Sergey Gandlevski translates America "aimlessly into the depths of Moscow," for his Russian self in "America of the Mind," translated by Philip Metres
Denisa Comanescu notes the explosion of translation and translation studies in the past two decades, and the central place that translation has had in the poetry of some poets who were also translators. What she doesn't say in her short essay is something we would like to challenge our contributors to think and write about, namely that modern and postmodern literature, particularly poetry, has been nothing but a meditation on translation (or not). This will be a theme for the next issue of the Corpse, so consider this a call to arms. (fr. Latin, armas, fr. TV, Armani)
Radu Doru Cosmin is a Romanian poet who writes in English, the lingua franca of Eastern Europeans raised on MTV and the Cartoon Network. There is an obvious New York School of poetry influence in his liberal use of his friends' names, proving once more the astonishing community-building warmth of that Pop-era phenomenon
Emmy Grant is the untranslated brainchild of Milajurko Vukadinovic who writes in six languages, including Romanian. Emmy's poems confront in Romanian questions having to do with immigration to America and the English language.
Haim Haskal writes with undiluted astonishment about the Bucharest of his youth where he has returned after 35 years. He's sincerely nauseated by the return of fascism and makes a good case for why Cosmin writes in English.
Attila Jozsef, Hungary's wonderful modern poet, is rendered into English again by Gabor G. Gyukics and Michael Castro. The Corpse is a great admirer of John Batki's translations of Joszef (we published some a few years ago), but we recognize the necessity of retranslating the great poets every decade. Each new translation reinfuses the poetry with living juice and provides us with a perfect mirror of our own zeitgeist.
Jeanine Shackleton practices the variety of translation we sometimes call "bureau reports," that is, she translates borders and Japan (for instance) into American verse.
Stoyan Valev's stories are translated from the Bulgarian by Mariana Zagorska and Nevena Pascaleva, and we are offering them here only partly for their inestimable worth; the other part is nostalgia for a certain kind of humanist (nee socialist) realist style that had its heart-quickening charms for the editor
John Verlenden continues here, in "Road to Damascus, Part III," the long and wondrous journey he has had the readers of the Corpse traveling since the mid-90s. If I was a New York publisher I would look back on John Verlenden's reports from Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East, and rush into print an elegant illustrated volume. Timely book, great sales guaranteed. Yes, you do need permission from us.
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