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Benjamin Ivry

Benjamin Ivry

Benjamin Ivry’s poetry collection Paradise for the Portuguese Queen (1998) was published by Orchises Press, including poems which first appeared in The New Yorker, London Review of Books, The Spectator, and other publications. He has translated books by André Gide, Jules Verne, and Balthus from the French and co-translated from the Polish the historian Jakub Karpiński and poet Adam Zagajewski. He has also written biographies of Arthur Rimbaud (Absolute Press), Francis Poulenc (Phaidon), and Maurice Ravel (Welcome Rain).

Benjamin Ivry reviews 'Our Life Grows' by Ryszard Krynicki, translated by Alissa Valles

May 2018, no. 401 26 April 2018
My poor son, forgive your mother,my poor son, forgive me for giving birth to you, I won’t do it anymore. This poem, cited in its entirety, is ‘My Poor Son’ by the Polish writer Ryszard Krynicki, who will be seventy-five years old in June 2018. Likely the finest poet in the generation after Zbigniew Herbert, the dazzling philosopher of modern Polish verse who died twenty years ago, Krynicki ... (read more)