One reason I'm grateful to the mysterious workings of the cosmos is that it brought Gloria Gervitz's epic poem Migraciones, my English translation of it, and Tony Frazier's Shearsman Books together. In the mid-oughts of the new century I was on the verge of giving up hope of ever finding a publisher in English for Migraciones, when a good friend told me that a very reputable one-man press in England was featuring Migraciones on its website as its “Book of the Month” pick—in Spanish! Tony had read the first twelve pages of the poem, which had been published in Copper Canyon Press's anthology Reversible Monuments a few years earlier, got hold of the whole book (in Spanish), and then proclaimed on his website “I’d love to see someone doing a full translation [of the poem].” I contacted Tony, and the rest is history (i.e, the first publication anywhere of the complete poem and its English translation.)
As a translator, working with Tony was a rare dream come true. He is generous, magnanimous, erudite, professional, resourceful, observant, meticulous, friendly, creative, artistic, and--among other things--extraordinarily patient. The bilingual volume he published in 2006, Migraciones by Gloria Gervitz, is a magnificent book and a work of art.
Thank you, Tony, for all that you did for Migraciones and Migrations, and for all that you continue to do for poetry, poets, and translators around the world.
As a translator, working with Tony was a rare dream come true. He is generous, magnanimous, erudite, professional, resourceful, observant, meticulous, friendly, creative, artistic, and--among other things--extraordinarily patient. The bilingual volume he published in 2006, Migraciones by Gloria Gervitz, is a magnificent book and a work of art.
Thank you, Tony, for all that you did for Migraciones and Migrations, and for all that you continue to do for poetry, poets, and translators around the world.
Mark Schafer