04:04.970 align:middle line:84% with the "flexible, free-spirited, swashbuckling 00:04:04.970 --> 00:04:07.960 align:middle line:90% mastery of Marilyn Hacker."