Daniel Borzutzky

J2 editor Julia Bloch reviews three poetry titles on earthly and bodily reorganization.

The Intermedium series concludes with my conversation with Antena, the collaborative created by Jen Hofer and John Pluecker.  As individuals Hofer and Pluecker have carried out extensive projects in translation and poetics.  United as Antena, they create manifestos and how-to guides regarding translation, among many other thought-provoking interventions.  As the conversation demonstrates, Hofer and Pluecker have reflected extensively on values and practices associated with literary translation while pursuing experiment.  In the context of a poetics magazine, the Antena project merits special attention for another whole zone of exploration:  it advances conversations and events to highlight specific complexities of interpretation (spoken and signed), with special attention to language justice. 

After taking a bit of a hiatus from this column over the holidays, my encounter with this essay by Daniel Borzutsky, a Chicago-based poet and translator, has coaxed me back to work. Before reading the essay (I’m embarrassed to admit), I didn’t know Borzutsky’s work well, although I had read some excerpts and his statement of poetics in the wonderful new Counterpath anthology Angels of the Americlypse: New Latin@ Writing.

I was first attracted to Borzutzky’s essay because it opens with an incredible quote by Don Mee Choi, a friend of mine who is herself a poet and translator.