On Wednesday 11 December and Thursday 12 December, we will be hosting a 2 day symposium on Cole Swensen’s work at Université Paris Est Marne-La-Vallée, bâtiment Copernic, 2nd floor, room 88. How to get there? See here.
We will be meeting in the morning of
December 11th at 10 am to prepare our sessions with Cole Swensen. Cole Swensen
will be joining us at 2 pm on the 11th. She will also be with us all day on the
12th.
On Wednesday 11 December at 8pm,
Cole Swensen, Nicolas and Maitreyi Pesquès will give a reading at the Maison de
la poésie de Paris.
Bio, bibliography & links:
I.
Biographies and bibliography
> Bio from the Academy of American poets
http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/704
> Bio (from wikipedia) :
Cole
Swensen
(b. 1955, in Kentfield,
California) is an American poet, translator,
editor, copywriter, and professor. Swensen was awarded a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and is the author of more than ten poetry collections
and as many translations of works from the French. She received her B.A. and
M.A. from San Francisco State University and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz before going on to become the
now-Previous Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Denver. She taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa until 2012 when she joined the faculty of Brown University's Literary Arts Program.
Her
work is considered Postmodern and post-Language
school, though she maintains close ties with many of the original authors from
that group (such as Lyn Hejinian, Carla Harryman, Barrett Watten, Charles Bernstein,) as well as poets from all over the US and Europe. In
fact, her work is hybrid in nature, sometimes called lyric-Language poetry
emerging from a strong background in the poetic and visual art traditions of
both the USA and France and adding to them her own vision.
In
the USA, Cole Swensen’s ninth collection of poetry, Goest (Alice James
Books, 2004) was a finalist for the National Book Award.[1] Earlier works
have been awarded a National Poetry Series selection, Sun & Moon’s New American
Writing Award, the Iowa Poetry Prize via University of Iowa Press, the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award,
and two Pushcart
Prizes. Her translation of Jean Frémon’s The Island of the Dead won the
2004 PEN
USA Literary Award for Translation. She has also received grants from the
Association Beaumarchais and the French Bureau du Livre.
In
France, Swensen has participated in readings and collaborative translation
projects with such organizations as the Royaumont Foundation at the beautiful
L'abbaye de Royaumont, Columbia University’s Reed Hall, the maison des écrivains et de la
littérature [2] in Paris, Double Change [3][4] and Ivy Writers Paris.[5] Her life-long commitment to translation is a
testament to her belief in the international exchange of words and language,
and in the importance of radical and traditional poetries for contemporary
society.
She
is member of the Academy of American Poets, and a contributing editor for the periodicals American
Letters & Commentary and for Shiny, and for many years was the
translation editor for the online contemporary poetry and poetics review How2.[6]
She
divides her time between Paris, Washington DC and Providence, where she is on
the permanent faculty of Brown University's Literary Arts Program. She is also the founder and editor of La Presse,
a small press dedicated to the translation and publication in English of
contemporary French poetry (such as by Claude Royet-Journoud or Marie Borel).
Gravesend, (University of California
Press, 2012)--Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Poetry, 2012.
Ours:
poems on the gardens of Andre Le Notre (University of California Press, 2008)[7] --excerpt at POOL [8]
The
Glass Age,
(Alice James Books , 2007)[9][10]
The
Book of a Hundred Hands (University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, 2005)[11]
NEF, a translation by Rémi Bouthonnier of Noon
(Les Petits Matins, Paris, 2005)
Goest, (Alice James Books, 2004)[12]--Finalist for the National Book Award, 2004, and One of 12 books honored as the
"Best Poetry of 2004" by Library Journal.[13]
Such
Rich Hour,
(University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, 2001)[14]
Oh, (Apogee Press, Berkeley, CA,
2000)--Finalist for the National Poetry Series, 1998.[15][16]
And
Hand
chapbook (a+bend Press series, San Francisco, CA, 2000)[17]
Try, (University of Iowa Press, Iowa City, Iowa, 1999)--Winner of the Iowa Poetry
Prize, 1998, and Winner of the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award,
2000.[18]
Noon (Sun & Moon Press, Los Angeles, CA.,
1997)--Winner of the New American Writing Award. Re-published
with Green Integer [19]
Numen, (Burning Deck Press, Providence, RI, 1995) -- Named an “International Book
of the Year,” Times Literary Supplement, and Finalist for the PEN
West Award in Poetry, 1996. It also appeared in French translation as Numen,
(Fondation Royaumont, 1994) [20]
Parc, a translation by Pierre Alferi
of Park (Format Américan France, 1995)[21]
Park (Floating Island Press, Inverness,
CA. 1991)
New
Math
(William Morrow & Co., New York, 1988) -- Winner of the National Poetry Series, 1987
It's
Alive She Says,
(Floating Island Press, CA, 1984)
Swensen's
translations from the French
"La
Vraie nature des ombres"by Jean Frémon : "The Real Life of
Shadows", The Post Apollo Press, 2009
Physis by Nicolas Pesquès (Parlor Press
/ Free Verse Editions, 2007)[22]
Futur,
ancien, fugitif
by Olivier Cadiot, as Future, Former, Fugitive(Roof Books, 2004) [23]
Kub
or by Pierre Alferi, asOxo
(Burning Deck, 2004)[24]
Ile
des Morts
by Jean Frémon, as: Island of the Dead (Green Integer, 2002)--awarded
the 2004 PEN
USA Award for Literary Translation [25]
Bayart by Pascalle Monnier (Black
Square Editions, 2001)
Natural
Gaits
by Pierre Alferi (Sun & Moon, 1995)
Past
Travels
by Olivier Cadiot (1994)
Interrmittances II by Jean Tortel (1994)
Other publications
Swensen
has written critical articles on poets such as Susan Howe, Anne-Marie Albiach or Claude Royet-Journoud, as well as reviews of poetry for such periodicals and
books as:
anthologies
Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing By Women edited by
Mary Margaret Sloan, (Talisman Editions, New Jersey, 1998) and
Civil
Disobediences
(Coffee House Press, 2004)
American
Hybrid: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, (W.W. Norton & Company, 2008). Swensen co-edited (with David St. John)
this anthology that includes 70 poets seen as creating cross-genre works,
mixing traditional or modernist
poetry techniques with experimental and postmodern
writings
Contributions to
periodicals
Contributor
to periodicals in English: including Chicago Review, American Poetry Review, Boston Book Review, Common
Knowledge, Conjunctions, Upstairs at Duroc, Grand Street, New American Writing, and ZYZZYVA.[26]
She has also translated individual poems for print and online periodicals such
as Verse, The Germ, 1913. Online at the extensive Chicago Modern Poetry
website,[27] one can discover other poets
Swensen has translated including Caroline Dubois [28]
or Sabine Macher,[29] and Oulipo
poet Michel Gringaud at the drunkenboat publication website [30] or at Free Verse.[31]
Individual
poems by Swensen have appeared in French translation: in the reviews “Action Poétique,”
"Java," "Vacarme," "Nioques," "Action
Poétique," and “Hors-Bords.”
II. Websites
> Swensen’s page on Pennsound
In particular, her reading and discussion :
the Cross-Cultural Poetics Series (2010)
> Find more about Cole Swensen’s small press La
presse dedicated to poetry in translation :
http://www.lapressepoetry.com/about.htm
III. Interviews
> Christopher Nelson’s interview about Gravesend
> Audio itw about Gravesend
http://www.litshow.com/archive/season-06/cole-swensen-interview/
> Questions to Cole Swensen :
http://12or20questions.blogspot.fr/2007/11/12-or-20-questions-with-cole-swensen.html
> Cole Swensen : a video about Iwoa
> Talk about « If a Garden of numbers » (from Ours)
https://jacket2.org/podcasts/where-real-exceeds-ideal-poemtalk-52
And Cole’s response to that talk :
https://jacket2.org/commentary/cole-swensen-responds
IV. Reviews and
Articles :
> presentation of Noise that Stays Noise : http://www.press.umich.edu/1903627/noise_that_stays_noise
> Donna Stonecipher’s review of Ours in Jacket
http://jacketmagazine.com/36/r-swensen-rb-stonecipher.shtml
> A review of Ours
in Bookforum
http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/015_01/2263
> Article through Project Muse :
