ABU DHABI // The selected works of 15 contemporary American poets have been translated into Arabic and bound in an anthology published by Kalima, the translation initiative of the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage. The 1,001 poems, by 20th-century writers, are the largest selection of American poems translated to Arabic to date. "Contemporary and modern American poetry has been largely inaccessible to the Arabic reader and Arab culture," said Dr Ali bin Tamim, the director of the Kalima project. So Kalima chose the work of poets from the second half of the 20th century.
The anthology includes poems by Billy Collins, Langston Hughes, Charles Bukowski, Robert Bly, Sylvia Plath, Denise Levertov, Louis Gluck, Anne Sexton, Kim Addonizio, Archie Ammons, Florence Anthony, Dorianne Laux, Charles Simic, Theodore Roethke and Ted Kooser. "The poems are from a period that witnessed a number of important experiments and currents such as confessional poetry, post-[Second World] war, objectivist poetry, the Beat generation and other movements," Dr bin Tamim said.
The anthology will be in shops across the country next week. hkhalaf@thenational.ae
