Synopses & Reviews
A major anthology spanning the diversity of the latest poetry to come out of Europe New European Poets presents the works of poets from across Europe. In compiling this landmark anthology, Wayne Miller and Kevin Prufer enlisted twenty-four regional editors to select 270 poets whose writing was first published after 1970. These poets represent every country in Europe, and many of them are published here for the first time in English and in the United States. The resulting anthology collects some of the very best work of a new generation of poets who have come of age since Paul Celan, Anna Akhmatova, Federico García Lorca, Eugenio Montale, and Czeslaw Milosz.
The poetry in New European Poets is fiercely intelligent, often irreverent, and engaged with history and politics. The range of styles is exhilarating &mdash from the lyric intimacy of Portuguese poet Rosa Alice Branco to the profane prose poems of Romanian poet Radu Andriescu, from the surrealist bravado of Czech poet Sylva Fischerová to the survivor's cry of Russian poet Irina Ratushinskaya. Poetry translated from more than thirty languages is represented, including French, German, Spanish, and Italian, and more regional languages such as Basque, Irish Gaelic, and Sámi.
In its scope and ambition, New European Poets is destined to be a seminal anthology, an important vehicle for American readers to discover the extraordinary poetry being written across the Atlantic.
Review
"Tasked with representing European poets who began publishing after 1970, poets and editors Miller and Prufer recruited 24 regional editors including Marilyn Hacker (Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Switzerland) and Rika Lesser (Finland and Sweden) to select and translate 270 contemporary versifiers. The resulting anthology designed to emphasize poets not already well represented in English is sure to be a boon to all kinds of poetry lovers and an important reference for decades to come. From Valzhyna Mort of Belarus ('Outside your borders/ they built a huge orphanage,/ and you left us there, belarus') to Poland's Adam Wiedemann ('Imagine a situation where it never occurs to you/ to think of any other situation'), Norway's Cathrine Grndahl ('...the most frightening thing is simply/ to be named John Doe and to land in Smalltown') to Portugal's Rui Pires Cabral ('Great city/ of the missing, so often I didn't have/ the vigor to take pleasure in/ your small, deserted/ gardens'), these poets range from the surreal to the all-too-real, portraying decades of sweeping political change throughout Europe and rendering inner lives shaped by circumstances and places as varied as the languages in which they write. American readers are sure to find many new favorites among those included, and they may even find their whole conception of contemporary European literature upturned." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Synopsis
A major anthology spanning the diversity of the latest poetry to come out of Europe
New European Poets presents the works of poets from across Europe. In compiling this landmark anthology, Wayne Miller and Kevin Prufer enlisted twenty-four regional editors to select 270 poets whose writing was first published after 1970. These poets represent every country in Europe, and many of them are published here for the first time in English and in the United States. The resulting anthology collects some of the very best work of a new generation of poets who have come of age since Paul Celan, Anna Akhmatova, Federico Garcia Lorca, Eugenio Montale, and Czeslaw Milosz.
The poetry in New European Poets is fiercely intelligent, often irreverent, and engaged with history and politics. The range of styles is exhilarating--from the lyric intimacy of Portuguese poet Rosa Alice Branco to the profane prose poems of Romanian poet Radu Andriescu, from the surrealist bravado of Czech poet Sylva
Fischerova to the survivor's cry of Russian poet Irina Ratushinskaya. Poetry translated from more than thirty languages is represented, including French, German, Spanish, and Italian, and more regional languages such as Basque, Irish Gaelic, and Sami.
In its scope and ambition, New European Poets is destined to be a seminal anthology, an important vehicle for American readers to discover the extraordinary poetry being written across the Atlantic.
About the Author
Wayne Miller is the author of a book of poems,
Only the Senses Sleep, and
co-translator of I Don't Believe in Ghosts by Moikom Zeqo. Kevin Prufer is the author of four books of poems, including National Anthem.
Table of Contents
PORTUGALROSA ALICE BRANCO
Mornings on the Ground
The Highest Branch
Between Yesterday and Your Mouth ADÍLIA LOPES
Elisabeth Doesn't Work Here Anymore JOSÉ TOLENTINO MENDONÇA
Calle PrÍncipe
The White Road Stonecrop
RUI PIRES CABRAL
Polish Restaurant
Lost Friends
This Way Out
Our Turn
City of the Missing SPAIN
BERNARDO ATXAGA
The Tale of the Hedgehog
Life CHUS PATO
[you can't see the battle because it's far off in Eritrea]
[and now the panopticion is a ruin] LUIS GARCÍA MONTERO
Poetry
Poetics JOSÉ MANUEL DEL PINO
The Evening
The Sweet Arms of Inspiration ANNA AGUILAR-AMAT
Orpheus
Relativity ROGER WOLFE
Wisdom
Words
The Last Night of Earth VIOLETA RANGEL
[I pray to heaven your house]
[Night, every night,]
[It's true everything you touch]
[Spidery light scratches the crystal] KIRMEN URIBE
Visit
Cardiogram
Loren PABLO GARCÍA CASADO
Ford
Father
FRANCE
PAUL DE ROUX
Figure in a village
Waiting (1)
Waiting (2) MARIE ÉTIENNE
from The Ebony Mare GABRIELLE ALTHEN
Rooms EMMANUEL HOCQUARD
from The Invention of Glass HÉDI KADDOUR
Spiritual Distress
Treason ANDRÉ VELTER
Red or Nothing ABDELWAHA MEDDEB
from The 99 Yale Stations GUY GOFFETTE
So Many Things
Around the Flames
The Number FRANCK ANDRÉ JAMME
from How Long? HABIB TENGOUR
Conversation with Mohammed Dib AMINA SAÏD
On the seventh day of my birth JEAN-BAPTISTE PARA
Svetla
Tomorrow ARIANE DREYFUS
Rosas 1998 EMMANUEL MOSES
Souvenir of Liège BRUNO GREGOIRE
White Siestas
Sanctuary CHRISTOPHE LAMIOT ENOS
Night II
Night III VALÉRIE ROUZEAU
Won't see you soon:
Takeaway
Gather me some
Fido LUXEMBOURG
ANISE KOLTZ
From The Fire Eater JEAN PORTANTE
from The Desert SWITZERLAND
ELISABETH WANDELER-DECK
from controcantos URS ALLEMANN
For the Lyre PIERRE VOÉLIN
from Lents passages de l’ombre SYLVIANE DUPUIS
from Musicales KURT AEBLI
An Old Gaping Wound Wheedling Out An Unmasked Smile FABIO PUSTERLA
Saturday in Sintra
Star, Meteor, Some Shooting Thing CHRISTIAN UETZ
And From You ANDREAS NEESER
Mirandouro de São Pedro de Alcântara CLAIRE GENOUX
from Saisons du corps RAPHAEL URWEIDER
[in the mildness of the afternoon the]
[brown dustbeetles everywhere brown] ITALY
RAFFAELLO BALDINI
The Knife
Picking GIAMPIERO NERI
[seeing him again has not been pleasant.]
Overlappings DARIO BELLEZZA
[I believe I should have a child: ]
[I licked you between dirty sheets,] MAURIZIO CUCCHI
Letter and Player
[From the Cairo to Loreto]
[He left throwing us]
[Why do you breathe on my head?] VIVIAN LAMARQUE
At Vacation's End
To Pasolini
Little Girl
The Lady of the Snow PATRIZIA CAVALLI
[To simulate the burning of the heart, the humiliation]
[The rain brings me back]
[Almost always he who is content is also vulgar;] FRANCO BUFFONI
[Techniques of criminal investigation]
[If you don't know what it means in English to maroon] ANTONELLA ANEDDA
from Winter Dwellings
Earth VALERIO MAGRELLI
[I have often imagined that glances]
[I have from you this red]
[Evenings, when the light dims] DAVIDE RONDONI
An Italian Evening
Michelangelo's Pietà, Carriage MALTA
IMMANUEL MIFSUD
The Day of the Dead (in Bratislava)
The Twentieth of September ROMANIA
DANIEL BANULESCU
You'll Shrivel Up You'll Be an Exotic Fruit RADU ANDRIESCU
Bloody Bad Shit RUXANDRA CESEREANU
The Killer MILAIL GALATANU
At the Virgin's Breast O. NIMIGEAN
The Barren Woman
11 May 1998 IOANA NICOLAIE
Suspended DAN SOCIU
As Big as China
Tenderly Caressed Sucked Licked and Spanked MOLDOVA
EMILIAN GALAICU-PAUN
Pietà (Ivy on the Cross) ALEXANDRU VAKULOVSKI
Amputated Homeland
Bessarabia go home GREECE
YIORGOS CHOULIARAS
Occupied City
Refugees
Borges in Crete
Pencil in the Bread LIANA SAKELLIOU
The Lion, the Sleeping Woman, and the Island
Variations HARIS VLAVIANOS
De Imagine Mundi
Hotel Athena
Gloriana MARIGO ALEXOPOULOU
Chinese Woman's Spirit
Manuscripts of Autumn Small Prayer
One Night with Seferis CYPRUS
STEPHANOS STEPHANIDES
Ars Poetica: Sacred or Daemonic LYSANDROS PITHARAS
Green Line GÜR GENÇ
Kiss My Corpse
I Worshipped Too Many Gods