THE OTHER VOICE: Twentieth Century Women's Poetry in Translation

In an age of renewed interest in translation,"" says Adrienne Rich in her forward to The Other Voice, ""the women poets of the world have still lacked a real sense of each other's powers. Not just women who write poetry, but the state of poetry itself, and all who look to poetry for greater self-knowledge, have suffered from this ignorance."" Indeed, the great majority of the 80 poets collected here--writing in 31 languages, from Swedish and French to Afrikaans and Kiriwina, and representing every continent--have never been translated into English before. Some of them have: the dry intensity of Simone Weil, the love songs and historical poetry of Bella Akhmadulina, and, to a lesser degree, the work of Nelly Sachs and Violetta Parra, are accessible to the American poetry-reading public. But unless you read the few very small magazines committed to translation, it's likely you've never heard of others: Dahlia Ravikovitch, an Israeli who writes with chilling anger; or the accomplished Portuguese feminist and novelist, Maria Teresa Horta; or even Yosano Akiko, highly celebrated in Japan. Not all of the poets in The Other Voice are as skillful and as expressive as these; but a majority of the 130-odd poems are accomplished enough to render the pricking of our ignorance a very satisfying event.