Join us as we count down to ALTA42: Sight and Sound with the National Translation Award in Poetry and Prose long- and shortlisted titles! We will be featuring the titles in alphabetical order alongside blurbs penned by our judges for the National Translation Awards in Poetry and Prose. This year’s prose judges are Bonnie Huie, Charlotte Mandell, and Jeffrey Zuckerman. This year’s judges for poetry are Anna Deeny Morales, Cole Heinowitz, and Sholeh Wolpe.

For quick reference, you may find the NTA longlists here, and the NTA shortlists here. Today we’re shining the spotlight on Poetry NTA longlisted title Countersong to Walt Whitman:

Countersong to Walt Whitman
by Pedro Mir
translated from the Spanish by Jonathan Cohen and Donald D. Walsh
(Peepal Tree Press)

Jonathan Cohen and the late Donald D. Walsh have beautifully translated Pedro Mir’s Countersong to Walt Whitman into the English language. Pedro Mir (1913–2000) was the Poet Laureate of the Dominican Republic, and it seems impossible that no other translations of his works can be located in an English language rendition. We say this not because translation should constitute a form of recognition, but because it provides an opportunity for dialogue and, in this case, the sounding of a counter song. Face to face with the Caribbean Sea, Mir’s Countersong reanimates Walt Whitman’s original, tranquil, intense energy of expansiveness as he simultaneously narrates a history of U.S. expansion. Mir repurposes Whitman’s vigor and song to incite opposition to military and economic subjugation. Cohen and Walsh’s poetry translation sings as weighty, acutely restrained, and rhythmic as the original work.