The only poetry we did at school was by the war poets, which I never had a problem with, though I think poetry is something most people only fully-appreciate when they’re older.

I don’t have a cutoff date as such, I’m just conscious that there are so many poets and so much poetry I’m not familiar with, most of it, yes, by ‘the Romantics’ but by no means all. So my poetry-reading is really a catch-up exercise.

I hope they do! I have loved virtually every single one of the poems I’ve read by him so far.

Glad you liked it! I was afraid it was way too, you know, too many translations of the same damn poem, and I was afraid that wasn’t actually interesting.

I want to read more poetry in general. I think I wrote poetry off a little bit when I was in school, and never got properly back into it. I’m just the opposite to you, I tend to prefer modern poetry to, say, Romantic poets, who are just too gushy for me. Where’s your cutoff date? 1900ish?

Yes, isn’t he lovely? I have such a man-crush on him.

That is a good scheme for learning French. If I ever get back to learning French (and tire of watching Buffy with French subtitles), I will employ that as one of my strategies. :p

I just feel like I wouldn’t be able to think of all the possible synonyms. Do they have thesauruses sitting right next to them all the time, is that what they do?

Oh, I know what you mean. I used C. Day Lewis’s translation of the Aeneid as my crib when I was translating the Aeneid in high school, and even though I’ve found better translations, Lewis still has a special place in my heart.

Hafiz is on my list. I will be interested to know what translation you end up liking best. 🙂

I am absolutely giving Seferis a try soon!

Yes, I think it would be amazing to learn enough Greek to be able to read Homer, and I’ve heard from several people that classical Greek is a pretty easy language to learn. I think I could do it! (Wouldn’t help me much with Cavafy though…)

You’re welcome! I hope you find lots of poetry you love! I like pulling up random poems from the Poetry Foundation website, and seeing where that gets me. Some I can’t be bothered with, but some (like Cavafy) are amazing. If you’re after new poems, that website’s a great resource!

Yes, exactly! “Downdrag of destiny” was my favorite rendering of that phrase, and I definitely wanted to keep that. When I’ve sent Cavafy poems to tim, I mix the translations up together. I’m sure the translators would all really appreciate me playing fast and loose with their translations in this fashion. :p