Zoë Skoulding

Katherine M. Hedeen

This anthology, featuring some of the most prominent poet-translators from both sides of the Atlantic, radically foregrounds the role of translators as bridge-builders and activists, with a crucial role in revealing the structures through which poetry moves and circulates. Organized around the translators (rather than the poets), with essays discussing the poetics and politics of their translations, this anthology forms unruly geographical lines of connection rather than underscoring existing national canons—shaping new understandings of contemporary poetry’s transnational commitments.

Born amid the shutting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the book celebrates the community of translation—as Skoulding writes in her introduction, a "chance to live in the multiplicity of languages and the spaces of relation that it opens up," and its tangibility and visibility. "Far from the smooth loops and starry clusters of international flight paths, the haphazard map made by these poets emerges erratically from chance encounters, personal synergies, political commitments and tangles of literary influence.”

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