I was a judge for PEN literary awards

An invitation

In late summer of 2021, I was contacted out of the blue by PEN. I had been recommended as a judge for their 25th annual award in translated poetry. If I accepted, this would entail reading a score of translated poetry books over the course of a couple of months. With a small team of judges, I would help select the winner of their cash first prize of $3000 for the translator, along with significant publicity for the book.

I had never been a judge for a contest before. Would I be able to read and evaluate all of those books? Did I know enough about poetry to put them into context and make a judgment I could defend? I didn’t know what it would be like.

What clinched my decision was reflecting on the bi-monthly poetry workshops I had been leading for the past three years. In these workshops, I love reading all kinds of poetry from unfamiliar voices. I am constantly stretching my ability to perceive the writer’s message, and offering suggestions on how the writer might achieve a better result.

This offer to read and judge translated poetry seemed a logical extension of what I already do and love. Besides, I have written three books of poetry and translated eight books of poetry. Though I had a busy fall schedule ahead of me already, with teaching, proofreading, writing, and translating, I decided to accept this job.

How I approached the judging

My fellow judges, Farsi literary translator Parisa Saranj and Spanish literary translator Caro Carter, and I were presented with a spreadsheet of about 75 entrants to the PEN Translated Poetry Prize. The list of books was divided into three, so each of us would have to evaluate about 25 books in two month’s time, and recommend six or seven for advancing to the next phase.

The list presented us with incredible diversity. There were new translations of authors from all eras of literary history, from Ovid and Aristophanes, Dante and Vergil, Baudelaire and Rilke; to modern authors Yu Xiuhua from China and Marie Silkeberg from Sweden. The nations and cultures represented were extensive, from Tamil poet philosopher Tiruvalluvar to Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish to Ecuadoran modernist poet Jorgenrique Adoum. Collectively it was a feast of poetry representing the expanse of the globe and diverse eras of human history.

Because of the diversity of the works, I understood that this would not be a job comparing apples to apples. I couldn’t really compare the books to one another, but what I could compare was the effect each book had on me.

Through my experience running poetry workshops, I have developed a sensitivity to first and foremost responding to the emotional resonance I feel from a poem. The craft, creativity, and originality also play a role in my evaluation, but it is the emotional impact that takes priority. After reading five or ten pages of a particular book, I would take notes about lines that stood out to me. I would ask myself if this were a book I would highly recommend to a fellow reader or poet. Was I excited to read more?

There were some poets that showed incredible control and intriguing concepts, and it seemed the translators had done their jobs impeccably in having the original work shine through in English. There were certain poets that I found too sentimental or too intellectual for my taste. There were also some that felt to me like “word salad.” I have to assume that all of the poets felt deeply about their own work, and I knew all along that my opinion was not definitive, but very subjective, based on my own preferences.

A unanimous decision

From our narrowed-down list of 20 contenders, we three judges advanced three or four books each to a long list of ten books to consider for the final prize. We read them all, and held zoom meetings to discuss our opinions. When I narrowed my choices to propose five titles to the short list and my choice for the final winner, I wondered if there would be a big three-way confrontation with the other two judges.

Incredibly, it was unanimous. All three judges felt that this one work was the best of the group. I can’t reveal which book it is yet, as the prize will be awarded at the end of February (See the link below).

From my perspective, a couple of characteristics of the book I selected as the winner were: First, breathtaking originality. Each page was like opening a gift, a surprise, unpredictable and delightful both in the word craft and the author’s ability to get beneath the surface and into the emotion of the topic.

Second, control and conciseness. The author had chiseled the poems so they were like sculptures rolled flat on the page, with nothing that did not belong. The reader was respected by the absence of redundancy and explanation.

When I had lunch with a friend during this time, I brought this particular poetry book with me. I read him a couple of pages out loud, and we both got tears in our eyes. I felt gratitude for the poet and for the translator, for offering me their gift of creativity, which I could not only share with my friend, but also recommend to a national audience through the PEN prize.

This was a delightful process to be part of. I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Parisa and Caro and discussing our book evaluations. I was pleasantly surprised (and relieved) that we all landed on the same winner.

The Longlist

The Translated Poetry Longlist has been released by PEN, and the ten nominees for the prize have been narrowed to the following:

Ova Completa by Susana Thénon; translated by Rebekah Smith; Spanish
Words as Grain by Duo Duo; translated by Lucas Klein; Chinese
I Name Him Me by Ma Yan; translated by Stephen Nashef; Chinese
Damascus, Atlantis by Marie Silkeberg; translated by Katherine M. Hedeen; Swedish
Exhausted on the Cross by Najwan Darwish; translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid; Arabic
Catcalling by Lee Soho; translated by Soje; Korean
Everything I Don’t Know by Jerzy Ficowski; translated by Jennifer Grotz and Piotr Sommer; Polish
Edinburgh Notebook by Valerie Mejer Caso; translated by Michelle Gil-Montero; Spanish
Outgoing Vessel by Ursula Andkjær Olsen; translated by Katrine Øgaard Jensen; Danish
The Voices and Other Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke; translated by Kristofor Minta; German