Calque, 2007–2009 (ed. Brandon Holmquest and Steve Dolph)

from Calque, No. 3, 2007
from Calque, No. 3, 2007

Over the course of five voluminous issues, Calque published a tremendous set of translations of new and archival works with an emphasis on the transformative poetics of translation as a creative act. In an editorial introduction to the first issue, coeditor Brandon Holmquest notes: “We queried a prominent academic in the field [of translation] who, in response, assured us that the kind of journal we were planning ‘doesn't, and can’t, exist in English.’ This was precisely the motivation we required.” During its blazing two-year run, Calque shot like a star through the dark sky of literary translation in the United States. Drawing from a global range of experimental poetry, Calque distinctively includes extensive translators’ notes preceding translations published en face with the original texts. The complete run features over fifty translations from dozens of languages — many of which appear in English for the first time — as well as a rich series of essays, reviews, and interviews on translation.

The contributors are too numerous to list (see contents below), including contemporary poet-translators like Sawako Nakayasu, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Linh Dinh translating everything from Dante Alighieri to Severo Sarduy. Interviews reveal that these are translators for whom the concept of fidelity included the sound, feel, and cultural politics operating between texts, and who freely admit the impossibility of literal equivalence. Calque figures translation not so much a trade as a craft that includes its own kind of exacting and rigorous but also creative process. Working with independent, visionary presses like New Directions, Archipelago, and Green Integer, and distributed by hand and by mail to bookstores and mailing lists, Calque presents a dense network of translation where readers might encounter original translations and historical texts alongside the inner workings of translation as a process.

Full volumes are available for download or browsing below. The index to each issue attempts to retain the formatting of the contents as printed in the magazine, including original pagination. Each PDF is fully searchable and bookmarked for easy navigation to individual pieces within the magazine. This reissue is scanned and edited by Mel Bentley with technical assistance from Danny Snelson and support from the Kelly Writers House.

The complete set of five issues is available for download here: [ZIP, 302 MB].

 

Calque, No. 1, January 2007 [PDF, 18 MB]

Contents

Introduction by Brandon Holmquest   p.7
Sándor Kányádi: five poems
translated from the Hungarian by Paul Sohar
  p.11
Kenji Miyazawa: “Ginko Nuts”
translated from the Japanese by Nobumasa Hiroi
  p.29
Philippe Soupault: five poems
translated from the French by Nick Moudry
  p.43
Juan Bosch: “The Masters”
translated from the Spanish by Steve Dolph
  p.63
Tomaž Šalamun: five poems
translated from the Slovenian by Joshua Beckman
  p.75

 

Calque, No. 2, May–June 2007 [PDF, 55 MB]


Contents

Poetry  
Luis Cernuda, Eleven Poems
Translated from the Spanish by Stephen Kessler
  p.130
C. P. Cavafy, Four Poems
Translated from the Greek by George Economou 
  p.76
Ivan Goll, Five Poems
Translated from the German by Donald Wellman
  p.86
Haizi, “Misfortune”
Translated from the Chinese by Gerald Maa
  p.98
Hawad, from Détournement d’horizon
Translated from the French by Pierre Joris
  p.44
Adam Mickiewicz, “Lilies”
Translated from the Polish by Leonard Kress
   p.58
Psalms, from The Chamorro Bible
Translated from the Chamorro by Craig Perez
   p.120
Aodhagán Ó Rathaille, Porinsias Nuinseann, and Mícheál Óg Ó Longáin, Selected Poems
Translated from the Irish by Michael Begnal
   p.108
     
Fiction  
Jenny Erpenbeck, from The Book of Words
Translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky
   p.154
Mikhail Sokovnin, from Pages from the Book of Varius
Translated from the Russian by Bela Shayevich
   p.178
Marja-Liisa Vartigo, from Hers Were The Birds
Translated from the Finnish by Jill Timbers
   p.166
     
Interviews  
with Natasha Wimmer
Translator of Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives
   p.08
with Bill Johnston
Translator of Witold Gombrowicz’s Bacacay
   p.22
     
Reviews  
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
Translated by Natasha Wimmer
   p.196
Poems (1945–1971) by Miltos Sachtouris
Translated by Karen Emmerich
   p.205

 

Calque, No. 3, November 2007 [PDF, 79 MB]


Contents

Translations 
Dante Alighieri, Canto XXVI from Inferno
Translated from the Italian by Stanley Lombardo
  p.20
Jean-Marie Damais, from A Spasm of Vacuity
Translated from the French by Fabienne Pizot-Haymore
  p.230
Aline Desentis, “Dead Dog”
Translated from the Spanish by Rebecca Crocker
  p.252
Ly Doi and Bui Chat, Selected Poems
Translated from the Vietnemese by Linh Dinh
  p.150
Takashi Hiraide, from For the Fighting Spirit of the Walnut
Translated from the Japanese by Sawako Nakayasu
  p.90
Gert Jonke, “Catalogue d’oiseaux”
Translated from the German by Vincent Kling
  p.180
Birhan Keskin, 4 Poems
Translated from the Turkish by George Messo
  p.200
Velimir Khlebnikov, “KA”
Translated from the Russian by Sandra Newman
  p.110
Adrien Le Bihan, from The Meninotuar
Translated from the French by Jeff Edmunds in collaboration with the author
  p.210
Frederic Nyberg, Selected Poems
Translated from the Swedish by Jennifer Hayashida
  p.30
Alejandra Pizarnik, Three Poems
Translated from the Spanish by Madeleine Stratford
  p.282
Christian Popescu, from The Popescu Art
Translated from the Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin and Bodgan Ştefănescu
  p.78
Ernesto Sabato, from Uno y EI Universo
Translated from the Spanish by Carl Toews
  p.100
Severo Sarduy, Selected Poems
Translated from the Spanish by Suzanne Jill Levine
  p.260
     
Essay
Stephen Kessler
“What Does It Take to Translate Poetry?”
  p.144
     
Interview
with Stanley Lombado
Translator of Homer’s Odyssey
{ by Brandon Holmquest }
  p.10
     
Review
Severo Sarduy’s Beach Birds
Translated by Suzanne Jill Levine & Carol Maier
{ by Philip Barnard }
  p.268

 

Calque, No. 4, Spring 2008 [PDF, 67 MB]


Contents

Translations 
Yves Bonnefoy, from Pierre écrite
Translated from the French by Marc Elihu Hofstadter
  p.126
Astrid Cabral, from Cage
Translated from the Portugese by Alexis Levitn
  p.110
Laura Solórzano, from Lost Mouth
Translated from the Spanish by Jen Hofer
  p.214
Ernest Farrés, from Edward Hopper
Translated from the Catalan by Lawrence Venuti
  p.62
Dmitry Golynko, “Elementary Things”
Translated from the Russian by Eugene Ostashevksy
  p.82
Bruno Jasienski, from I Burn Paris
Translated from the Polish by Soren A. Gauger and Marcin Piekoszewski
  p.134
Rieko Matsuura, from The Apprenticeship of Big Toe P
Translated from the Japanese by Michael Emmerich
  p.31
Aldo Palazzeschi, from The Arsonist
Translated from the Italian by Nicholas Benson
  p.164
José Saramago, “The Nonexistent Narrator”
Translated from the Portuguese by Albert Braz
  p.198
Kazuko Shiraishi, from My Floating Mother, City
Translated from the Japanese by Samuel Grolmes and Yumiko Tsumura
  p.206
Ko Un, from Songs for Tomorrow
Translated from the Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé, Young-moo Kim and Gary Gach
  p.150
     
Interview  
with Michael Emmerich
Translator of Kawabata Yasunari’s First Snow on Fuji
{ by Jeff Edmunds }
  p.08
     
Reviews
Roberto Bolaño // Nazi Literature in the Americas
Translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews
{ by Brandon Holmquest }
  p.226
Florence Delay and Jacques Roubaud // Graal Théâtre
{ by John Taylor }
  p.236

 

Calque, No. 5, Spring 2009 [PDF, 97 MB]


Contents

Translations 
Evgeny Baratynsky, Nine Poems
Translated from the Russian by Ilya Bernstein
  p.256
Paul Celan, from Lichtzwang / Light Compelled
Translated from the German by Amos Weisz
Introduction by Sandra Newman
  p.120
Contemporary River Plate Poetry
Selected and Translated from the Spanish by Ben Bollig
  p.160
Rita Dahl, from Aforismien aika
Translated from the Finnish by Leena Saarelainen
  p.114
Lorand Gaspar, “The House by the Sea (I)”
Translated from the French
by Daniela Hurezanu and Stephen Kessler
  p.18
Ričardas Gavelis, from Vilinus Poker
Translated from the Lithuanian by Elizabeth Novickas
  p.276
Per Højholt, from Praxis, 8: Album, tumult
Translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken
  p.300
Bohumil Hrabal, “Baptism, 1947”
Translated from the Czech by Ema Katrovas
  p.60
Mohammed Khodeir, “God of the Swamps”
Translated from the Arabic by Rafed A. Khashan
  p.350
Pavel Lembersky, Three Stories
Translated from the Russian by Sergey Levchin
  p.334
Ghérasim Luca, from The Passive Vampire
Translated from the French by Krzysztof Fijalkowski
  p.146
Osip Mandelstam, from The Voronezh Notebooks
Translated from the Russian by John High and Matvei Yankelevich
  p.48
Qutban, from Mirigāvatī
Translated from the Hindavī by Aditya Behl
  p.68
Manuel Rivas, from From Unknown to Unknown
Translated from the Galician by Jonathan Dunne
  p.236
Sagawa Chika, from The Collected Poems of Sagawa Chika
Translated from the Japanese by Sawako Nakasu
  p.290
Dan Sociu, from eXcessive Songs
Translated from the Romanian by Adam Sorkin and the poet with Mihaela Niţă
&
Four Sonnets
Translated from the Romanian by Paul Killebrew in collaboration with the poet
  p.24
     
Interview
with Lorand Gaspar
by Daniela Hurezanu
  p.12
     
Review
Jean-Phillipe Toussaint // Three Works
by Jeff Waxman
  p.364
     
Introductions
César Aira’s Ghosts
by Chris Andrews
  p.356
Adolfo Bioy Casares’s Selected Stories
by Suzanne J. Levine
  p.360
Dunya Mikhail’s Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea
by Liz Winslow
  p.362
Koji Suzuki’s Death and the Flower
by Maya Robinson
  p.358