Rosmarie Waldrop discusses her translations of the Egyptian-Jewish poet Edmond Jabes as well as her own poetry in Another Language (Talisman House). The discussion took place on January 26, 2004, in an episode of the radio program, "Cross Cultural Poetics" — number 14 in the series that is now 237 episodes long — hosted by Leonard Schwartz.
- introduction by Leonard Schwartz (1:05): MP3
- discussing Edmond Jabès and Judaism (5:00): MP3
- Jabès and experience with persecution (1:49): MP3
- "At the Threshold of the Book," from The Book of Questions (3:59): MP3
- Schwartz reading from Section 5 of The Book of Questions, and Jabès' idea of the "book" (2:53): MP3
- Derrida's view of Jabès (1:14): MP3
- Waldrop's relationship with Jabès (2:34): MP3
- discussing A Key Into the Language of America (3:38): MP3
- Chapter 23: On Marriage (1:54): MP3
- Final Chapter: On Death and Burial (2:51): MP3
- Waldrop discusses her current work (2:17): MP3
Propolis Press
Karen Randall started Propolis Press in 2001. My introduction to the press was Rosmarie Waldrop’s Within the Probabilities of Spelling, produced in an edition of just eighteen. A few years later, I had the pleasure of meeting Karen in person in New York, and a few years after that, I had the pleasure of including her edition of Christina Strong’s The New York School in Poem & Pictures. Other poets published by Propolis include Nancy Kuhl, Elizabeth Willis, Jane Rice, and Randall’s own poems. The images in all of the books are created by Randall, who is the leading authority on four-color letterpress printing on gampi.
She is currently collaborating on an artists’ book with Lee Ann Brown entitled Bagatelles for Cornell, which includes three poems written in homage to Joseph Cornell accompanied by Randall’s digital collages printed via cyanotype and gum bichromate photography, as well as mixed relief techniques. She is also collaborating with Anne Tardos on Ginkgo Knuckle Nubia, a segment in The Dik-dik's Solitude (Granary, 2003).