The Imaginary Poets

The Imaginary Poets presents exceptional work from major poets who delight in assuming a new persona. But the book's ultimate goal is to explore the nature of creativity: what is it to make a poem? to make up a poet? To ""translate"" a workis that rewriting or writing? What about translating a work that never existed? What does it mean if you create the creator? In the tradition of Pessoa and Borges, The Imaginary Poets delves delightedly into the very act of invention with a wink, a smile and tremendous respect for the art.

Translate a poem into English, offer a biography of the poet, and then write a short essay in which the poem, the poet, and the corpus are consideredand make all of it up, without once indicating you have done so. Thus charged were the twenty-two contributors to this volume, who in response produced poems ""translated"" from eighteen languages including Dirja, Vietnamese, Yiddish, and even from Egyptian hieroglyphs, poems that may be read in the grand literary tradition of heteronyms and alter egos...Alan Michael Parker

Contributors include Aliki Barnstone, Josh Bell, Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Martha Collins, Annie Finch, Judith Hall, Barbara Hamby, Jennifer Michael Hecht, Garrett Hongo, Andrew Hudgins, David Kirby, Maxine Kumin, Khaled Mattawa, D.A. Powell, Kevin Prufer, Anna Rabinowitz, Victoria Redel, David St. John, Mark Strand, Thom Ward, Rosanna Warren, and Eleanor Wilner