Mother Tongue: Poetry in Translation

Contact: info@folger.edu

In this bilingual reading, co-sponsored by the Poetry Society of America, Polish poet Adam Zagajewski will read alongside his translator, Clare Cavanagh, followed by a conversation moderated by Edward Hirsch. Poet Mary Oliver once called Zagajewski “our greatest and truest representative, the most pertinent, impressive, meaningful poet of our time.”

From Wait For An Autumn Day

Wait for an autumn day, for a slightly
weary sun, for dusty air,
a pale day’s weather.

Wait for the maple’s rough, brown leaves,
etched like an old man’s hands,
for chestnuts and acorns,

for an evening when you sit in the garden
with a notebook and the bonfire’s smoke contains
the heady taste of ungettable wisdom....

From Eternal Enemies © 2008 by Adam Zagajewski, translated by Clare Cavanagh, published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

This event is part of the Folger Shakespeare Library's O. B. Hardison Poetry Series, director Teri Cross Davis. Box office http://events.folger.edu/single/PSDetail.aspx?psn=408

Price: $15.00

Time: 7:30pm