Videos of David Huerta and Mark Schafer reading six of Huerta's poems in Spanish and English at the Library of Congress, April 17, 2009

Fruta/Fruit

Audio of David Huerta reading eight of his poems in Spanish, recorded over the phone, September 5, 2008:

title	duration
Antes de decir cualquiera de las grandes palabras	(1:48)
Oración del 24 de diciembre	(4:00)
Fruta	(0:25)
Encima	(0:23)
Abres y cierras	(0:22)
Poema de Gottfried Benn	(0:48)
Cantar del Dinero	(1:26)
Canto del kiwi	(0:47)

HUERTA-SCHAFER WEST COAST BILINGUAL READINGS - January 2010 ITINERARY

Wednesday, January 13

Seattle, WA
Seattle Central Library
Microsoft Auditorium
7:00 pm

The evening will be presented by the Washington Center for the Book at The Seattle Public Library, Copper Canyon Press, and The Elliott Bay Book Company.

Location: 1000 Fourth Ave.
Contact: Chris Higashi, chris.higashi@spl.org

Friday, January 15

Port Townsend, WA
Joseph F. Wheeler Theater
7:00 pm (tentative)

Location: 25 Fort Worden Way
Port Townsend, WA
Contact: Joseph Bednarik, joseph@coppercanyonpress.org

Saturday, January 16

Portland, OR
First Unitarian Church
7:00 pm

Location: 1011 SW 12th Ave
Contact: Katie Radditz, kradditz@firstunitarianportland.org
(503) 228-6389

Tuesday, January 19

Oakland, CA
Class visits to two elementary schools with Poetry Inside and Out (Center for the Art of Translation)
9-11:30 am

Tuesday, January 19

San Francisco, CA
City Lights Bookstore
7 pm

Location: 261 Columbus Ave.
Contact: Peter Maravelis, peter@citylights.com, 415-362-8193

Wednesday, January 20

Stanford, CA
Stanford University
Center for Latin American Studies (Bolivar House)
12 noon

Co-sponsored by the Department of Iberian and Latin American Cultures, The Center for Latin American Studies, and The Stanford Workshop in Poetics

Location: 582 Alvarado Row
Contact: Emily Davis, eadavis@stanford.edu
650.725.0383

Poetree-Poetry Competition Guidelines

Click here to visit Mark Schafer's art installation
(Banff Centre for the Arts, 2003)
based on the poetry of David Huerta and Schafer's translations

JOURNALS

TRANSLATION AND LITERARY ORGANIZATIONS

PUBLISHERS

MARK SCHAFER’S WEBPAGE

Marks On Paper

MISCELLANEOUS

Nine Huerta Poems in Spanish, with Schafer Translations

INDEX

2. selection from Chapter III ("Glass Door") of Incurable/selección de Capítulo III ("Puerta de vidrio") de Incurable

4. Before Saying Any of the Great Words/Antes de decir cualquiera de las grandes palabras

5. Open and Close/Abres y cierras

6. Song of Money/Cantar del dinero

7. Song of Unease/Canción de la inquietud

9. Sick Man/Hombre enfermo

Index

\Index

Index

Stories from translating David Huerta’s poetry
in collaboration with the poet

The anxiety of the translator; the anxiety of the poet

I had gotten together with David Huerta in Tlayacapan in the Mexican state of Morelos to work on a new batch of translations. We had done this once before for a whole week while I was in residence at the Banff International Literary Translation Centre and David was an invited guest. It had been a wonderful experience for both of us (and was the genesis of this book.) And yet, we both found ourselves a bit nervous as we approached the task at hand: I, reading my translations aloud, and he, following the original. Then I would ask him the questions I had about what he had meant in the originals and he would comment on and note mistakes and misunderstandings in my translations. With one particularly difficult passage, David tried again and again to explain not only the meaning of certain phrases but why he had used certain words and images. A full understanding of what he was explaining eluded me. We let it rest and went on to discuss other translations. At some point he got up and went to the bathroom. When he came back, he told me, with a pained look on his face, that he was starting to doubt whether the poem I couldn’t quite understand was a good one. If it were, he was thinking, I shouldn’t have so much difficulty understanding it. I laughed out of sympathy: I always felt a bit of anxiety when I read my translations, anticipating that he might tell me, when I finished, that my translation didn’t standing up to the original at all, that I didn’t get it at all. Of course, that never happened. And of course, David’s poems tend to be magnificent.

On reading my translations of Huerta’s poems aloud

I love reading Huerta’s poem “Before Saying Any of the Great Words” to a live audience. To my eyes and ears, it is one of the sweetest love songs to language and to the human species I know of. And it’s a ball to read! At the beginning, the audience is suspended in David’s grammar, which dangles from the title. Then the poem starts to solidify and slowly the audience realizes that the poet is talking about words themselves and the human beauty that they express, represent, bear witness to. By the time I get to the second half of the poem, where David allows me to say words like “sandalwood” and “deoxyribonucleic” and phrases like “combinations [of words like] your mouth, this letter” I am inevitably feeling shivers up and down my back and suspecting that a good portion of the listeners are as well. When the poem comes to its hushed conclusion, I feel like I’ve just been through some sort of linguistic ceremony—a reinitiation into language and humanity. And I feel honored to have been able to share David’s poem in my English.

A ‘back story’ to the poem “Pasiones” (“Passions”)

A few days into 2008, I met with David Huerta at his wife’s studio in Mexico City to go over the last four translations I had done for this collection. When we got to the end of one of them, “Passions,” he said that there were additional layers of meaning embedded in the last two lines than I might be aware of. The last two lines are: and so many rags bearing divine faces on the way out of the bullring. In the New Testament, Huerta reminded me, when Jesus was carrying the cross to Golgotha, a woman stepped up to wipe his face with a rag. The name of that woman was Veronica. The image on the cloth of Jesus’s face also became known as a veronica. In a stunning stroke of metaphor, a veronica is also the name of the move in bullfighting in which the bullfighter stands in place and slowly swings the cape away from the bull as it charges. And so I was coming to understand these two lines on a much deeper—i.e. complex—level. And finally, as if language in Huerta’s hands could bear any number or layers of meaning, Huerta reminded me, “my wife’s name is Veronica.”

The story of the book Los cuadernos de la mierda (The Shit Notebooks) by Francisco Toledo with poems by David Huerta, as told to Mark Schafer by David Huerta (or: “Never in the U.S.”)

“In 2001. Los cuadernos de la mierda was published with illustrations by the Oaxacan painter Francisco Toledo and poems by David Huerta. The story of this book is rather unusual. It turns out that in Mexico, the Ministry of the Treasury, which is in charge of collecting taxes in Mexico, has a special program for artists called pago en especie (payment in kind). This means that painters, sculptors, printmakers, and other visual artists can pay their back taxes with their own art works if they wish. (This has turned the Ministry of the Treasury into the largest art collector in Mexico, but that is another story.) “So, at some point in the 1990s, people at the Treasury discovered that Francisco Toledo, one of Mexico’s greatest painters of our time, owed them taxes. They notified him that his taxes were overdue and that he could pay them through the Payment in Kind program. And that is what Toledo did. But the works he sent to the Treasury in lieu of money were not drawings or watercolors or paintings but rather, a series of notebooks valued at some huge sum of money—dozens and dozens of notebooks that he had been filling over the years with drawings and notes. And this series had a title: Los cuadernos de la mierda (The Shit Notebooks). This was what he sent to the Treasury to pay his back taxes. It seems that the Treasury accepted the notebooks with good humor—so much so that several years later, they proposed to Toledo that they publish a selection of these drawings. “Toledo called me and asked that I write some poems to accompany the drawings. I happily agreed, because I have admired Toledo and his work all my life, and I sat down to write the poems. The truth is that I hadn’t exactly planned to write on this theme—I don’t mean the topic of taxes or the Treasury, but rather, defecation. It was an excellent challenge and I dove into it with enthusiasm at the chance to accompany Toledo, an artist whom so many Mexicans admire and esteem as a true genius. So it was with great pleasure that I wrote the poems, and in 2001 the book was published.”

Note: “Uneasy,” Mark Schafer’s translation of “Desosiego”, one of the ten poems David Huerta wrote for Los cuadernos de la mierda, appears in Before Saying Any of the Great Words: Selected Poetry of David Huerta.

David Huerta

Grants, Fellowships, Prizes, and other Honors

Grant from the Centro Mexicano de Escritores (1971–1972)
“Diana Moreno Toscano” Prize for Literary Promise (1972)
Fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation (1978–1979)
“Carlos Pellicer” Prize awarded to Historias (1990)
Grant from the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes (1993)
“Mártire de Tlalteloco” Medal awarded by students of the Preparatoria Popular (1998)
Member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte (1994–2000 (1st generation;) 2003–?)
Homage, Zapopan City Hall, Zapopan, Jalisco (2002)

Published Books of Poetry

El jardín de la luz. Mexico City: UNAM, 1972.
Cuarderno de noviembre. Mexico City: Era, 1976; CNCA, 1992.
Huellas del civilizado Mexico City: La Máquina de Escribir, 1977.
Versión. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1978.
El espejo del cuerpo. Mexico City: UNAM, 1980.
Lluvias de noviembre (in collaboration with Vicente Rojo). Mexico City: Multiarte, 1984.
Incurable. Mexico City: Era, 1987
La sombra de los perros. Mexico City: Editorial Aldus, 1996.
Historia. Mexico City: Ediciones Toledo, 1990.
Los objetos están más cerca de lo que aparentan (in collaboration with Miguel Castro Leñero). Galería López Quiroga, 1990.
Lápices de antes, Guadalajar, Jalisco: Toque de Poesía, 1994
La música de lo que pasa. Mexico City: CNCA, 1997.
Calcinaciones y vestigios. Mexico City: ISSTE, 2000.
Homenaje a la línea recta (in collaboration with Gunther Gerzso). Mexico City: Impronta, 2001.
Los cuadernos de la mierda (in collaboration with Franscisco Toledo). Oaxaca: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca, 2001.
El azul en la flama. Mexico City: Era, 2002.
Hacia la superficie. Zapopan, Mexico: Filodecaballos, 2002.
La calle blanca, Mexico City: Ediciones Era and the Consejo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes, 2006.
El correo de los narvales, Mexico City: Acrono-Umbral México, 2007.

Published Translations into Spanish

Lecciones sobre el fascismo. Palmiro Togiatti. Mexico City: Ediciones de Cultura Popular, (DATE?).
El chamán de los cuatro vientos. Douglas Sharon. Mexico City: Siglo XXI, (DATE).
El caso Tuláyev. Victor Serge. Mexico City: El Equilibrista, (DATE)
La caída de los tiempos. Bernardo Noel. Mexico City: El Tucán de Virginia, (DATE).
La comunidad inconfesable. Maurice Blanchot. Mexico City: Vuelta, (DATE)

Published Prologues and Anthologies

La mujer (prologue). Jules Michelet. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, DATE?
Poesía completa (prologue). Efraín Huerta. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, DATE?
Muerte de Narciso. José Lezama Lima. Mexico City: Era, DATE?
La fuente, los destellos y la sombra (with Pablo Lombó). PLACE?: Alfaguara, DATE?

Lectures, Poetry Readings, Participation in Literary Festivals (selected)

Lomonósov University, Moscow
Princeton University, Princeton
Yale University, New Haven
Centre Culturel du Méxique, Paris
Literary Festivals in Finland, France, Rumania, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Argentina,
Uruguay, Cuba, Canada, Unites States

Teaching (selected)

Professor of Literature, Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México
Coordinator of literary workshops, Mexico City and other states
University of Maryland, (visiting professor, 1984)
Advanced courses (in poetry/writing?) in different Mexican cities, sponsored by the CNCA, (November, 1990–2002)

Journalism

Journalist (1967–present)
Editorial Director, La Gaceta (Fondo de Cultura Económica) (1972–1974, 1982–1984)
Editorial Board member, La Cultura en México, supplement to Siempre! (1972–1977)
Editorial Board member, Letras Libres
Writer, editorial and cultural sections of El Universal
Editor-in-Chief, Periódico de Poesía, Mexico City, UNAM/CNCA/Instituto Nacional de
Bellas Artes (2000–present)

Education

Studies in Philosophy, English Literature, and Hispanic Literature at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de la Ciudad de México (UNAM)

MARK SCHAFER

Lecturer in Spanish, Hispanic Studies Department, University of Massachusetts at Boston

TRANSLATED BOOKS

The Scale of Maps. Belén Gopegui. San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, (January 2011)
Before Saying Any of the Great Words: Selected Poetry of David Huerta. David Huerta. Fort Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, (January 2009).
Migrations. Gloria Gervitz. San Diego/Essex, UK: Junction Press/Shearsman Books, 2004.
Stripping Away the Sorrows of This World, Jesús Gardea (Mexico City/San Francisco: Editorial Aldus, S.A./Mercury House, 1998).
Mogador: The Names of the Air, Alberto Ruy Sánchez (San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 1992).
The Book of Embraces, Eduardo Galeano, translated by Cedric Belfrage and Mark Schafer (New York: W. W. Norton 1990).
René's Flesh, Virgilio Piñera (Boston: Eridanos Press, 1989).
Cold Tales, Virgilio Piñera (Hygiene, CO: Eridanos Press, 1988).

TRANSLATED STORIES, POEMS, ESSAYS & ORIGINAL ARTICLES AND REVIEWS

Reading Poems to Boston Harbor: An Interview with Translator Mark Schafer", 17 November 2009
“Song of Money” Poetry Daily (September 20, 2008)
“Song of Money,” “Sweet Angel,” Before Saying Any of the Great Words,” “Song of Unease,” David Huerta, American Poetry Review, Vol. 37/No. 5 (September/October 2008): 33– 34.
“Before Closing One's Eyes,” “Upon,” “Poem by Gottfried Benn,” “The Desert,” “A Visit from My Friend,” “Passions,” “Declaration of Antipoetry,” “Sick Man,” “Song of the Kiwi,” David Huerta, Oregon Literary Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Summer 2008)
“Uproar,” David Huerta, The Bitter Oleander, Vol 14, No. 2 (Spring 2008): 88–89.
“A Café Without Men,” “In Pornography,” “Puritan Playthings,” “Shipwrecks,” “Cities,” “Apparition,” “Can Matías Hill, on the Way to Matanzas,” “Nocturnal Emissions,” José Antonio Ponte, Island of my Hunger: Cuban Poetry Today, edited by Francisco Morán (San Francisco: City Lights Publishers, 2008): 166–181.
“Toward the Surface,” David Huerta, Web Conjunctions, (January 10, 2008)
“Index,” David Huerta, The Antioch Review, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Fall 2007): 686–687.
Fifteen selections from Incurable, David Huerta, Mandorla Vol. 10 (2007): 45–65.
“Words,” “Before Saying Any of the Great Words,” “Open and Close,” “Minor Failures,” David Huerta, Shearsman, Vol. 73 & 74 (Winter 2007/2008): 89–93.
“The Desert,” “Song of Unease,” “Fruit,” “What I See,” “Sick Man,” David Huerta, Jacket, No. 33(July 2007),
“Words,” David Huerta, The Spoon River Poetry Review, Vol. XXXII, No. 1(Winter/Spring 2007): 85–87.
“The Bullfight,” David Huerta, Memorious, Issue 7 (February 2007)
“Open and Close,” David Huerta, Salamander, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Spring 2007): 3.
“Kitchen of Paradise,” David Huerta, Massachusetts Review, Vol. XLVII, No. 3 (Fall 2006): 510.
“The Fall,” Virgilio Piñera, Felex Gonzalez-Torres, edited by Julie Ault (New York: steidldangin publishers, 2006): 152–153 [reprint/revised].
“San Matías Hill, on the Way to Matanzas,” Antonio José Ponte, New Laurel Review, Vol. XXIII, (2006): 72.
“Low Boil” and “Another Rooster,” David Huerta, Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico, edited by Luis Cortés Bargalló and Forrest Gander (Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books, 2006): 57–61.
“Three Songs of the Lunatic Moon” and “In the Wind’s Confidence,” Pedro Serrano, Connecting Lines: New Poetry from Mexico, edited by Luis Cortés Bargalló and Forrest Gander (Louisville, KY: Sarabande Books, 2006): 193–199.
“Somewhat in The Style of Ishmael,” “Regarding the Planet,” “Song,” “Auguries,”
“Cities, “A Seat in the Ruins,” Antonio José Ponte, Mandorla, No. 7, (2004): 175–179.
“The Face,” Virgilio Piñera, ¡Cubanísimo! the Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature, edited by Cristina García (New York: Vintage Books, 2003): 227–235. [reprint]
“Josephine Baker in Cuba,” Nicolás Guillén, ¡Cubanísimo! the Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature, edited by Cristina García (New York: Vintage Books, 2003): 219–223. [reprint]
“One Crystal in Another: A Translation Conversation,” (review of No Shelter: The Selected Poems of Pura López-Colomé,) Mark Schafer, Perihelion, Issue 10, ( 2002).
“Thirteen Propositions against Trivial Love,” “Machinery,” “Prayer for August 21,”
“Pathological Beings,” “Bolero at Armageddon,” “Summer Mist,” “The Cauldron,” “Cancellation of a Construction Project,” “Descent,” “A Baroque Cell,” “Light from Parallel Worlds,” “Deck of Cards,” David Huerta, Reversible Monuments, edited by Mónica de la Torre and Michael Wiegers (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2002): 317–341.
Selection from Migraciones, Gloria Gervitz, Reversible Monuments, edited by Mónica de la Torre and Michael Wiegers (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 2002): 263–279.
“I Hear Through Your Ears” from On Lips of Water, Alberto Ruy Sánchez, BOMB Magazine, No. 79 (Spring 2002): 94–96. Chapters 4 and 5, of Meaning to Eat, Antonio José Ponte, turnrow, (Winter 2001): 145– 151.
“Prayer for August 21” and “The Cauldron,” David Huerta, BOMB Magazine, No. 78, (Winter 2001/2002): 84–86. Chapter 6 of Meaning to Eat, Antonio José Ponte, BOMB Magazine, No. 78, (Winter 2001/2002): 84–86.
“Five Windows on the Same Side” and “Catching On,” in The Forbidden Stories of Marta Veneranda, Sonia Rivera-Valdés, tr. Dick Cluster, Mark Schafer, Alan West-Durán, and Marina Harss, (New York City: Seven Stories Press, 2001).
Chapters 1–3 of Meaning to Eat, Antonio José Ponte, Massachusetts Review, Vol. XLII, No. 2 (Summer 2001): 223–37.
“A Baroque Cell,” David Huerta, Two Lines 2001 (Cells) (2001): 178.
“Idea for a Naive Tapestry,” “Chair on the Run,” “A Forest, A Ladder,” Antonio José Ponte, Atlanta Review, Vol. VII, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2001): 52–54.
“Machinery (I),” “Cancellation of a Contruction Project,” “Light from Parallel Worlds,”
David Huerta, Atlanta Review, Vol. VII, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2001): 49–51.
“The Cannon of Punta Grande,” Néstor Taboada Terán, The Fat Man from La Paz; Contemporary Fiction from Bolivia,, edited by Rosario Santos (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2000).
“Phone Calls,” Roberto Bolaño, Grand Street, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Winter 1999): 171–175.
“The Great Baro,” Virgilio Piñera, Dream With No Name; Contemporary Fiction From Cuba, edited by Juana Ponce de León and Esteban Ríos Rivera (New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999): 257–251.
“Small Creatures” (selection from La orfandad del esplendor), Carlos Olivares Baró, Dream With No Name; Contemporary Fiction From Cuba, edited by Juana Ponce de León and Esteban Ríos Rivera (New York: Seven Stories Press 1999): 113–130.
“Voices of the Water,” Alberto Ruy Sánchez, The Picador Book of Latin American Stories, edited by Carlos Fuentes and Julio Ortega (London: Picador, 1998): 289–298.
“The One Who Came to Save Me,” Virgilio Piñera, The Picador Book of Latin American Stories, edited by Carlos Fuentes and Julio Ortega (London: Picador, 1998): 29–32.
“Retrography,” Mauricio Ortega, Two Lines, (Spring, 1998): 181–82.
Essays by Jorge Mañach Robato, Nicolás Guillén, José Lezama Lima, Álvaro Mutis,
Gabriel García Márquez, Alejandro Rossi, and Egardo Rodríguez Juliá, The
Oxford Book of Latin American Essays, edited by Ilan Stavans (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1997)
“Meat,” Virgilio Piñera, The Oxford Book of Latin American Stories, edited by Roberto González Echevarría, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997) 327–329.
“The Balcony,” Francisco Tario, Grand Street, 63 (Winter 1998): 117–123.
“Shadow and Light in the Desert” (excerpt), Alberto Ruy Sánchez, Review: Latin American Literature and Arts, 55 (Fall 1997): 62–66.
“Descent” and “Forget,” David Huerta, Review: Latin American Literature and Arts, 55 (Fall 1997): 58–61.
“The Lights of the World,” Jesús Gardea, TriQuarterly, 99 (Spring/Summer 1997): 92– 98.
“Springtime,” Jesús Gardea, Seven Hundred Kisses; a Yellow Silk Book of Erotic Writing, edited by Lily Pond (San Francisco: Harper SanFrancisco, 1997) 143–146. Two stories by Juan Bosch, Conjunctions, Vol. 27 (Fall 1996): 135–141.
"Like the World," Jesús Gardea, New England Review, Vol 17, No. 4, (Fall 1995): 19–21.
"All the Years of Snow," Jesús Gardea, Indiana Review, Vol. 19, No.1 (Spring 1996): 74–79.
“Poor Memory,” “Maps,” “Collar Bones,” “A Battle of Romans,” “Triptych after the Flood,” “The Naked Truth,” “Life in the Diamond”, Alberto Blanco, Dawn of the Senses; Selected Poems of Alberto Blanco, edited by Juvenal Acosta, (San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1996).
"Toward the Light: The Poetry of Gloria Gervitz," Mark Schafer, The Literary Review, 38 (1995): 385–387.
"Tequila: Panegyric and Emblem," Álvaro Mutis, Artes de México, 27 (Nov.–Dec. 1994): 82.
"So That Hildebrando Pérez Might Learn How to Drink a Shot of Tequila," Efraín Huerta, Artes de México, 27 (Nov.–Dec. 1994): 93.
"Trinitario," Jesús Gardea, TriQuarterly, 91 (Fall 1994): 46–55.
"Bucho Vargas, Healer and Medicine Man," Mario González Feo, Costa Rica: A Traveler's Literary Companion, ed. Barbara Ras (San Francisco: Whereabouts Press, 1994).
"Man Alone," Jesús Gardea, Harvard Review, 7 (Fall 1994): 69–71.
"One For the Road," Jesús Gardea, Pyramids of Glass; Short Fiction from Modern Mexico, eds. David Bowen and Juan A. Ascencio, (San Antonio: Corona Publishing Company, 1994). “Serial Stories,” “The Memoirs of Mama Blanca in the Personal History of the Author,” and “Testimony,” Mama Blanca’s Memoirs, Teresa de la Parra, translated by Harriet de Onis, UNESCO “Archives” Series (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1993).
"The Art of Reading," Julio Ortega, Antaeus, 70 (1993).
"The Guitar," Jesús Gardea, New Writing from Mexico, edited by Reginald Gibbons, (Evanston, IL: TriQuarterly Books, 1992): 183–191.
"The Emanicipation of the Lunatics," Oscar de la Borbolla, New Writing from Mexico, edited by Reginald Gibbons, (Evanston, IL: TriQuarterly Books, 1992): 215–217.
"Jesus, May My Joy Be Everlasting," Severino Salazar, New Writing from Mexico, edited by Reginald Gibbons, (Evanston, IL: TriQuarterly Books, 1992): 170–181.
"Voices of the Water," Alberto Ruy Sánchez, New Writing from Mexico, edited by Reginald Gibbons, (Evanston, IL: TriQuarterly Books, 1992): 96–105.
GRANTS AND AWARDS
Translation Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts to complete translation of poetry by David Huerta (2005)
Inaugural Residency at the Banff International Literary Translation Centre, to translate the poetry of David Huerta and to work with the author (2003)
Arlington Arts Council grant for literary translation (1998)
Massachusetts Cultural Council grant for professional development (literary translation) (1998)
Robert Fitzgerald Translation Prize (1995)
Translation Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts to translate a collection of stories by Jesús Gardea (1993)
Translation Grant from the Fund for Culture Mexico-USA to translate a collection of stories by Jesús Gardea (1993)

EDUCATION

1998 M.A. in Hispanic Studies, Boston University
1987 Graduate translation workshop with Magda Bogin, City College of New York
1986 Graduate translation workshop with Gregory Rabassa, New York University
1985 B.A. with Honors, College of Letters, Wesleyan University

READINGS, CONFERENCES AND PANELS

Reader, 15th Annual Spring Reading of The Writers’ Room of Boston, Inc., November 5, 2008,
The Pierre Menard Gallery, Cambridge, MA
Reader/Panelist/TranslationWorkshop Leader, Skagit River Poetry Festival 2008, LaConner, WA, May 15–17, 2008
Lecturer: “Translating Gloria Gervitz’s Migraciones from Spanish While It Was Being Written,” February 23, 2007, Boston University
Reader (of Huerta translations), 13th Annual Spring Reading of The Writers’ Room of Boston, Inc., June 21, 2006, The Algonquin Club, Boston
Readings with Gloria Gervitz (Fall 2005): Poet’s House (NYC, 10/28), St. Mark’s Poetry Project (NYC 10/31), Brandeis University (11/1), Simmons College/Center for New Words (11/3), King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center of NYU (NYC, 11/4) (Spring 2006): University of San Diego (3/6), University of California at Santa Barbara (3/7), University of California at Irvine (3/8), Mexican Cultural Institute (Los Angeles, 3/9), Modern Times Bookstore (San Francisco, 3/13), Black Oak Bookstore (Berkeley, 3/14)
Reading with David Huerta, Banff International Literary Translation Centre, October, 5, 2003
Reading with Alberto Ruy Sánchez, Brown University (Julio Ortega’s class), October 29, 2002
Reading with Alberto Ruy Sánchez and Antonio José Ponte (with Dick Cluster and Cola Franzen) at Boston University (Fall 2000)
Reading with Alberto Ruy Sánchez and tape of Jesús Gardea, ALTA conference, Guadalajara, Dec. 4, 1998
Reading from Stripping Away the Sorrows From This World, Schoenhof’s Foreign Books, October 29, 1998
Panelist, “Lecturas/Traducciones/Humor,” at “Latin American Fiction Today” conference at Boston University, November 13, 1997
Reader, Annual meeting/reading of the Boston Writers’ Room, Inc., The French Library, Boston, MA, Spring 1997
Bilingual reading with Alberto Ruy Sánchez and Alberto Blanco in the “Other Labyrinths, Other
Solitudes: Mexican Writing Today” series at the Society of the Americas, New York City, October 31, 1995
Reader, bilingual reading at Brattleboro bookstore, VT, 1995
Bilingual readings with Alberto Ruy Sánchez from his novel Los nombres del aire and my translation Mogador at Wellesley College, Harvard, Wesleyan, and Boston Universities, April 19-22, 1994
Panelist, “Virgilio Piñera: Writing in the Flesh/La escritura en carne y hueso”, (conference)
University of Chicago, October 15-16, 1993
Bilingual reading with the Mexican poet Gloria Gervitz from her book Migraciones and my translation at Brown University, sponsored by Providence College, October 13, 1992
Panelist, “The Cultural Textuality of Translation,” Brown University, October 11, 1991 Reading of original poetry in Spanish as part of the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes series "Escritores inéditos" at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, February 27, 1988 TEACHING
Lecturer in Spanish and Translation and Co-coordinator of the Translation Certificate Program, Hispanic Studies Dept., University of Massachusetts at Boston, 2007–present
Lecturer in Spanish, Hispanic Studies Dept., University of Massachusetts at Boston, 2007– present
Teaching Fellow in Spanish at Boston University, 1994–1995
Faculty member in Humanities, Sudbury Valley School, Framingham, MA, 1993–1994

OTHER PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

Translation

Project Translator, International Program, The Museum of Modern Art (NYC), 2003
Staff translator, Art Nexus/Art in Colombia, 1997–1998

Editorial

Senior Bilingual Textbook Editor, Baseline Development Group, 2007
Senior Bilingual Textbook Editor, Houghton Mifflin, 2000–2005
Bilingual Editor, Houghton Mifflin, 1998–2000
Bilingual freelance writer/editor, 1988–2004

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS

American Literary Translators Association
New England Translation Association
Modern Language Association (Representative for Independent Scholars, 1995)
New England Translator's Group (founding member)
The Writer's Room of Boston, Inc. (Board of Directors, member)
National Writers Union

LANGUAGES

English (native fluency in reading and writing)
Spanish (near-native fluency in reading and writing)
Haitian Creole (beginning proficiency in reading and writing)
Swedish (beginning proficiency in reading and writing)

PO Box 271
Building 313
Fort Worden State Park
Port Townsend WA 98368

360.385.4925
FAX.385.4985
Order toll free: 877.501.1393

poetry@coppercanyonpress.org

Powell’s Books --(an excellent independent alternative to Amazon):