The Academy of American Poets is pleased to announce the winners of the 2015 American Poets Prizes, which are among the most valuable poetry prizes in the United States. Roger Greenwald’s translation of Guarding the Air: Selected Poems of Gunnar Harding (Black Widow Press, 2014) has won the HAROLD MORTON LANDON TRANSLATION AWARD. Founded in 1976, this $1,000 prize recognizes a published translation of poetry from any language into English that demonstrates literary excellence. This year’s judge was Bill Johnston.
Roger Greenwald is the author of two books of poems: Slow Mountain Train (Tiger Bark Press, 2015) and Connecting Flight (Williams-Wallace, 1993). Greenwald has translated numerous books of poetry, most recently Guarding the Air and Meditations on Georges de La Tour by Paal-Helge Haugen (BookThug, 2013).
Judge Bill Johnston said of Roger Greenwald’s winning translation: “Roger Greenwald’s rendering of the selected poems of Swedish poet Gunnar Harding is an accomplishment to be relished by any reader and envied by any literary translator. Greenwald’s translations are superb. They read like what they are — magnificent poems in the English language. The freshness of imagery and turn of phrase are never accompanied by the awkwardness that so often marks poetry in translation — rather, they arise from the originality of the poet’s voice, which Greenwald has brilliantly captured in English.”
More information, sample poems, video, and ordering links can be found at http://homes.chass.utoronto.ca/~roger/guarding.html