like asia

As retold to me whilst preparing for AWP -- "ow, ow, they're making my head hurt ... Romney just said 'countries like asia are taking our jobs'." So that's the problem -- I had my geography all wrong.

See everyone in NYC -- Gramercy/Rhinelander -- table 79. Go translating Asia!

in December

1. Within the next week final cover and text files for Zoland Poetry No. 2 will be off to the printer, final books will find contributors in mid- to late-January, and copies will be on sale at AWP in NYC.

2. Submissions for annual No. 3 are pouring in, so add yours soon, if you're so inclined, to the Zoland fluvial plain.

3. Höfd[insert here "eth" for "d"]ingi white soft cheese is a nicely priced alternative in the holiday maelstrom. And it's a nice push for a sustainable Iceland.

4. This fall Princeton University unveiled a new certificate program in translation.

the Republic

In his essay "The American Universe" within his revised and newly published collection The Embattled Lyric, Nathaniel Tarn writes:

"Translation is i) a duty within the Republic of Letters; ii) a way of allowing various voices to speak; iii) a means of letting air into the beds of our own letters. Editorial activity is an extension of translation, not only from languages but from disciplines."

Words worthy of beatification; at least some passing time and its consideration.

Translation in Percents

The issue is this -- the current state of literature in translation, especially poetry, is dire; however, doling out money for literary translations to a small number of presses that are largely uninterested in translation but, instead, interested in funding, solves nothing. In a best case scenario, the money provided by the granting organization is sometimes just enough to cover advances, printing, and a modest amount of advertising for a book in translation. There is not usually enough funding to bring the author stateside.

Having one extra title per season does afford the publisher a couple extra minutes during sales conference, a few hundred books get scattered to top independent and university accounts, and then the author gets quickly buried in the presses' backlist, which is otherwise, largely, constructed of regional (based on the presses' provenance) midlist authors. What a resounding success.

What is required is this -- a business model and plan slightly less dull and vacuous. One that considers, first, the author and the press, rather than using "literary translation" as a banner under which to siphon extra funds to the usual suspects.

I'm working on it.

Golden Bear Matte Path

Latest Zoland Poetry ad out in the now-current American Poetry Review. The news -- we're reading for book 3 and submissions are flying in at various supersonic rates, so consider us and (e)mail away your submissions already. Book 2 in the series will be for sale at AWP in NYC and though Book 3 won't legally hit the streets until early 2009, the gods of marketing and databases specify that we need the majority of book 3 in hand by the end of this year, very beginning of '08.

One of the more recent legs of our '07 crazed travel schedule found Wyatt searching out good books through the University of California Berkeley campus. This particular path ended up leading past the Bear's Lair and a lyric or two floating out the poet Jean Day's office, around the Fiery Furnaces Friday campus rock show, and eventually to the T-Rex skeleton in the Life Sciences Building.

After some rejuvenation and another blast of caffeine, we gave up on the notion of calling a taxi in the East Bay and used all roads leading to the BART station and a brief walk to Small Press Distribution headquarters, where Wyatt kept Brent, Laura, Neil and Lindsey at bay while I successfully raided the warehouse shelves of books to purchase and mail back home. Besides the trips to poetry sections at SPD, Moe's and Pegasus, we were delighted to stop by East Wind Books of Berkeley on University Ave -- which further cemented in my head how much contemporary Chinese poetry in translation isn't out there, and not not out there in terms of stores not stocking books, but in terms of the number of books not being supported by publishers. Without support from Chinese cultural forces, such as contemporary Korean authors receive from the KLTI, the future is none to bright for Chinese authors in English translation. Post-Tiannmen in '89 there was the cliched rush for any number of presses to snatch up an "exile" poet. But once the furor (at least in the States) largely died down, the West lost interest -- in much the same way that the late 80s and early 90s saw a blast of interest in things Russian with the digestive rumblings of glasnost -- and then there was silence. Some middle ground or, better yet, far-left movement needs to wake presses back up -- or muzzle their numbers departments in a back room so that some other books are allowed to hit the streets. Not asking for much. If, say, we could just get one author in translation into the American canon for every 100 books of neo-confessional lyrics built on pre-pubescent issues and a poor understanding of Foucalt.

Everyone's reading Nietzsche

Or perhaps not, but enjoying, nonetheless, of montreal's now U.S.-released on polyvinyl "if he is protecting our nation ..." And why wouldn't he be?...

June 28 until now has been traveling through China. Tibet. Sieve fulls of conferences in NYC, Iowa City for the 40th Anniversary of the International Writing Program, and Berkeley for some fests around the new East Asian Center at the UC. More on these travels soon.

Of first importance -- when in the Bay Area -- stop by SPD and spend some money, then hit up Owen Hill's poetry section at Moes and the Clay Banes goods at Pegasus on Shattuck. Then have the post office box up things and mail away for you. Don't injure.

And for all of you reviewers who continue to ignore my earlier missives -- and you know who you are [assistant professors in new england institutions] -- cease structuring your reviews of translated literature as 90% biographical material detailing the literary import of the author in translation, and then your remaining 10% cobbling together some discussion of the actual translation with a passing swipe at one or two lines of the translation based on a close relationship with a competing translator. This is tiresome and uninformative. Go back to berating your undergraduates and leave the print media be something other than your poorly constructed faux-literary diatribes. Get tenure some other way.

Zoland Mapquests and a History

Founding Zoland Editor and Publisher Roland Pease works out of Cambridge, MA.

Translation Editor Christopher Mattison recently rooted himself into Princeton, NJ.

Reviews Editor Chloe Garcia Roberts is completing graduate work in Eugene, OR.

Another recent Zoland in-house editor, Erica Mena, is departing Cambridge, MA for Cambridge in the UK.

Other Zoland contributing editors are scattered throughout this thing called globe, and prefer to remain anonymous.

& a Zoland History

Before there was Zoland Poetry, the world knew Zoland Books, the independent literary publishing house founded by Roland Pease, which published literary fiction, poetry and arts-related memoirs for fifteen years before being acquired by Steerforth Press. In that time Pease brought into print a wide range of poets including Ange Mlinko, Bill Berkson, Kevin Young, William Corbett, Lisa Jarnot, Patricia Smith and Anne Porter.

Zoland Poetry is the next incarnation in the Zoland line. It is an annual of contemporary writing from around the globe, consisting of an active web component, and an annual book that is published by Steerforth Press. The first Zoland Poetry annual hit the shelves in March 2007. Each volume is an equal fusion of contemporary English language poetry, works in translation, and interviews with featured poets.

The online arm of Zoland Poetry—www.zolandpoetry.com—includes book reviews of recent poetry collections from here and abroad, original language material for the works in translation, translator essays, and audio clips of select poets.