Category Archives: Translations

Horace, Odes, 1.11

… The phrase “Carpe diem” comes from Horace, Book I, poem 11. I found a humble translation that I did years ago in a totally forgotten archive, and liked it well enough to post it on my Facebook page: … Continue reading →

Wuhan Poets 2010

15 Jul ’24

Time contains memories that are a pleasure to remember, memories that also bring pleasure to others. From 2006 to 2010, I taught English during the summer at Wuhan University in Wuhan, China. In the evening for an extracurricular activity, I … Continue reading →

Carmina Catulli: 1 through 10

13 Jul ’24

… What follows are the first ten poems of Catullus in Latin with humble translations by me; I also do a reading in Latin of Catullus 2: Passer. Hope you enjoy it and get a feeling for the sounds. The … Continue reading →

Sonetos Espirituales por Juan Ramón Jiménez

12 Jul ’24

Sonetos Espirituales por Juan Ramón Jiménez III Mientras la última luz de la esperanza alumbre débilmente mi camino, yo iré, sonriendo y fiel, a mi destino, contento, como un niño, de la andanza. ¡Ay, qué vivir de bienaventuranza la de … Continue reading →

Catullus, poems 11 through 17

12 Jul ’24

XI Furi et Aureli, comites Catulli, sive in extremos penetrabit Indos, litus ut longe resonante Eoa ……….tunditur unda, sive in Hyrcanos Arabasve molles, seu Sacas sagittiferosve Parthos, sive quae septemgeminus colorat ……….aequora Nilus, sive trans altas gradietur Alpes Caesaris … Continue reading →

Discovered Frescoes in Pompeii

26 Apr ’24

… Frescoes buried by Vesuvius were recently uncovered in an ancient dining room in Pompeii. For those who don’t subscribe, I have copied and pasted the article below from the Washington Post about this discovery: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/04/12/new-pompeii-frescoes-paintings/ This photo of … Continue reading →

The Swan by Charles Baudelaire and The Goose by Daisy Fried

8 Sep ’22

During the pandemic, the poet Daisy Fried was living in Philadelphia with her husband who was dying of a debilitating disease. Without much help from the outside, during breaks from the caring, Daisy began to read and translate Charles Baudelaire, … Continue reading →

The Prologue in Bangla

3 Sep ’22

After a very long period of writer’s block in 1973, I wrote a series of poems that I called the prologue. I was twenty-four. When the Bangladeshi writer and social activist, Mir Rabi, asked if he could put a translation … Continue reading →

Daisy Fried reads from The Year the City Emptied, translations and adaptions from Les Fleurs du Mal

1 Jun ’22

During the pandemic, while taking care of her dying husband, quarantined from friends, and without much help from Medicaid, one day in the spring of 2020, Daisy Fried read a translation of Baudelaire’s “Paysage” by John Ashbery, thought to herself, … Continue reading →

Alfred Corn reads his translation of Rilke’s First Elegy from the Duino Elegies

13 Feb ’22

A few years ago, the news that Alfred Corn was working on a translation of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies made me very happy. When I was in my early twenties, Rilke was one of the poets who showed … Continue reading →

Le Pont Mirabeau read by Guillaume Apollinaire and translated by Ron Padgett

21 Oct ’21

The best translation by far that I have come across of Guillaume Apollinaire’s poetry is by Ron Padgett in a book published by the New York Review of Books in 2015 simply titled, Zone, Selected Poems. When Ron Padgett … Continue reading →

David Bowie and Arthur Rimbaud

1 May ’20

… Not doing much this morning, but not doing is doing, right? Listening to Youtube: Martha and the Vandellas, Santana, and David Bowie: the man who could do a show. I’ve always thought “Heroes” was Bowie’s homage to Arthur Rimbaud’s … Continue reading →