Dartmouth Authors

Gregory Rabassa '44, translator of The Girl from Ipanema by Vinicius de Moraes. Cross-Cultural Communications, 1982. 32 pp., paper. Vinfcius de Moraes, Brazilian lawyer-diplomat-musician-poet, wrote the music-drama upon which the film Black Orpheus was based, and helped create the bossa nova altogether a remarkable man. In this volume, Rabassa presents vivid and moving renderings of poems and songs of tenderness and anguish. The Portuguese original faces the English translation and makes possible a learning experience to go with the enjoyment of the poetry itself.

Sylvester Pollet '61, Entering the WalkingStick Business. Blackberry (Brunswick, Maine), 1982. 48 pp., paper. The poet won writing prizes at Dartmouth, has had his work published in many journals and anthologies, and went to live in Maine in 1971. This first collection of his poetry enables the reader to see how it reflects the landscape and mode of life Down East spare, laconic, sometimes bleak, always looking you, and the world, straight in the eye. There is celebration and there is mourning, and a tone of voice which suggests someone who deals principally with life's essentials.

Ben Bennani '68, translator of Bread,Hassisb and Moon: Four Modern Arab Poets. Unicorn Press, 1982. 55 pp., paper. The work of two poets born in Syria, one in Iraq, and one in Palestine, edited and translated by a poet born in Lebanon, reflects universal concerns in this anthology; or, as Richard Eberhart puts it in the introduction, we find "recognition of the human condition, its struggles, recognitions and resolutions, in a variety of styles, stances and subjects." Some splendid Arabic calligraphy beautifies an elegantly designed volume.