Last March, translators Edith Grossman and Clare Cavanagh discussed the tricks of their trade as part of our Books & Bagels series. Toward the end of the conversation, each of them offered an example of recent work, and Grossman read from “a book she is more excited about than any other book she has ever translated”: Luis de Góngora’s long poem “Soledades” (“The Solitudes”).

Next week, in celebration of Góngora’s 450th birthday, Grossman’s version of “Soledades” will finally be published. To mark the occasion, we’d like to share some of her thoughts with you in the podcast above. You can pre-order the book on Amazon.

Here, too, are the poem’s opening lines, in both Spanish and English, so you can follow along.

Era del año la estación florida
en que el mentido robador de Europa
—media luna las armas de su frente,
y el Sol todos los rayos de su pelo—,
    luciente honor del cielo,
en campos de zafiro pace estrellas;

It was the flowering season of the year
when Europa’s false-hearted abductor
—a half moon the weapons on his brow,
the Sun’s rays all the strands of his hair—
    oh bright glory of heaven,
grazes on stars in fields of sapphire blue;

In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments which the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, this blog has begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings. For access to other recordings, please click here.

You can also download the MP3. [15.9 MB]

Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.

Subscribe with iTunes or add our podcast feed to your RSS news reader and have future 92nd Street Y podcasts delivered automatically.

» Follow 92Y Poetry on Facebook and Twitter. Join our eNews]]> 2011-06-23T16:59:56-05:00 92nd Street YnoPodcasts from the 92nd Street Y and Makor.92nd Street YPodcasts from the 92nd Street Y and Makor.92Y,92nd,Street,Y,92nd,St,Y,YMHAhttp://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/92y_podcast_from_the_poetry_center_archive_edith_grossman_on_the_most_diffi/http://audio.92y.org/20110320_92Y_EdithGrossman.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/92YPodcasts/~3/4vgib7fcCMg/ Humanities, Podcasts, All topics of 92nd Street Y

Elena Bonner, human rights activist in the former Soviet Union and widow of Nobel Prize-winning nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov, died in Boston on June 18 at 88. The New York Times writes:

Though Sakharov was better known, Ms. Bonner became a force in her own right, waging a tireless campaign to improve the lives of her people long after her husband’s death in 1989.

It is a role she accepted out of necessity, she would say. A pediatrician by training, whose family suffered greatly during the Stalinist purges, Ms. Bonner longed for a simpler life.

[...]

Strong-jawed, bespectacled and austere in dress, Ms. Bonner was something of a symbol of dignified protest within the Soviet Union. Half-Jewish, she was a target of anti-Semitism.

On April 12, 1994 at 92Y, Bonner sat down with James F. Hoge Jr. to discuss, with the use of a translator, Russia and the Republics in the Post Cold War Era. In this audio clip, she shares a humorous story about the scarcity of socks after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

You can also download the MP3. [7 MB]

Subscribe with iTunes or add our podcast feed to your RSS news reader and have future 92nd Street Y podcasts delivered automatically.

]]> 2011-06-22T17:51:22-05:00 92nd Street YnoPodcasts from the 92nd Street Y and Makor.92nd Street YPodcasts from the 92nd Street Y and Makor.92Y,92nd,Street,Y,92nd,St,Y,YMHAhttp://blog.92y.org/index.php/weblog/item/92y_podcast_elena_bonner_on_russia_and_the_republics_in_the_post_cold_war_e/http://audio.92y.org/19940412_92Y_ElenaBonner.mp3 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/92YPodcasts/~3/u6-P0sAmT-0/ The Arts, Podcasts, All topics of 92nd Street Y

Last April, distinguished biographer Michael Slater delivered a talk in our Books & Bagels series on Charles Dickens’ love of Shakespeare.

Dickens hailed Shakespeare as the “great master who knew everything,” and considered himself a devoted, lifelong follower, “tracking out his footsteps at the scarcely-worth-mentioning little distance of a few millions of leagues behind.” Quotes from Shakespeare’s plays pervade Dickens’ novels, with Macbeth and Hamlet topping the list.

Today’s featured recording is Professor Slater’s comedic reading of the scene from Chapter 31 of Great Expectations when Pip and Herbert see Mr. Wopsle in a rundown production of Hamlet.

In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments which the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, this blog has begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings. For access to other recordings, please click here.

You can also download the MP3. [11.6 MB]

Related: The Guardian reviews Slater’s book, Charles Dicken.

Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.

» Follow 92Y Poetry on Facebook and Twitter. Join our eNews

You can also download the MP3. [16.6 MB]

[Right-click and select “Save Target As:” or equivalent to download.]

Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.

» Follow 92Y Poetry on Facebook and Twitter. Join our eNews

Tony Kushner’s new play, The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, just opened at The Public Theater. To celebrate, we’d like to share an archival recording of the playwright reading at the 92nd Street Y Unterberg Poetry Center.

In this excerpt from his 1995 appearance, Kushner reads a scene from his play A Bright Room Called Day; a poem against drama critics (“A Song For Playwrights in Self-Defense”); and a scene from Perestroika, the second part of Angels in America.

In an ongoing effort to share with our readers some of the great literary moments which the Poetry Center has presented across the decades, this blog has begun to feature regular postings of archival recordings. For more information about the rest of the upcoming season, please click here. And for access to other recordings from the Poetry Center archive—including a conversation with the creators of Gatz, which ran at The Public last fall—please click here.

Unterberg Poetry Center webcasts and access to our archive are made possible in part by the generous support of the Sidney E. Frank Foundation.

You can also download the MP3. [13.7 MB]

[Right-click and select “Save Target As:” or equivalent to download.]

» Follow 92Y Poetry on Facebook and Twitter. Join our eNews

Coming up next at 92Y Poetry on April 27 is Revolutionaries in the Middle East with Rula Jebreal, Ghassan Salamé, Abdelkader Benali and others, part of the Pen World Voices Festival.

Previously: