Poets Translate Poets · A Hudson Review Anthology

Poets Translate Poets originates from the perception that while the poetry translated in the Hudson Review over the years—from ancient Greek to contemporary Russian—constitutes a history of world literature, the translators themselves are among the most distinguished American and British poets. These poems belong as much to them as to the original authors.

The collection features eighty-three poets in twenty-four languages, translated by sixty writers; it represents the best of more than five hundred translated works originally published in the Hudson Review over the last seven decades. The value of this anthology lies in the artistry of its translators, including William Carlos Williams and Marianne Moore, combined with the range of its originals, from classical epics to Old French, Middle English, and medieval Japanese, to lesser-known twentieth-century works by Bulgarian and Swedish poets. Among its translations are Ezra Pound’s remarkable re-creation of Sophocles’ Women of Trachis and Richard Wilbur’s transformation of Pierre Corneille’s alexandrines into English heroic couplets in Le Cid.

Beyond the pleasures it provides as a collection of world poetry translated for an English reader, Poets Translate Poets offers a privileged exploration of the craft of translating poetry. The collection includes an introduction by poet Mark Jarman providing a history of the Hudson Review and its translated literature. The book is organized chronologically by language, and also features an index of the translators, adding another lens for appreciating the collected works. The range and depth of poems found here showcase a singular editorial vision from one of America’s oldest and most revered independent literary quarterlies.