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Translation is Good For You

Lecture by David Constantine, presented by the Poetry Society at London Review Bookshop

To inaugurate the Poetry Society's series of international readings in 2005, renowned poet, translator and editor David Constantine will give a lecture entitled "Translation is Good For You" about the benefits of translation to poets, translators, and a wider literary audience on 27 January at the London Review Bookshop.

David Constantine is the editor of Modern Poetry in Translation, and has published six volumes of poetry, the most recent being his Collected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2004). He is a translator of Hölderlin, Goethe, Kleist and Brecht, and his translation of Hans Magnus Enzensberger's Lighter than Air (Bloodaxe) won the Poetry Society's 2003 Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation. His co-translations include editions of Henri Michaux and Philippe Jaccottet in the Bloodaxe Contemporary French Poets series. He has recently translated Goethe's Faust for Penguin Classics.

Poetry translated into English is strikingly vibrant in the UK, whether it comes out of the South Bank Centre's International Poetry Festival, the SOAS-based Poetry in Translation Centre, literary magazines such as Modern Poetry in Translation and Orient Express, or projects such as Poems on the Underground featuring poems translated into English. The Poetry Society's Translation Reading Series will be travelling around the UK in 2005 to celebrate the buzzing world of poetry in translation. Following the London Review Bookshop lecture by David Constantine in London, the Poetry Society will present an event at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff to feature Welsh and European poetry in translation.

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For further information about the Poetry Society's Translation Reading Series, telephone 0207 420 9895 or email marketing@poetrysociety.org.uk

For further information about the Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation telephone 0207 420 9892 or visit www.poetrysociety.org.uk/comp/popesc05.htm

Notes to editors

• To book tickets for "Translation is Good For You" with David Constantine at the London Review Bookshop, 14 Bury Place, London WC1A 2JL on Thursday 27 January, 7.30pm - telephone 0207 420 9895 or email marketing@poetrysociety.org.uk. Tickets £6 (£4 concessions and Poetry Society members)
• The Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation was set up to acknowledge the extraordinary talent of a young Romanian translator, Corneliu M Popescu, who had beautifully translated the poems of Mihai Eminescu. Unfortunately Popescu had died in the 1977 earthquake in Romania and the prize is a tribute to this prodigiously talented young man and indeed translators all over Europe. To submit book(s) send three copies of the publication to Popescu Prize, 22 Betterton Street, London, WC2H 9BX.
• For more information about the Poetry Society visit www.poetrysociety.org.uk
• To join the Poetry Society's e-mail list to find out more about Popescu Prize results and information about readings and lectures in the 2005 Poetry in Translation series, email competition@poetrysociety.org.uk with 'subscribe to translation e-mail' in the subject line.