Simon West
Simon West is a poet, translator, and Italianist. His first collection of poetry First Names was short-listed for the NSW Premier’s Prize in 2007, won the William Baylebridge Memorial Prize, and was commended in the 2007 FAW Anne Elder Award. The Selected Poetry of Guido Cavalcanti: A Critical English Edition, was published by Troubador Publishing, UK in 2009. Simon completed his PhD at the University of Melbourne where it was awarded the Chancellor’s Prize in 2004.
Why does translation matter? Or does it? And who should care to know? The answers are more interesting than we might at first think. The filming of a novel, and a multinational company’s diverse advertising strategy for the one product in different countries, involve issues of translation just as much as an English version of a sonnet by Petrarch. These days, translation has outgrown its status ... (read more)
In a 1995 interview for the Paris Review, Ted Hughes was asked if the 1960s boom in translated poetry in the United Kingdom, particularly with series such as the Penguin Modern European Poets, had had an effect on poetry written in English. ‘Has it modified the British tradition!’ he replied. ‘Everything is now completely open, every approach, with infinite possibilities. Obviously the Briti ... (read more)
The springing point was where they took off from, where the impost, set on good footings, joined the arch and assured its leap and span of water’s being there yet flowing on.
And though the weight of flight thrust back so that each ounce of stone knew pull, still to the eye the curve sprang free and satisfied. And does yet. As if
there were grace in holding gravity at bay and a certain poise i ... (read more)
In 1956, when this fourth volume of his collected prose begins, W.H. Auden (1907–73) was forty-nine and widely recognised as one of the most important English-language poets. He had been in the United States for seventeen years, having left, or, as some back home had seen it, abandoned England shortly before the outbreak of World War II; and he had been an American citizen since 1946. To me, he ... (read more)
In a 1995 interview for the Paris Review, Ted Hughes was asked if the 1960s boom in translated poetry, particularly with series such as the Penguin Modern European Poets, had influenced poetry written in England. ‘Has it modified the British tradition!’ he replied. ‘Everything is now completely open, every approach, with infinite possibilities. Obviously the British tradition still exists as ... (read more)