Jen Hofer and John Pluecker, Blaffer Museum. Photo courtesy of Antena/Madsen Minax.
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.
In May 2015 I squeaked into a packed session on contemporary Cuban writing at the Latin American Studies Association’s annual meeting. Among the many points of interest was the fact that I heard Rito Aroche named several times as a key figure amongst the various tendencies of contemporary poetry in recent decades.
Intermedium