Bibliograph

Against translation, Alan Shapiro

Type

Label

Against translation, Alan Shapiro

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references

Index

no index present

Literary Form

poetry

Main title

Against translation

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1045723620

Responsibility statement

Alan Shapiro

Series statement

Phoenix Poets

Summary

"We often ask ourselves what gets lost in translationnot just between languages, but in the everyday trade-offs between what we experience and what we are able to say about it. But the visionary poems of this collection invite us to consider: what is loss, in translation? Writing at the limits of languagewhere “the signs loosen, fray, and drift”Alan Shapiro probes the startling complexity of how we confront absence and the ephemeral, the heartbreak of what once wasnt yet and now is no longer, of what (like racial prejudice and historical atrocity) is omnipresent and elusive. Through poems that are fine-grained and often quiet, Shapiro tells of subtle bereavements: a young boy is shamed for the first time for looking “girly”; an ailing old man struggles to visit his wife in a nursing home; or a woman dying of cancer watches her friends enjoy themselves in her absence. Throughout, this collection traverses rather than condemns the imperfect language of lossmoving against the current in the direction of the utterly ineffable."--Amazon.com

Classification