DIALOGOS

From an island in ancient Greece to a labor camp in 20th century Eastern Europe; from a lamplit Italian piazza to the dark halls of an abandoned home in Portugal--the voices rise and meet, transact and transcend. In this collection George Kalogeris takes up the challenge of literary translation with sensitivity and self-effacement--but no fear. "What we hear in a good translation is not purely that voice of somebody else but also the voice of the translator registering that effort and its delight," notes David Ferry in his commentary. All 24 poems in this book Ferry praises as "instances of realization ... instances of how this generous and self-exacting imagination registers and responds to his deep understanding of the poems he translates." At turns heartbreaking, melancholic, exultant, speculative, irreverent, and vulgar, these dialogues render some of the most widely admired voices of Western culture--Theocritus, Sappho, Pindar, Pessoa, Celan, and Akhmatova, among others--into fresh, contemporary English. This collection will draw all lovers of poetry and ideas into what Warren calls the "fraternity of imagination" that Kalogeris has so vividly conceived. With foreword by Rosanna Warren and commentary by David Ferry.