Issue 7 of Circumference
Peter Slapnicher
Issue 7 of Circumference: Poetry in Translation arrived in my mailbox today with new work from the likes of: lots of original writers and the saints who translate them. You might be saying, "But, Jac, you only know a small (and even then mostly cognate-driven) amount of French? How did you get into Circumference?"
Well, that's a very accurate (and slightly impolite) observation of you. Circumference, if you didn't know already however, has a loophole for those of us who would like to congregate with translators but are under-qualified, and that lovely little back door is a feature called "Homophonic Translation." If the name isn't self-explanatory, they provide lines to be translated based on their sound alone. That's what I have in this issue and since there are so many contributors in the entire issue I will list only my fellow homophonic translators:
Stephanie Anderson, Mary Jo Bang, Ken Chen, Billy Collins, Emily Drumstra, Adam Giannelli, Jac Jemc, Karinne Keithley, Jill Leininger, Jessica Nordell, Matt Reeck, Elena Rivera, Christina Svendsen and Elizabeth Willis.
The differences in what we pulled from the words that were to me, gibberish, are exciting and strange. Check it out.