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New Poetry Editor at Open Letter and Call for Poetry Submissions!

Open Letter’s new Poetry Editor, Anastasia Nikolis, interviewed herself so that you wouldn’t have to. These are the questions she thinks might help you learn about the new person reading the poetry submissions at Open Letter Books.   Tell us a little bit about yourself. What else do you do when you aren’t ...

Selected Translations by W. S. Merwin

“South” To have watched from one of your patios the ancient stars from the bank of shadow to have watched the scattered lights my ignorance has learned no names for nor their places in constellations to have heard the ring of water in the secret pool known the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle the silence ...

Latest Review: "Selected Translations" by W. S. Merwin

The latest addition to our Reviews Section is by Grant Barber on Selected Translations by W. S. Merwin, from Copper Canyon Press. Selected Translations is a collection of Merwin’s greatest translations, representing authors from all over the world and languages from almost every corner. Grant Barber is a regular ...

Thank God, Bob Dylan Didn't Win

And this year’s Nobel Prize in Literature goes to Tomas Transtromer. From the “Guardian:”: Praised by the judges for “his condensed translucent images” which give us “fresh access to reality”, Tranströmer’s surreal explorations of the inner world and its relation to the ...

Song of His Disappeared Love

To the betterment of our cultural landscape, a number of works by Raúl Zurita have been recently translated into English. Much of this work centers on the nightmare of Chile’s Pinochet era. While other writers have tackled this subject, mostly while in exile, Zurita remained in Chile, a direct witness to the terror that ...

Latest Review: "Song for His Disappeared Love" by Raul Zurita

The latest addition to our Reviews Section is a piece by Vincent Francone on Raul Zurita’s collection Song for His Disappeared Love, which was translated from the Spanish by Daniel Borzutzky and published by Action Books. I don’t read much poetry, so I wasn’t familiar with Zurita until Vincent Francone ...

April Is a Month of Poems

One of the complaints I get from time to time—about both Three Percent and Open Letter—is our lack of poetry coverage. This is primarily my fault, since I rarely ever read poetry. Probably some sort of reading deficiency, blindspot, or problem with my soul, but, well, there you have it. (It’s not as if this ...