Charles Baudelaire c. 1862-63; woodburytype of a portrait by Étienne Carjat Les Chats Les amoureux fervents et les savants austèresAiment également, dans leur mûre saison,Les chats puissants et doux, orgueil de la maison,Qui comme eux sont frileux et comme eux sédentaires. Amis de la science et de la voluptéIls cherchent le silence et l’horreur des ténèbres;L’Erèbe…

    Alistair Noon writes: Osip Mandelstam (1891–1938) grew up in St. Petersburg and published his first book, Stone, in 1913. One more volume followed before he began encountering publishing difficulties in the Soviet Union. He wrote poetry, prose, and children’s verse, and also translated (chiefly from French), if largely as a necessity rather than…

  Below is an English version of the two-part poem ‘Kaks nägemust’ (‘Two Visions’) by the Estonian poet, Mathura. Winner of the Gustav Suits Poetry Award and other literary prizes in his native country, Mathura’s work has been rendered into a dozen languages and, here, has been translated into English in collaboration with the poet…

© Morgan Library, New York       The below is a translation by Mark McGuinness of a section of Troilus and Criseyde, Geoffrey Chaucer’s epic poem re-telling, in Middle English, the tragic story of the lovers Troilus and Criseyde amid the Trojan War and the siege of Troy.   The original Middle English follows…

    Nicoletta Asciuto writes: Katja Perat is a contemporary Slovenian poet and novelist. Her first poetry collection, Najboljši so padli (The Best Have Fallen), was published by Beletrina (Ljubljana) in 2011 and received the Best Debut Award and Best Book of the Year from the Slovenian Literary Critics Association. Perat is also the author…

  Chiara Salomoni writes: Corrado Govoni was born near Ferrara in 1884 and died near Rome in 1965. He was a prolific writer of poetry, prose and drama. Govoni joined the Futurist Movement and collaborated on Marinetti’s Notebooks but his crepuscular way of writing remained a characteristic of his poetry. He was the president of…

  The below translations are taken from The House with the Scorpions: Selected Poems and Song-Lyrics of Mikis Theodorakis (Fomite, 2020), translated by Gail Holst-Warhaft. The book presents Theodorakis’s poems and lyrics in Greek and English.   In Greece Mikis Theodorakis is a national icon. He is the country’s most famous composer, and a figure…

To celebrate 50 years of Modern Poetry in Translation, Bloodaxe have just published an anthology – Centres of Cataclysm – edited by Sasha Dugdale and David and Helen Constantine. Below are three poems from the anthology, which launches at King’s on 5 May 2016 with readings from contributors including Frances Leviston, Paul Batchelor and Ruth…