Clayton Eshleman
Encyclopedia
Clayton Eshleman is an American poet, translator
, and editor.
) of the National Book Award
in 1979 for his co-translation of César Vallejo
's Complete Posthumous Poetry. He has also translated books by Aimé Césaire
(with Annette Smith), Pablo Neruda
, Antonin Artaud
, Vladimir Holan
, Michel Deguy and Bernard Bador. In 2006, a translation of The Complete Poetry of Cesar Vallejo, with an introduction by Mario Vargas Llosa
, was published to much acclaim, won the 2008 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets
, and was shortlisted for the 2008 International Griffin Poetry Prize
.
Eshleman founded and edited two of the most seminal and highly-regarded literary magazines of the period. Twenty issues of Caterpillar appeared between 1967 and 1973. In 1981, while Dreyfuss Poet in Residence at the California Institute of Technology
, Eshleman founded Sulfur
magazine. Forty-six issues appeared between 1981 and 2000, the year its final issue went to press. Eshleman describes his experience with the journal in an interview which appeared in an issue of Samizdat (poetry magazine)
.
Sometimes he is mentioned in the company of the "ethno-poeticists
" associated with Jerome Rothenberg
, including: Armand Schwerner
, Rochelle Owens
, Kenneth Irby
, Robert Kelly
, Jed Rasula, Gustaf Sobin
, and John Taggart
. Over the course of his life, his work have been published in over 500 literary magazine
s and newspaper
s, and he has given readings at more than 200 universities
. He is now Professor Emeritus at Eastern Michigan University
.
In the fall of 2005, Clayton and his wife Caryl were in residence at the Rockefeller Study Center at Bellagio
on Lake Como
, Italy
, where he studied Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights
" and wrote a 67 page work on the triptych
in poetry and prose, "The Paradise of Alchemical Foreplay." For over thirty years, Clayton Eshleman has studied Ice Age cave art of southwestern France. In June 2006, the Eshlemans plan to be in France to lead their 8th cave tour to the painted/engraved Ice Age
caves for the Ringling College of Art and Design.
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
, and editor.
Life
Eshleman has been translating since the early 1960s. He is the recipient (with José Rubia BarciaJosé Rubia Barcia
José Rubia Barcia was born in El Ferrol , where a cultural center dedicated to him now houses his library and a collection of his papers. He studied Arabic and Hispano-Arabic literature at the University of Granada...
) of the National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
in 1979 for his co-translation of César Vallejo
César Vallejo
César Abraham Vallejo Mendoza was a Peruvian poet. Although he published only three books of poetry during his lifetime, he is considered one of the great poetic innovators of the 20th century in any language. Thomas Merton called him "the greatest universal poet since Dante"...
's Complete Posthumous Poetry. He has also translated books by Aimé Césaire
Aimé Césaire
Aimé Fernand David Césaire was a French poet, author and politician from Martinique. He was "one of the founders of the négritude movement in Francophone literature".-Student, educator, and poet:...
(with Annette Smith), Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was the pen name and, later, legal name of the Chilean poet, diplomat and politician Neftalí Ricardo Reyes Basoalto. He chose his pen name after Czech poet Jan Neruda....
, Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
, Vladimir Holan
Vladimír Holan
Vladimír Holan was a Czech poet famous for employing obscure language, dark topics and pessimist views in his poems. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in the late 1960s. He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia....
, Michel Deguy and Bernard Bador. In 2006, a translation of The Complete Poetry of Cesar Vallejo, with an introduction by Mario Vargas Llosa
Mario Vargas Llosa
Jorge Mario Pedro Vargas Llosa, 1st Marquis of Vargas Llosa is a Peruvian-Spanish writer, politician, journalist, essayist, and Nobel Prize laureate. Vargas Llosa is one of Latin America's most significant novelists and essayists, and one of the leading authors of his generation...
, was published to much acclaim, won the 2008 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets
Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is a non-profit organization dedicated to the art of poetry. The Academy was incorporated as a "membership corporation" in New York State in 1934...
, and was shortlisted for the 2008 International Griffin Poetry Prize
Griffin Poetry Prize
The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. The awards go to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language....
.
Eshleman founded and edited two of the most seminal and highly-regarded literary magazines of the period. Twenty issues of Caterpillar appeared between 1967 and 1973. In 1981, while Dreyfuss Poet in Residence at the California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
, Eshleman founded Sulfur
Sulfur (magazine)
Sulfur magazine was an influential, small literary magazine founded in 1981 by poet and award-winning translator Clayton Eshleman and ran for 46 issues until the spring of 2000...
magazine. Forty-six issues appeared between 1981 and 2000, the year its final issue went to press. Eshleman describes his experience with the journal in an interview which appeared in an issue of Samizdat (poetry magazine)
Samizdat (poetry magazine)
Samizdat was an international poetry magazine published in Chicago from 1998 until 2004 and edited by the poet Robert Archambeau. It was noted for its unusual format, being printed on large newsprint pages. Contributors included Adam Zagajewski as well as Clayton Eshleman, Pierre Joris, Jerome...
.
Sometimes he is mentioned in the company of the "ethno-poeticists
Ethnopoetics
Ethnopoetics is a poetic movement and subfield in linguistics, and anthropology. It was coined as a term by Jerome Rothenberg in collaboration with George Quasha in 1968, when Quasha asked Rothenberg to create a term using 'ethnos' and 'poetics' on the model of 'ethnomusicology' for inclusion in...
" associated with Jerome Rothenberg
Jerome Rothenberg
Jerome Rothenberg is an internationally known American poet, translator and anthologist who is noted for his work in ethnopoetics and poetry performance.-Early life and work:...
, including: Armand Schwerner
Armand Schwerner
Armand Schwerner was an avant-garde Jewish-American poet. His most famous work, Tablets, is a series of poems which claim to be reconstructions of ancient Sumero-Akkadian inscriptions, complete with lacunae and "untranslatable" words....
, Rochelle Owens
Rochelle Owens
Rochelle Bass Owens is an American poet and playwright.-Life:She is the daughter of Maxwell and Molly Bass. A native New Yorker, Owens studied at the New School for Social Research and University of Montreal...
, Kenneth Irby
Kenneth Irby
Kenneth Irby is an American poet. He won a 2010 Shelley Memorial Award.He is sometimes associated with the Black Mountain poets, especially with Robert Duncan, Robert Creeley, and Ed Dorn....
, Robert Kelly
Robert Kelly (poet)
Robert Kelly is an American poet associated with the deep image group.-Early life and education:Kelly was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Samuel Jason and Margaret Rose Kelly née Kane, in 1935. He did his undergraduate studies at the City College of the City University of New York, graduating in 1955...
, Jed Rasula, Gustaf Sobin
Gustaf Sobin
Gustaf Sobin was a U.S.-born poet and author who spent most of his adult life in France. Originally from Boston, Sobin attended the Choate School, Brown University, and moved to Paris in 1962...
, and John Taggart
John Taggart
John Taggart is an American poet and critic. He was born in Guthrie Center, Iowa. He graduated with honors in 1965 from Earlham College in Indiana, earning a B.A. in English Literature and Philosophy. In 1966 he received a M.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of...
. Over the course of his life, his work have been published in over 500 literary magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
s and newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
s, and he has given readings at more than 200 universities
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
. He is now Professor Emeritus at Eastern Michigan University
Eastern Michigan University
Eastern Michigan University is a comprehensive, co-educational public university located in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Ypsilanti is west of Detroit and eight miles east of Ann Arbor. The university was founded in 1849 as Michigan State Normal School...
.
In the fall of 2005, Clayton and his wife Caryl were in residence at the Rockefeller Study Center at Bellagio
Bellagio
Bellagio is a comune in the Province of Como in the Italian region Lombardy, located on Lake Como. It has long been famous for its setting at the intersection of the three branches of the Y-shaped lake, which is also known as Lario....
on Lake Como
Lake Como
Lake Como is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of 146 km², making it the third largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, where he studied Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights
The Garden of Earthly Delights
The Garden of Earthly Delights is a triptych painted by the early Netherlandish master Hieronymus Bosch , housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid since 1939. Dating from between 1490 and 1510, when Bosch was about 40 or 50 years old, it is his best-known and most ambitious work...
" and wrote a 67 page work on the triptych
Triptych
A triptych , from tri-= "three" + ptysso= "to fold") is a work of art which is divided into three sections, or three carved panels which are hinged together and can be folded shut or displayed open. It is therefore a type of polyptych, the term for all multi-panel works...
in poetry and prose, "The Paradise of Alchemical Foreplay." For over thirty years, Clayton Eshleman has studied Ice Age cave art of southwestern France. In June 2006, the Eshlemans plan to be in France to lead their 8th cave tour to the painted/engraved Ice Age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
caves for the Ringling College of Art and Design.
Works
- Reciprocal Distillations (Hot Whiskey Press, 2007), a collection of poems on art and artists, including CaravaggioCaravaggioMichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...
, Leon GolubLeon GolubLeon Golub was an American painter. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, where he also studied, receiving his BA at the University of Chicago in 1942, his BFA and MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1949 and 1950, respectively.He was married to and collaborated with the artist Nancy Spero...
, Unica ZürnUnica ZürnUnica Zürn was a German author and painter. She is remembered for her works of anagram poetry, exhibitions of automatic drawing, and her photographic collaborations with Hans Bellmer.-Biography:...
, Henri MichauxHenri MichauxHenri Michaux was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in French. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism...
, CorotJean-Baptiste-Camille CorotJean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French landscape painter and printmaker in etching. Corot was the leading painter of the Barbizon school of France in the mid-nineteenth century...
, Joan MitchellJoan MitchellJoan Mitchell was a "second generation" abstract expressionist painter. She was an essential member of the American Abstract expressionist movement, even though much of her career took place in France. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Helen Frankenthaler she was one of her era's few...
, Henry DargerHenry DargerHenry Joseph Darger, Jr. was a reclusive American writer and artist who worked as a custodian in Chicago, Illinois...
, African sculptureAfrican sculptureAfrican sculpture varies widely with location. Each region has a unique style and meaning to their sculptures. The type of material and purpose for the sculpture reflects that of the region of creation.-Regional variations:...
, NeolithicNeolithicThe Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
standing stones, and the Upper PaleolithicUpper PaleolithicThe Upper Paleolithic is the third and last subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. Very broadly it dates to between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago, roughly coinciding with the appearance of behavioral modernity and before the advent of...
Chauvet CaveChauvet CaveThe Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave is a cave in the Ardèche department of southern France that contains the earliest known cave paintings, as well as other evidence of Upper Paleolithic life. It is located near the commune of Vallon-Pont-d'Arc on a limestone cliff above the former bed of the Ardèche River... - An Alchemist with One Eye on Fire (Black Widow Press, 2006).
External links
- Eshleman's official website
- Clayton Eshleman Author Homepage @ EPC
- UBUWEB: Ethnopoetics curated by Jerome Rothenberg
- Sulfur Homepage lists the contents of every issue and info to purchased back issues
- Interview with Eshleman from Samizdat (poetry magazine)Samizdat (poetry magazine)Samizdat was an international poetry magazine published in Chicago from 1998 until 2004 and edited by the poet Robert Archambeau. It was noted for its unusual format, being printed on large newsprint pages. Contributors included Adam Zagajewski as well as Clayton Eshleman, Pierre Joris, Jerome...
- Vallejo, the bard of Peru John Timpane reviews The Complete Poetry (A Bilingual Edition), Translated by Clayton Eshleman
- Poem by Clayton Eshleman
- Hot Whiskey Press official website
- Griffin Poetry Prize biography
- Griffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clip
- Promethian Risk, essay by Clayton Eshleman in Griffin Poetry Prize blog
- Clayton Eshleman reads poems and discusses his poetry in a radio interview on Bookworm, May 29, 2008
- Deep Thermal, a portfolio of poetry in response to the paintings of Mary HeebnerMary HeebnerMary Heebner Mary Heebner works in several mediums including painting, photography and handmade artists books. Her work is exhibited internationally, and is in collections of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the University of Chicago...
, Simplemente Maria Press, 2007. - Eight Poems from "LIFE IN THE FOLDS" by Clayton Eshleman, Ygdrasil, A Journal of the Poetic Arts, April 2005.