Recommend Some 20th / 21st Century ESL Poets, Please

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Everything I've read of poetry, for the most part, has come from English-speaking countries, or has been written by folks from other locales in English. I've read ABOUT 20th century European poets (in a book of essays by Mark Strand), and I've had a little exposure to Neruda, and some other notable folks outside this little continent, but my poetic knowledge west of Cali, east of Plymouth Rock, and south of the Alamo (and, hell, north of the Great Lakes, too) is sorely lacking. And don't worry about what type of poetry it is - just lay it on me! (As long as it's translated, that is - blah blah "it loses something in the translation" I know, but I lose a lot more in the original language!)

― David R. (popshots75`), Tuesday, 25 January 2005 15:17 (twenty years ago)

It looks to me as if foreign poets don't generally get translated into English until they've gained enough stature to ensure some sales. What that often means in real terms is they're dead, but have enough staying power to get into the academic canon, or else they're over 50 and recently won a highly prestigious prize (i.e. Nobel). The upshot is that you won't hear the names of many "21st century poets" in this thread.

In addition to Neruda, I'd mention C.P. Cavafy (early 20th, wrote in Greek, lived in Alexandria, Egypt) as a non-English poet I admire.

― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 02:48 (twenty years ago)

Vasko Popa, Serbian poet of great craziness and wonder. Homage to the Lame Wolf, translated by Charles Simic, contains this, the first poem in his sequence entitled "Give Me Back My Rags":

Just pop into my head
My thoughts the better to claw your cheek

Just step in front of me
My eyes the better to snap at you

Just open your big mouth
My silence the better to crack your jaws

Just remind me of what you are
My memory the better to dig a hole beneath your feet

That's how things stand between us

― Haibun (Begs2Differ), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 04:06 (twenty years ago)

I wonder if Luiza Neto Jorge has been translated into English yet? I looked at some of her work when I was in Portugal on a writing residential, and remember loving it.

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 26 January 2005 10:37 (twenty years ago)

two months pass...

Not easy to read, but absolutely interesting, the italian poet Andrea Zanzotto.
As far as I know there is a translation in English (Selected poetry of Andrea Zanzotto - Lockert library of poetry in translation)

― didaco, Monday, 28 March 2005 13:02 (twenty years ago)

Wait, this thread isn't about ESL poets at all?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 28 March 2005 23:47 (twenty years ago)

Nope. Just about recent non-English-writing poets whose work has been translated into English so David R can read it.

― Aimless (Aimless), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 00:34 (twenty years ago)

Can we talk about ESL poets? Or xSL poets? Writing poetry in a non-native language seems... tricky at best.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 09:23 (twenty years ago)

Pale Fire (the poem) = best ESL poem ever?

― Shmool McShmool (shmuel), Tuesday, 29 March 2005 22:52 (twenty years ago)

The twentieth century poet I've most enjoyed in translation is Rilke, esp Duino Elegies. I read it in the Leishman/Spender translation. I suspect that may have been superseded by something better, although with Spender you get a translator who was a celebrated poet in his own name.

― frankiemachine, Wednesday, 30 March 2005 13:48 (twenty years ago)

I've recently fallen in love with Night, Streets, The Lantern... by Alexandr Blok (Russian symbolist, early 20th century). I must confess I found this in a rather random manner, and know nothing of his other works to speak of. (Also, I've seen a couple of different translations, so this one is probably not definitive.)

Night, streets, the lantern, the drugstore,
The meaningless and dusky light.
A quarter of the century more --
All fall the same into your sight!

You died – as it was before –
You have the former way to start:
The streets, the lantern, the drugstore,
Swell of the canal in the night.

― emil.y (emil.y), Wednesday, 30 March 2005 14:33 (twenty years ago)

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