^M00:00:02 >> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. ^M00:00:05 [ Silence ] ^M00:00:26 >> Now on to tonight's event. To begin Robert Pinsky and his translator, Luis Alberto Ambroggio will read and discuss Robert's poems and his translations. There are in everyone's seat a printout of the poems from The New Book of Translations, Ginza Samba: Selected Poems. After their half hour presentation talking about those poems and the work that they did in translating them, Hispanic Division Chief, Georgia Dorn who I previously mentioned, will lead a moderated discussion and then we'll leave some time at the end for your questions which I hope you'll ask. We also have a print program on your seat and you can learn more about our featured speakers. Let me say how honored I am to be hosting one of our most beloved poet laureate, the only laureate to serve three consecutive turns in the position and believe me, I've seen what it's like to be a poet laureate from, from, behind the scenes and it's a lot of work, especially if you have a signature project as wonderful as Robert's. To find out more about his favorite poems project which he launched as laureate and has continued for more than 15 years, you can visit www.favoritepoem.org . You can also see the new favorite poem project, Chicago, co-sponsored by our good friends, Poetry Foundation at www.poetryfoundation.org /favoritepoem /chicago. It's worth checking out. It's very exciting. People here know who Rahm Emanuel is and it's great to hear him read poems in his new job as Mayor of that city. But first and foremost, this event tonight celebrates the cross-cultural, multi-lingual appeal of Robert's own poetry and as Troy John Moore argued in the Washington Post "sadness and happiness, beauty and ugliness, peace and violence each has it's place in Pinsky's capacious poetry. For its universe is the one which we all live". And I can think of no better poet translator and event to challenge former consultant Robert Frost's statement that poetry is "what gets lost in translation". Please join me in welcoming Robert Pinsky and Luis Alberto Ambroggio. ^M00:02:42 [ Applause ] ^M00:02:44 >> Thanks so much. I think maybe I should start this with a little bit of Spanish. [ Laughter ] >> It's a tremendous honor to have the poet, Luis Alberto Ambroggio. Joined by the poet, Andreas Catalan to translate my poems into kind of dream work and you know, we're talking about the language of this hemisphere. The second language of the two languages of the United States arguably the language that was the first language spoken by Europeans in what became the United States. The second language in the world to [inaudible] is the only one that is spoken by more people. But I also want to add a little bit about Spanish in my own life. Luis Alberto recently has translated my essay, some pages called My Spanish in which I confess when I was in the eighth grade I thought it would be cool to learn French. [ Laughter ] But I was enrolled colloquially as the dumb class. [ Laughter ] Or the bad class and as I say in the essay, because the social history of the United States and New Jersey, most [inaudible] they prefer to study the language of [inaudible] and Cervantes. [ Laughter ] And as I say, because I was one of the [inaudible] I knew the difference between [inaudible] So that these poems being translated into Spanish which I did study in high school and then college in which I have forgotten a tremendous proportion of what I learned, it has a special personal meaning to me. The amount translated into this great world language. Language not only Cervantes and [inaudible] and so forth. So I'll just make that my preface and my gratitude for this poetry and this colleague poet that overall languages, this is one that probably means the most to me to have incarnated in this language. >> He wants me to talk in Spanish, but I think that I will continue doing it in English with an Argentine accent. I guess most of them here are totally bilingual right? Unless, well basically. >> [inaudible] >> [inaudible] okay. It's not a star in Spanish but probably would be better. Anyways it was really a challenge and a great challenge but a really fantastic challenge to me to translate Robert Pinsky's poetry. We went to together to Grenada and I did the translation of some of the poems for that particular event. And basically because I fell in love with his poetry, but then also I was very frustrated because I couldn't quite translate it the way I understood it real in English like the sound. I mean he suggest musician, the words that are like on the pumps of the refinery, a newspaper man in Grenada or Nicaragua asked me well listen, how do you do that because it seemed impossible to imitate the sounds that were on that particular poem. And I decided precisely what Ortega says this and some people think that translation is a utopia but on the other hand, it is gone so you can find it there. So that's what we got together but it was a really great challenge. I am really grateful to the Hispanic Division and the Office of the Poet Laureate of this opportunity to celebrate together the Hispanic Heritage Month. We have been doing that with this sponsorship both the Director of the Hispanic Division for about 20 years, celebrating the poetry written in the U.S. in Spanish for 450 years. And now we have Robert Pinsky, a great poet, a city poet, present in our Hispanic American work and I'm very happy for that. >> Should we read some poems? >> Yes, sure. >> What should start with? >> [inaudible] >> Maybe something else that the opening stands are better to do second. >> No, no. >> [inaudible] >> The whole poem or just? >> Yeah the whole poem. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> This is a poem called Samurai Song. When I had no roof I made audacity my roof. When I had no supper my eyes dined. When I had no eyes I listened. When I had no ears I thought. When I had no thought I waited. When I had no father I made care my father. When I had no mother I embraced order. When I had no friend I made quiet my friend. When I had no enemy I opposed my body. When I had no temple I made my voice my temple. I have no priest, my tongue is my choir. When I have no means fortune is my means. When I have nothing, death will be my fortune. Need is my tactic, detachment is my strategy. When I had no lover I courted my sleep. ^M00:09:20 [ Foreign Language ] ^M00:10:33 [ Applause ] >> I knew it would be better in Spanish. [ Laughter ] >> What is next? >> The next. >> [inaudible] >> Yeah. This is a poem I wrote during the festival in Grenada and Nicaragua when, it wasn't the first time I met Luis Alberto so but Grenada is an extraordinary city. Nicaragua is a poor country and at that poetry festival they bury and abstraction of the year. So it's a long funeral procession, mind you for [inaudible], lovelessness and according to [inaudible] It's a great theater in costumes. When I say people I mean everybody in Grenada is in costume and there's a big float full of [inaudible] that follows the hearse of [inaudible] and at every street corner I have pictures of this and can prove it, an immense crowd of Grenadians gathers, the poet walks to the top of the float and reads a poem. Everybody applauds. You go on to the next place and then you get to the cemetery and bury this and this poem, it has to be said, it also in true in begging in Grenada and it's a country that has survived terrible violence. It still has terrible, expresses cultural political of all kinds. Poetry is very important there and this is the poem that I wrote during that time that I was first getting to know Luis Alberto and the poem is full of details from that trip but like most of us, I of course relate them to my own life and my childhood. The poem is called Food. Food. Substances like. Prime substance of desire. If you can cook like the way you walk, you should keep the I'll eat it down to the husk. Actually a Cuban. [ Laughter ] [inaudible] In Grenada, Nicaragua the logo food, food lays on the truck. The trademark word, the trademark word like Hagen Dias in no language except in the shadow of your tongue [inaudible] A child later points to his mouth. Substance of communion. Substance of need. When I was a kid, the family fought over it nearly as much as money. Food. Food. Food. My mother who refused to cook fought bitterly with her mother, my grandmother who lived four doors away. I, the ashamed child courier for delivery between two furious women. Watching cook in Pyrex. Food. Food. Food. Knishes in paper. Sue's chicken in jars. While I carried mushing as judgmental, all seeing Mrs. Crockett's fearing to watch between curtains. And in the rooming house between hers and Nana's, alcoholic housepainters and bums. Surely the government and [inaudible] supplements to their chief sweet wine. Because you are lukewarm says God. Neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of mouth. Substance of charity and of luxury. Under the regime of the tree of life, no longer with [inaudible] rationing of food of the people. Substance of woe. Melting. Hot honey with tears. Substance of grieving. Soul oil of sustenance. Down to the husk. >> When we were in Grenada, the first time, the first festival, we buried ignorance. So each year we bury something else. This time was obviously, lack of love. Anyways, this poem. I was fascinated by Robert discovering Grenada and the things. We were in the hotel in La Lambert riding from the class and there were so many things going on that particular class that it was fascinating and that it will be fascinating seeing Robert contemplate all those things and I thought in the back of my mind, sure enough there would be a poem out of this and here we are. It's called Food. [inaudible] ^M00:15:51 [ Foreign Language ] ^M00:17:59 [ Applause ] ^M00:18:07 >> It was a truck that had the trade name Food. [ Laughter ] >> FUB. >> Yeah. This poem, The Refinery was published in La Penza while we were there at the festival, Luis Alberto translated it that efficiently and it will be interesting to talk about if we have a chance, talk about how moments in the poem are so much with this country and germane to this city and it translated to another language becomes something else in Spanish. The Refinery. Our language, forged in the dark by centuries of violent pressure, underground, out of the stuff of dead life. Thirsty and languorous after their long black sleep. The old gods crooned and shuffled and shook their heads. Dry, dry. By railroad they set out. Across the desert of stars to drink the world. Our mouths had soaked. In the strange sentences we made. While they were asleep a pollen-tinted. Slurry of passion and lapsed. Intention, whose imagined. Taste made the savage deities hiss and snort. In the lightless carriages, a smell of snake. And coarse fur, glands of lymphless breath. And ichor, the avid stenches of immortal bodies. Their long train clicked and sighed. Through the gulfs of night between the planets. And came down through the evening fog. Of redwood canyons. From the train. At sunset, fiery warehouse windows. Along a wharf. Then dusk, a gash of neon. Bar. Black pinewoods, a junction crossing, glimpses. Of sluggish surf among the rocks, a moan. Of dreamy forgotten divinity calling and fading. Against the windows of a town. Inside. The train, a flash. Of dragonfly wings, an antlered brow. Black night again, and then. After the bridge, a palace on the water. The great Refinery impossible city of lights. A million bulbs tracing its turreted boulevards and mazes. The castle of a person pronounced alive, the Corporation, a fictional Lord real in law. Barbicans and torches long the siding where the engine slows. At the central tanks, a ward of steel palisades, valved and chandeliered. The muttering gods greedily penetrate those bright pavilions, Libation of Benzene, Naphthalene, Asphalt, Gasoline, Tar. Syllables. Fractioned and cracked from unarticulated. Crude, the smeared keep of life that fed on itself in pitchy darkness when the gods were new, inedible, volatile and sublimated afresh to sting our tongues who use it, refined from oil of stone. The gods batten on the vats, and drink up. Lovecries and memorized Chaucer, lines from movies and songs hoarded in mortmain exiles' charms, the basal or desperate distillates of breath steeped, brewed and spent as though we were their aphids, or their bees, that monstered up sweetness for them while they dozed. >> You notice the syllables that Robert used in this particular poem. I'm talking about language. Spanish is such a you know, fluid or not fluid but harmonious type of language. It's very difficult to translate that part of the poem. On the one hand and also from the cultural point of view, when he talks about the corporation as the Lord as a person, I mean in Latin America we are not too pro-corporation and don't treat that, that well. So this is the difficulty in translation of poem but in any case, sorry, I won't repeat what I said. Hopefully you heard me there. So it's difficult to translate this poem but from the point of imitating those syllables that are used so Robert pronounced and so typical of the English language, when Spanish is more melodious or there's melody on it and also from a cultural point of view, because a corporation here is treated as a law, we're using a very sarcastic way. >> So [inaudible] >> So [inaudible] a legal person. Well in Latin America, we don't quite think so. But in any case The Refinery at the same time appears in this poem as a little bit as a monster which I like it. And that then is maybe a little bit cultural as well. ^M00:24:13 [ Foreign Language ] ^M00:27:58 [ Applause ] ^M00:28:06 >> I know what Luis Alberto means when he talks about the certain kind of harshness or aggressiveness in English and I think the translation in so far as an objective which is hardly at all to get that [inaudible]. [ Laughter ] It has it and I'm grateful for it and [inaudible] >> I took a class from him because I would consult him well how do you like this word? And so on and so forth. Does it sound good in Spanish? >> Yeah it sounds good. >> All kind of Rs and things like that. Very harsh. [ Laughter ] >> Well, we'll do one more and then we'll have a conversation with [inaudible] >> Sounds good. >> Antique. I drowned in the fire of having you. I burned in the river of not having you. We lived together for hours in a house of a thousand rooms. And we were parted for a thousand years. Ten minutes ago we raised our children who cover the earth and have forgotten that we existed. It was not maya, it was not a ladder to perfection, it was this cold sunlight falling on this warm earth. When I turned you went to Hell. When your ship fled the battle I followed you and lost the world without regret but with stormy recriminations. Someday far down that corridor of horror the future, someone who buys this picture of you for the frame at a stall in a dwindled city will study your face and decide to harbor it for a little while longer. From the waters of anonymity, the acids of breath. >> This is a great poem and I had difficulty with the title, Antique. In fact, and it's good because in family my middle son used to call Lydia's father, his grandfather, antique, so anyways. [ Laughter ] I will choose the title Antique with that even though again, it's something that doesn't quite reflect what an antique is, particularly in this particular poem but anyways, I deal with that. ^M00:30:56 [ Foreign Language ] ^M00:32:10 [ Applause ] ^M00:32:20 >> Now we'll like a little conversation. >> Right. >> That was wonderful. I guess both of you know that Grenada is the city of purpose. >> Yeah. Sure. >> In one great kilometer [inaudible] than anywhere else in the world. Did you know when you were there? >> I met hundreds of them. [ Laughter ] >> So that must be very special. >> Yes indeed. We went to not in Grenada but we went to [inaudible] house and yeah. ^M00:32:54 [ Foreign Language ] ^M00:33:01 >> Your Spanish is quite good actually Robert. >> Well Grenada was actually more than the country to [inaudible] There was this, the land of the [inaudible] and in fact, as part of the festival, we go and start reciting poems on the church where they used to get together on the top of the church. Usually talking against [inaudible] and then later on admiring him. That's the case. >> Can I say something? >> Yes. She's from Nicaragua. >> The grace of Nicaragua. >> Mostly their out on their own. >> Right. >> In Grenada there's a certain animosity. >> Their [inaudible] of their own. >> The real Leon. [inaudible] >> Famous location. >> So anybody who tries to [inaudible] is dead. So this is, you are very fortunate that you are very much alive. >> Yes this is how [inaudible] definitely. >> So you, yourself translated right? >> I created. I also say that translation is a misnomer. It means carry across [inaudible] They might have said in the 16th century in English and I did English [inaudible] yes. >> [inaudible] before in English. I know that. >> Yes I did and my theory of translation is that it's more of a copulation. It's better to copulate with somebody is alive than rather with a dead person. [ Laughter ] Now the son or the daughter, obviously I don't know whom she look after or she look like or maybe look to the some environmental situation but it is a process where all the time you have something there which is neither the original version nor a total [inaudible] in the language but I have a translator of my own poetry and there is on particular poem that I always tell her your English version is better than my original Spanish version. >> That's what Garcia [inaudible] said about [inaudible] was better in English. And I think you followed that because you discussed the translation. That's why it's so good. I mean you kept talking about it. >> We did communicate. We did communicate with one another. I was trying to make a rough number of the concept is helpful to you [inaudible] [ Laughter ] Maybe it wasn't. There are numerous things I would say you know, I knew just enough Spanish and just enough English. [ Laughter ] To make certain suggestions that I think could help with things. I was trying to remember what the words were in [inaudible] someone who buys [inaudible] I think at one point I had [inaudible] >> Right. >> And we already talked though a portrait is, you don't know what period this happens in. You know, it's Orpheus and Eurydice. It's Antony and Cleopatra. It's Adam and Eve in a way. And [inaudible] puts it too much in the late 19th century on and there was another work that said the [inaudible] What was the other word? Anyway, that was the kind of conversation that we could. That where I and they were the main collaborators with me. Oh once in a while I do have something to say. >> So you went there and kept conversing afterwards? >> No, no we met before. >> We met in Washington. >> We met in Washington. >> But I think we really got to know one another. >> Right. More in Grenada. >> In that intensity of that time in Grenada. >> Right, but what was interesting as well, is not only the words, but for instance, between the two translators here, this is an edition I prepared, and Andres Catalan, who is a professor in Santa Manta University and we have two different approaches to the translation. His is more creative, more I would say, if you were to write a poem in Spanish, you would write it more his way. In my case, I was more literal because I, you know, in some of the poems I think that, like Robert was playing with the [inaudible] and if you know, if I were writing that poem in Spanish I would not use the verbs to really that much. But I think it was important on the context of what he was saying. For instance, in the poem, [inaudible] but it's in the book. And by the way too, there is an introduction to the book which explain all of this, my approach to translation and so on. But for instance, in that poem, Antique, it was good to talk to him a little bit for us the [inaudible] because there are so many references. So many you know, talking about a purse and so on and so forth and I remember talking and you telling me now this is about poetry. So that poetry is the subject of this poem. And that changed my approach to the translation as well. >> [inaudible] is my poem. >> Right. >> And you say well maybe someday somebody will buy it for free. Someday in Nigeria, 150 years from now somebody will be studying American English from the late 20th century and say well here's an example I can use for this. And that's [inaudible] And then the person you love has a little tiny, tiny bit of immortality because of the work of art. So running through is all the [inaudible] in English. 16th century Shakespeare is they freeze, they drown, hyperbolic language. In the beginning when it says I drown in the fire and I burned in the river. I'm talking about actually feelings but I'm also thinking about that whole history of poetry so we could have a conversation like that. >> Well it's interesting in the translation is that he really followed the rhythm and I know you're a musician and you're a jazz lover so you can almost sing it. You know, and actually the Spanish came through and I think maybe the Spanish language and you can almost like hear the rhythm build. So I think he was very skillful. >> I think again of the two translators. Luis Alberto put much, much, creative energy. Trying to create basic English rhythm and in some ways he has jazz rhythms. I mean this poem that I do is on CD Jazz and it's one I do with musicians because it has kind of a bluesy feeling because it's well it's like a sonnet, you know, I burned, I drowned, it's also you know, I burned in the fire and how you can almost hear that bar, so it's a [inaudible] interested in doing that. >> And I was wondering how this would be received in Latin America. I know that there are Latin Americans that would be interested in American poetry. Do you have any idea? >> Yeah, I have a seen a number of reviews in the internet. [inaudible] on the book right? >> In Spanish? >> In Spanish and either from Spain or from other countries and it's very well received. You know, I don't know if you read this, they didn't like the title. >> They didn't? >> No, two or three reviewers well that title, I don't know what would be their title. Anyways. >> Here's in supporting Spanish and its Brazil and Japan. >> Right. Maybe that's what the title. >> Ginza is Japanese, right? >> Right. I was not able to communicate with these reviewers because I just found recently this [inaudible] and so it has been well received and all of them point out to the fact that and I obviously talk about this in my introduction, the fact that such a great poet as Robert Pinsky was not, was not in Spanish. Was not translated in Spanish in a book form and they really celebrate that. >> This the first time right? >> Right. >> Because also they read in Japanese I think. [ Laughter ] The Japanese have an easier time learning Spanish and poetry instead of English. The number of Japanese who actually moved to Brazil and they find it more [inaudible] >> Right. >> I'm looking forward to hearing the Japanese version of [inaudible] [ Laughter ] >> And that's Yiddish. [ Laughter ] >> [inaudible] >> So you get three languages. You get [inaudible] in Yiddish and [inaudible] in Spanish and then you get the language of Pyrex this [inaudible] trademark line. >> But English is an [inaudible] language because you make up words as you go along. And you know, I watched your [inaudible] about five times. Richer or larger did any romance language. >> I think one my favorite stories about translation, a little girl next door to us [inaudible] spent some of the time with her mother and father. They were German and Americans. They were in American, some in Germany. She's about three or maybe four years old and she's over our house in the winter time and it was time go over nearby her house and we're helping her get her snow suit and her boots and she says I can't find my hand shoes. [ Laughter ] She didn't say [inaudible] She took a very inspired guess at what the English word might be for mittens and anyways [inaudible] saying mittens and it was the nicest translation. >> Shoes for the hand. >> Yeah right. >> That's what we say in German, [inaudible] >> That brings me to the word kugel, which it's not [inaudible] it's really cake but cake is [inaudible] >> It's not taking off. >> [inaudible] >> It's noodles that have been baked. You take the noodles and you bake them. >> It's a casserole. >> But [inaudible] it's soft. >> It's a noodle casserole. >> Right. >> You eat for dinner. >> It's more like Yorkshire Pudding in consistency. >> Depends on the kugel. >> My grandmother's kugel was very firm. [ Laughter ] And. >> But kugel can also in regular German could be just a cake. >> This is what translators do. You're seeing translation. >> [inaudible] >> Or because of [inaudible] [ Laughter ] >> Well what we did on the translation in that particular case we left the words in Yiddish. >> I think that was good. >> And we put a little note saying. >> It was a specialty. >> Right. Right. >> I think we [inaudible] >> Let me just [inaudible] with your questions and get it recorded online. So any questions out there? >> I always have questions about translation. [inaudible] So I mean I guess for me being, reading Robert Pinsky poems, you know, it's not just the rhythm that is so present which I would think be difficult to translate but also your use of words, vocabulary in English. Often as a native English speaker, I'm running into many words and I don't know or you're using a word in a way that's not normally used and so I would be curious about how Luis would handle that, you know, part of that translation, you know did you have to? How was the process of finding out those words were. What did they mean? Did you have to check with Robert or were you about to figure it out and then how did you, kind of, invent those strange words, you know, unusual words into such. >> In some cases inventing a word. For instance, in The Refinery, I used the word [inaudible] which obviously, basically my criteria, criterion was it would be a word that it would be understood in some way. [inaudible] is okay but [inaudible] but it was the only way to do it because I couldn't find anything else. In some other cases I found words that I could use that obviously were you know, try to respect the meaning, the original meaning. But it wasn't easy as you know it. I mean when you translating my own poetry, we communicated quite often and the fact that the poet is bilingual, like is the case of Robert, it helps a lot because I would say well listen what about this word? And he would say no, this is more, too high class. I like something really much lower. Remember that conversation? [ Laughter ] More simple okay. Let me come with something else. >> We recommend you the [inaudible] name for the first lesson in the Spanish book there's a poem called [inaudible] [ Laughter ] It involves many obscenities and my learned colleague had to research the poem. How would this terrible word would it be in? Would it be in Argentina? Would it be in Mexico? And it turns out in one of the ways that languages, the language varies in different countries is that the cursing and obscenity is very indigenous to each place. [inaudible] >> Well and after doing the research I went with the demographic statistics and obviously figure out that 31 million out of 50 million Spanish speaking people in the U.S. come from Mexican descent and obviously Mexico is the single largest Hispanic speaking country in the world so I used the Mexican language. >> Mexican obscenities won. >> Yeah. [ Laughter ] And I think it got a certain [inaudible] because when we read this poem in poetry festival in Los Angeles where most of the audience was from Mexico, they really reacted very strongly to the translation but you know, that happens not only that in those particular cases that the language or the meaning of the words differs from one country to another. For instance, you would use a word in Spain which would mean nothing, it would be a regular word that you use every day. Let's say for instance the word, [inaudible] means to take something. [inaudible] I am taking. Well in Argentina that word is totally a bad word. Do not use it please if you go to Argentina. Now not only did that happen between one country and another, but also inside a country. There is a difference like in the north and the south in Latin America and also for Argentina to the middle of Mexico, so that's the reason why it's so difficult to translate that type of language is so intimate, so territorial and well, I could tell a hundred stories on that but. >> [inaudible] ask the question. I was struck as you were reading the Spanish translations how much more rhyme there was and how do you feel about the way in which the Spanish language worked in terms of developing a kind of rhythm through one that wasn't necessarily there [inaudible] poem but the rhyming it seemed more subtle and kind of elaborate. >> Well really the intent in my translation was because I knew and I could obviously feel it and read it in English that the rhythm and obviously the great French poet said obviously poetry is music. If there is no music in the line, in the verse obviously then poetry in a sense is lost. It's more important that rhyme, actual rhyme. Obviously you know one of my frustrations was that it was difficult to translate because the beauty of Robert Pinsky poems and lines are precisely the richness of the syllables. Those are not common and that was a little bit of a frustration but on the other hand, as far as conveying the music and the rhythm in Spanish is easy because of the preponderance of words that the accent goes on the second syllable, like you know, [inaudible] and so on and so forth. So it's more, more musical and more melodic but I know that it's very difficult to. If he was reciting this poem in the jazz form, it would be rhythm in Spanish but it will not quite translate the richness of his syllables. >> There's a technical aspect to this. Spanish you might say is a pure language. Spanish has five vowels, [inaudible] that's it. English for A alone has [inaudible] in American English so in English instead of five vowels, I have never counted them, we probably have 14. And even before immigration in this country, the island was repeatedly invaded and you know, the French speaking invasion of the 11th century was only one episode. You know, Vikings colony and displacing various kind of Saxons and the Saxons killing and raping and marrying the [inaudible] and the English dictionary is much bigger than the French or the Italian or the Spanish because English is a very gobbling language. It takes all these things in. And it has many sounds. More sounds so that sometimes an English speaker, Italian or Spanish always sounds so beautiful. I always say it must be terrible to be a poet in Italian or Spanish when everything sounds beautiful. You say you [inaudible] and it sounds great. [ Laughter ] >> Well thank you Luis Roberto for such a fantastic work. We all know that translating is a labor of love because it's not your own work. You know, you're doing it, you're giving the poet another language for him to communicate. The other thing I want to say is being from Nicaragua maybe you meant in another Spain I would think [inaudible]. It's my country, the city of poets is [inaudible] [ Laughter ] [inaudible] the greatest. We have the three greatest poets also [inaudible] was such a wonderful poet that all of his work, mostly his work was done when he was they said, in a nut house, he was crazy but he's a fantastic poet. So that's [inaudible] [inaudible] I'd love to have a program [inaudible] >> I can mention about 20 poets from Grenada from the avant garde against the [inaudible] >> You know it's so great the Spanish language that even Spanish people claim [inaudible] >> Oh yeah sure. >> They say [inaudible] oh I grew up learning all [inaudible] thinking that he was from Spain. They are times they are saying I was once sitting in the audience in [inaudible] and this Argentine Ph.D. said yes, [inaudible] but you know I actually passed a small paper. >> Well [inaudible] say there are two times in Spanish literature, is before and after [inaudible] >> He modernized the Spanish language. The third comment that I wanted to make and I'm going to be very quick is that our lives are lives in translation because we, western civilization, it's a work in translation. The Bible that we read, that we read every day in English and Spanish and French, we didn't take it from English, Spanish and French, we took it from Hebrew and then from Hebrew came the Latin [inaudible] right? The older Latin for everybody to understand. So our lives really, western civilization are lives are in translation. So it's great to be translated. Congratulations. >> Well on that note, I think we will end this evening's event. Thanks so much for coming out. Thanks to Luis Alberto Ambroggio and to Robert Pinsky. >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov. ^M00:56:46 [ Silence ]