Category Archives: Literature

BOOK: Transient Worlds by Arthur Sze

Posted on by
Reply
Transient Worlds: On Translating PoetryTransient Worlds: On Translating Poetry by Arthur Sze
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Copper Canyon

Release Date: April 14, 2026

Just as people are fond of saying, “the book is always better than the movie,” there is an idea — widely accepted as truism — that goes, “a translation can never be as good as its source poem.” I don’t buy either of those views, but there’s certainly truth to the notion that a poetic translation can never perfectly echo style, tone, sound quality, and meaning at once. Each language is unique, and the more different two languages are the more one has to make decisions about what one will emulate and what one will craft. It’s also true that any translation will represent a drift away from the culture of the original (which is not identical to being worse.) In short, any poetry translation that seeks to be good had better be a work of art unto itself.

The current US Poet Laureate (as of this writing,) Arthur Sze, has written a book to help readers intelligently navigate the troubled waters of poetic translation. Sze certainly has insight, having not only translated Chinese poems himself, but also being Professor Emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts, he has multiple cultural lenses with which to view poetry.

This book consists of fifteen chapters exploring poems and poetry excerpts from around the globe — and their translations. The twelve diverse source languages include: Chinese, Navajo, French, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, Danish, and Russian. The original poets include Tao Qian, Guillaume Apollinaire, Homer, Kobayashi Issa, Pablo Neruda, Marina Tsvetaeva, Aime Cesaire, Najwan Darwish, and Mirabai. Many of the chapters include multiple translations, offering the reader a means to see how different translators take to the task. Others offer only a single translation but turn their attention to specific considerations of translation. In one case, there is an interview with the translator. I enjoyed this varied approach to the exploring the topic. It made for a book with zero monotony and many facets.

If you are a poet or a poetry reader who enjoys reading poetry from varied languages or source languages, I’d highly recommend this book.

View all my reviews

Peach Blossoms [Lyric Poem]

Posted on by
Reply
Photograph of Peach Blossoms taken in early March in Atlanta's Piedmont Park. 
I see the Peach Blossoms of Spring,
   And think of old Li Bai’s answer.
 
In wordless replies, the world sings;
   In unpeopled worlds, there’s a dancer.

The referenced poem by Li Bai [李白] is entitled Question and Answer in the Mountains [山中问答] and is crudely translated as:

I'm asked why I live in mountains.
   I laugh while giving no reply.

Peach Blossoms flow from sight & mind;
   Beyond men, another Earth & Sky.

Or, in Chinese: 

问余何意栖碧山，
笑而不答心自闲。

桃花流水窅然去，
别有天地非人间。

“Drinking Wine, no. 5” [饮酒·其五] by Tao Qian [陶潜] (a.k.a. Tao Yuanming [陶渊明])

Posted on by
Reply
Taken in Hartwell, Georgia.
I live amid a busy town,
   But traffic sounds are never heard.
 
How can this possibly be true?

Deep in the mind, all is remote.

Picking 'mums by the eastern fence,
   I peer at distant South Mountains.
 Sunset flares in garish color.
   Birds flock home in lines and clusters. 
 The scene conveys some great meaning,
   But words to express it fail me.

NOTES: “Drinking Wine, no. 5” [饮酒·其五] is one of Tao Qian’s [陶潜] “Twenty Poems on Drinking Wine” [饮酒二十首.] It is the best-known piece from the collection. The original poem in Simplified Chinese script is:

结 庐 在 人 境,
而 无 车 马 喧.
问 君 何 能 尔?
心 远 地 自 偏.
采 菊 东 篱 下,
悠 然 见 南 山.
山 气 日 夕 佳,
飞 鸟 相 与 还.
此 中 有 真 意,
欲 辨 已 忘 言.

I’ve started reading a review copy of Arthur Sze’s Transient Worlds (from Copper Canyon Press, due out April 14, 2026.) The first chapter discusses this poem and various translations of it, encouraging readers to make their own translation. This is mine. For more information about the book, see: https://www.coppercanyonpress.org/books/transient-worlds-arthur-sze/

BOOK: “Of Love and Other Demons” by Gabriel García Márquez

Posted on by
Reply
Of Love and Other DemonsOf Love and Other Demons by Gabriel García Márquez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher – Penguin Random House

This novel revolves around the young daughter of an aristocrat in 18th century Cartagena, Sierva Maria, who is raised by slaves, goes native, and – after being bitten by a rabid dog – is sent to a convent for exorcism. The other central character is the priest, Father Cayetano Delaura, who is dispatched to evaluate the girl and perform the exorcism. Father Delaura doesn’t initially believe the girl is possessed. Sierva Maria speaks the African tribal languages of the slaves who raised her (rather than speaking in tongues as the Nuns believe,) and she is a psychological wreck in large part because the Sisters treat her horribly, believing her to be demon infested. In the process of cleaning Sierva Maria up, tending to her wounds, and coaxing her to speak to him, the priest falls in love with the girl.

It’s a compelling story. Gabriel García Márquez opens the book with a prologue in which he proposes that it was a legend he was told by his grandmother that formed the seed of the story and the real-life discovery of human remains with extremely long hair that trigger his writing. (Sierva Maria has long hair because it was never cut because it was promised to the Saints in prayer when she was saved from choking on her umbilical cord at birth.)

Being set in the 18th century, the book features a fascinating mix of people who believe the problems of Sierva Maria can only be demon possession, an Enlightenment-influenced doctor of the view that it there are more logical explanations, and the many shades in between — epitomized by Father Delaura’s migrating views on the subject.

I’d highly recommend this book for readers of historical fiction.

View all my reviews

BOOK: “Collected Sonnets” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Posted on by
2
Collected SonnetsCollected Sonnets by Edna St. Vincent Millay
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher site – HarperCollins

NOTE: The version that I read was the earlier edition containing 161 sonnets, it did not include the sonnets from Mine the Harvest.

My earliest remembered exposure to the work of Edna St. Vincent Millay was to a couple of her more anthologized sonnets (included herein:) “I, being born a woman and distressed” and “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why.” I found those poems free of the sappy sentimentality that I’d often associated with the form, and that was what attracted to me to this collection, a collection which I’m happy to say shares the same tone, a tone that leans edgy and irreverent. (At least for its day.) One sees this from the opening poem, “Thou art not lovelier than lilacs, no,” which pays homage to Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (i.e. “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun,”) the poem which began the war on hyperbole in love poetry.

Millay’s collection is not all love poetry (though it is largely so.) It does also deal in nature and includes a few epitaphs (including for the likes of mankind, [see: Sonnet cxliv.]) Millay does work in both the Petrarchan and English / Shakespearean sonnet forms.

I’d highly recommend this collection for poetry readers, particularly those who like sonnets.

View all my reviews

BOOK: “The General in His Labyrinth” by Gabriel García Márquez

Posted on by
Reply
The General in His LabyrinthThe General in His Labyrinth by Gabriel García Márquez
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Penguin

This is a work of historical fiction by Gabriel García Márquez that tells the story of the last days of Simón Bolívar as the revolutionary hero attempted to flee Latin America toward exile in Europe. (Bolívar led a big chunk of Latin America to independence from Spain and ruled over Gran Colombia — a country that included Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, and parts of other adjacent countries.) The story covers a trip up the Magdalena River from Colombia’s interior to the coast and on to Santa Marta, where his trip (and life) would end. [FYI: The title comes from words Bolívar spoke slightly before his death when he was putting together his will in which he said, “…How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?”]

There is some contention about the degree to which the book is historical fiction verses a historical account. It seems there are some fictionalized elements, but because García Márquez leans into the degree to which Bolívar was quite ill during this period the book may be more accurate in some ways than more hagiographic accounts.

The events of the story took place in 1830, and the times present an interesting contrast to our own as Bolívar travels to places that have not yet gotten the news that he is no longer President and treat his visit as one would that of a head of state.

At the book’s end there is a brief epilogue by the author as well as an extensive timeline of Bolívar’s life. The latter is quite useful because this book covers only a short period of time, though one of is great interest.

I’d highly recommend this for readers who enjoy literary fiction and / or are interested in Latin American history.

View all my reviews

PROMPT: Books

Posted on by
1
Daily writing prompt
What books do you want to read?
View all responses

I’ve always gotten bogged down in Joyce’s Ulysses. There are some books you need to be in the right headspace to attack.

I should probably read the Bible and the Koran, speaking of literature I’ve never had the mental energy to take up.

BOOK: “Wildness” by Lydia Willsky-Ciollo

Posted on by
2
Wildness: Henry David Thoreau and the Making of an American TheologyWildness: Henry David Thoreau and the Making of an American Theology by Lydia Willsky-Ciollo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher — University of Notre Dame Press

Release Date: March 1, 2026

Willsky-Ciollo argues in this book that Thoreau built a uniquely American theology with nature at its core, a theology that didn’t just draw on Greco-Roman philosophy and Abrahamic religion (as other schools of thought have) but also on Indian ideas of both the South Asian and Native American varieties. (The book speaks more extensively to the latter.)

For a scholarly work, this book is readable and doesn’t require jargon proficiency or any special academic background. I can’t say I found it compelling to think of Thoreau’s teachings as a theology (rather than a philosophy, or a strain of Transcendentalism.) That said, to someone outside the field, I don’t think that is a particularly interesting question, given that scholarly disciplines are inherently subjectively defined and prone to mutability. What’s more important to me is that I did gain numerous insights from this book, particularly regarding Thoreau’s unfinished final work Wild Fruits (which is discussed in some detail,) and Thoreau’s views on American Indians and their influence on his worldview.

If you’re interested in Thoreau, and looking for some insight that one might not gain from reading his most well-known works, this is a book well worth reading.

View all my reviews

BOOK: “Forty-Three Ways of Looking at Hemingway” by Jeffrey Meyers

Posted on by
Reply
Forty-Three Ways of Looking at HemingwayForty-Three Ways of Looking at Hemingway by Jeffrey Meyers
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Website – LSU Press

I enjoyed this approach to biography. Instead of telling Hemingway’s life story chronologically or even via some other form of overarching arc, Meyers gives us forty-three chapters that each shine a light on a different facet of Hemingway. In many cases, these facets are Hemingway’s relationships to other people: writers, artists, wives, and other personalities. In other cases, the facets are events or concepts, such as his suicide, war, achievements, etc.

This approach can, on occasion, lead to repetition, but I find repetition that is not overbearing to be useful in taking in key information.

If you are interested in what made Hemingway tick, I’d highly recommend that you read this book.

View all my reviews

BOOK: “The American Claimant” by Mark Twain

Posted on by
Reply
The American ClaimantThe American Claimant by Mark Twain
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Free at Project Gutenberg

This is one of Twain’s lesser-known books, but it’s not for lack of Twain’s signature humor and cleverness. Like “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” it shines a light (often satirically) on what it means to be American via a fish-out-of-water storyline. In this case, there is no “magic teleportation” of a character to an alternate world. Here, a progressive British aristocrat ends up in working class America, while a flighty American who dabbles in get-rich-quick schemes — Mulberry Sellers (the titular “American Claimant”) — ends up playing at being an aristocrat, but in America.

As the book highlights the difference between class-conscious Britain and egalitarian America, it shows that deep down America isn’t always as egalitarian as it projects to be. This insight is largely conveyed through the experience of “Howard Tracy” (the pseudonym of Viscount Berkeley, the progressive aristocrat who gives up his title to assume an identity in blue-collar America, only to find that it is not the utopia of equality he’d come to believe it to be.)

If you enjoy humorous stories, I’d highly recommend this book. It may take a moment to get into the story, but — ultimately — it’s an enjoyable read.

View all my reviews