Books in the Arc Translations series

This book presents poems from Palsson's ten collections written between 1980-2008. Swirling with imagery, they reveal a poet committed to unearthing the joy of living connected to the natural world.

Detailing the lives of Syrian women living in Paris, these poems, capturing the unheard voices of women whose lives are suppressed in unimaginable ways, allow us to explore moments never mentioned in the news reports.

Salvatore Quasimodo was born-and lived-through historical tragedies which impressed his mind for ever. What one hears in his lines are the tears of mankind and its wail. This work presents the translations of this poet.

PBS Recommended Translation Winter 2013. Talking Vrouz is the second collection by the prizewinning French poet Valerie Rouzeau to be published by Arc, and it sees the return of her formidable poetic voice. Selected from Rouzeau's most recent collections, Quand Je Me Deux (2009) and Vrouz (2012), these poems present a language that is a hybrid of liberties and constraints - omissions, grammatical contractions, colloquialisms and archaisms, wordplay, puns, childspeak, exploded cliche and the heightened awareness of a poetic tradition - a language that Susan Wicks recreates in all its richness and quirkiness in her brilliant translation. No subject is taboo, and each is treated with a degree of humour that results in the reader looking at a familiar world from a new perspective. The tone and poetic procedures are sometimes reminiscent of Rimbaud, Apollinaire and Desnos, and the book has a seemingly casual innocence that foams with the odd splinter of glass. Rouzeau's first collection from Arc, Cold Spring in Winter, also translated by Susan Wicks, was shortlisted for a number of prizes including the 2010 International Griffin Prize for Poetry, and Susan Wicks won the prestigious Scott Moncrieff Prize in 2010 for her translation of this work.

This book represents Karlis at the peak of his poetic power: gripping, vivid and not a little romantic.