Join us as we count down to the ALTA43: In Between awards ceremony with the National Translation Award in Poetry and Prose longlisted 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 judges for prose are Amaia Gabantxo, Emmanuel D. Harris II, and William Maynard Hutchins. This year’s judges for poetry are Ilya Kaminsky, Lisa Katz, and Farid Matuk.

The awards ceremony will air on October 15, 2020 on ALTA’s Crowdcast page: you can register to attend the NTA in Prose announcement here, and the NTA in Poetry announcement here. Find the full list of longlisted titles here.

Today we’re shining the spotlight on NTA in Poetry longlisted title The Hammer:

The Hammer
by Adelaide Ivánova
translated from the Portuguese by Chris Daniels
(Commune Editions)

This debut volume by Brazilian poet Adelaide Ivánova offers a startling in-your-face riff on rape and other gender-based violence, making use of epigraphs, reportage, myth, and literary and other public figures, while weaving a history for the speaker. It’s an important translation. The effect of Ivánova’s short sentences in Chris Daniels’s precise English is catalytic, moving the reader to explore her rich vein of sources, and to connect the dots: “if there are 2 on the mattress / for 1 visitor there will / always be someone not / innocent.”