Mario Bojórquez, Alí Calderón (México), Ilya Kaminsky (Ucrania), Ming Di (China), Gabriela Capraroiu (Rumania) y Genevieve Kaplan (Estados Unidos) participarán, el próximo 17 de abril, en un symposium en torno a traducción y poesía contemporánea en la University of La Verne en el área de Los Angeles. Bojórquez y Calderón ofrecerán una lectura de sus poemas el miércoles 15 de abril en Pomona, California.
University of La Verne
Department of Modern Languages
Poetry and Translation Symposium
Friday, April 17
1:00-6:00 pm
Sarah and Michael Abraham Campus Center
Rooms B, C, and D
While reading and rereading verses sung in ancient Egypt, in the Greek or Chinese antiquity, in the black forests of deep Africa, under the Italic or Gaelic sky, I felt a strong desire to see some of the most beautiful lines in world literature annexed and assimilated into our language. I didn’t care about the number. I was interested only in the karats. My ambition aimed at no systematic or complete scholarly presentation. I chose poets from foreign anthologies, from wherever I could find them, the best way I could. I used texts in the original language and translations in other languages when the original was completely unknown to me. Through translation I quenched an ardent thirst. I enriched my life. I wanted to see the extent to which poetry could be brought from one language to another. I felt I was growing because I put all my efforts into poems that delighted me. I felt that through translation these poems could become in a way mine, ours, Romanian. (Lucian Blaga, Din lirica universală / World Poetry, 1957).
1:00 – 1:30 pm Welcome and Introductions
1:30 – 3:00 pm On Translation
A conversation about poetry translation with readings in Chinese, Romanian, Russian, Portuguese Catalan, Spanish and English, followed by a Q&A session
Participants: Gabriela Căprăroiu, Ming Di, Mario Bojórquez, Ilya Kaminsky
3:00 – 3:30 pm Break
3:30 – 5:45 pm On Poetry
A conversation about poetry with readings in English, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese followed by a Q&A session.
Participants: Genevieve Kaplan, Ilya Kaminsky, Ming Di, Mario Bojórquez, Alí Calderón
5:45 – 6:00 Closing Remarks
Sponsors: Office of Diversity and Inclusivity, College of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Provost, Department of Modern Languages. University of La Verne, 1950 Third Street, La Verne, CA 91750
Mario Bojórquez, Mexican poet and translator is the author of Pájaros sueltos, Contradanza de pie y de barro, Diván de Mouraria, Pretzels and El deseo postergado. He received the National Poetry Award Enriqueta Ochoa (1994), Clemencia Isaura (1996), Aguascalientes (2007) and Premio Alhambra de Poesía Americana (2012). He is co-founder and editor of the online journal Círculo de Poesía. He has been invited to literary talks and readings in several countries of South America, Central America and Europe. He has participated in workshops at the University of Missouri, De Paul University, Kansas University, Rochurst University, University of Cincinnati, Rice University, and St. John University.
Alí Calderón is a Mexican poet and literary critic. He earned a doctorate in Mexican Letters at UNAM. He teaches Latin American literature and theory at the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla. Co-founder and main editor of online journal Círculo de Poesía. He received the National Poetry Award Ramón López Velarde (2004) and Premio Latinoamericano de Poesía Benemérito de América (2007). He is the author of the poetry books Imago prima, Ser en el mundo, De naufragios y rescates, En agua rápida and the collection of essays La generación de los cincuenta. He is editor of several poetry anthologies: La luz que va dando nombre 1965-1985. Veinte años de la poesía última en México, El oro ensortijado and Poesía viva de México.
Gabriela Căprăroiu was born in Romania. She studied Philology at the University of Bucharest. She earned a doctorate in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at the University of California Los Angeles. She teaches courses on Spanish language, literature, culture, film, and translation at the University of La Verne. Her articles have been published in Boletín de la Fundación Federico García Lorca, nerudiana, Trilce, Hispania, Escritural and Observator cultural. She co-translated La piedra habla by Lucian Blaga with Omar Lara (2010). She is working on a critical edition of María Teresa León’s travel memoir “Umbral de Rumanía” and on a study of the literary and political connection between Spanish, Latin American and Romanian writers.
Ming Di (aka Mindy) is a Chinese poet and translator living in America. She is co-founder and editor of Poetry East West, a Chinese-English bilingual magazine published in China and the US. She was educated at Boston College and Boston University and taught Chinese at BU before moving to Los Angeles where she is writing and translating. She has published six poetry collections and has translated Gary Snyder, W.S Mervin, Robert Creeley, Robert Bly and many young poets from other countries into Chinese and also translated Chinese poetry into English. Her book length translation includes Selected Poems of Ha Jin (2009), The Writer as Migrant (2010), Missed Time (2011) and a poetry anthology coming out in 2012.
Ilya Kaminsky was born in Odessa, former Soviet Union in 1977, and arrived to the United States in 1993, when his family was granted asylum by the American government. Ilya is the author of Dancing In Odessa (Tupelo Press, 2004) which won the Whiting Writer’s Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, the Dorset Prize, the Ruth Lilly Fellowship given annually by Poetry magazine. Dancing In Odessa was also named Best Poetry Book of the Year 2004 by ForeWord Magazine. He was awarded Lannan Foundation’s Literary Fellowship. Poems from his new manuscript, Deaf Republic, were awarded Poetry magazine’s Levinson Prize and the Pushcart Prize. His is the editor of Ecco Anthology of International Poetry (2010). His books have been published in Turkey, Holland, Russia, France, Mexico, Mecedonia, Romania, Spain and China, where his poetry was awarded the Yinchuan International Poetry Prize. Kaminsky teaches English and Comparative Literature at San Diego State University.
Genevieve Kaplan is the author of In the ice house (Red Hen Press, 2011), winner of the A Room of Her Own Foundation poetry publication prize, and settings for these scenes (Convulsive Editions, 2013), a chapbook of continual erasures. Her poems, essays, and reviews have been published in numerous print and online journals, including recent work appearing in or forthcoming from The Los Angeles Review, Fact-Simile, The Manifesto Project anthology, and Post45 contemporaries. Since 2003, she has edited the Toad Press International chapbook series, publishing contemporary translations of poetry and prose. She lives in southern California, where she coordinates Claremont Graduate University’s Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Awards.
