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Unread 09-10-2008, 03:00 AM
Tim Murphy Tim Murphy is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Fargo ND, USA
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The two second language English writers I know best are Nabokov and Brodsky. I think Nabokov's Onegin is pretty bad, but that's because of his decisions as translator, not any deficiency in English. Lord knows his prose is dazzling. Brodsky's English poetry is pretty poor. Having no Russian, I can only say that his Russian poetry when translated by a poet as good as, say, Wilbur, is spectacular.

A VERY hostile reader once complained that the best poem in my first book is written in French, something I wouldn't even try these days.
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