(no subject)
Twenty new translations in Poems of the Night, seventy in The Sonnets. Not always great, but something every page or so to startle me. My sister's allegedly learning Spanish. I think about doing the same, but imagine it would be the last nail in the coffin of my French--much like French murdered my Russian which obliterated my Latin.
I think I like his earliest poems most consistently, at least as translated by the competent. Almost all the new ones are by Stephen Kessler, who's usually up there with Giovanni and Kerrigan, just under Reid and Merwin, the very best Borges verse translators--not counting the great Fitzgerald, grand Wilbur and mighty Strand who only did a few each. Levine's handful in Poems of the Night are fine, surprisingly; Eric McHenry is the sucky one in these books, to my mind. Trueblood is the next worst, also surprisingly, since he's fantastic with Machado and Lorca. Wilbur can rhyme Borges, and maybe Hollander. Others should really stop trying: the reaching occludes the thoughts, which we're there for.
I think I like his earliest poems most consistently, at least as translated by the competent. Almost all the new ones are by Stephen Kessler, who's usually up there with Giovanni and Kerrigan, just under Reid and Merwin, the very best Borges verse translators--not counting the great Fitzgerald, grand Wilbur and mighty Strand who only did a few each. Levine's handful in Poems of the Night are fine, surprisingly; Eric McHenry is the sucky one in these books, to my mind. Trueblood is the next worst, also surprisingly, since he's fantastic with Machado and Lorca. Wilbur can rhyme Borges, and maybe Hollander. Others should really stop trying: the reaching occludes the thoughts, which we're there for.