The Winged Energy of Delight

"This dazzling, intensely personal compendium is a passionate feast." —Jane Hirshfield

Robert Bly had always been amazingly prescient in his choice of poets to translate. The poetry he chose supplied qualities that were lacking from the literary culture of this country. For the first time Robert Bly’s brilliant translations, from several languages and spanning twenty-two poets, have been brought together in one book.

At a time when editors and readers knew only Eliot and Pound, Robert Bly introduced the earthy wildness of Pablo Neruda and Cesar Vallejo and the sober grief of Trakl, as well as the elegance of Jiménez and Tranströmer. He also published high-spirited versions of Kabir and Rumi, and Mirabai, which had considerable influence on the wide culture of the 1970s and 1980s. Bly’s clear translations of Rilke attracted many new readers to the poet, and his versions of Machado have become models of silence and depth. He continues to bring fresh and amazing poets into English, most recently Rolf Jacobsen, Miguel Hernandez, Francis Ponge, and the ninteenth-century Indian poet Ghalib. As Kenneth Rexroth has said, Robert Bly “is one of the leaders of a poetic revival which has returned American literature to the world community.”

What treasures did he bring back to the American literary shore?

• Modernist Masters: Experience the earthy wildness of Pablo Neruda, the profound silence of Antonio Machado, and the visionary genius of Federico García Lorca.
• Germanic Visionaries: Discover Bly’s famously clear translations of Rainer Maria Rilke and the sober grief of Georg Trakl’s haunting imagery.
• Ecstatic Mystics: Encounter the high-spirited versions of Rumi, Kabir, and Mirabai—three legendary poets whose work transformed the culture of the 1970s and 80s.
• The Art of Translation: In personal, passionate introductions, Robert Bly shares his intimate process and explains why each of these twenty-two poets is essential for the English-speaking world.