Translators
Balducci, Carolyn
Feb. 13, 1946 –
Place of Birth: Pelham, NY
Place of Principal Residence: Ann Arbor, MI
Biography:
Carolyn Feleppa Balducci was born in Pelham, NY to Ernest and Rosaria Feleppa. She first got her interest in writing through art, being both an avid reader and an artist. During her education at Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart in Purchase, NY she wavered between focusing on studio art and English. In the end, she chose studio art, but her interest in writing lived on. “As electives, I took a couple of creative writing courses,” Balducci said. “My best marks were in The History of the English Language — go figure!” After graduation Balducci taught Creative Writing at the University of Michigan. She became interested in theater and started translating plays, as well as writing her own for university productions. Years later Balducci felt the need to become more involved in her hometown, Montauk, and took up the job of program director for the Montauk library. Her job included organizing local actors to do dramatic readings, a task that required catering plays to the interest of the community as well as using the talents of acting companies to their best advantage. One of her translated plays, In Times of War by David Alan Moore, was performed by Stage Left in Chicago. Balducci has written books, articles, poems, plays, and screenplays. Currently she focuses her time on writing stage plays and screenplays.
Selected works:
- Margaret Fuller, A Life of Passion and Defiance (1991)
- A Self-Made Woman: the Life of Nobel Prize Winner Grazia Deledda (1975)
- Earwax (1972)
- Giovanni the Fearless (1971)
Awards:
- ALA Notable Book Award
- S.I.A.E. commendation for contributions to Italian theater in America
- Grants from Michigan Council for the Arts and Ohio Program in the Humanities
- American Library Association ‘Guest Editor’
- Mademoiselle Magazine ‘Who’s Who’
Relevance of Place to Author’s Work:
Working at University of Michigan sparked an interest in Balducci to get involved in writing and translating dramatic works, an occupation she continues today.
Eshleman, Clayton
June 1, 1935 -
Place of Birth: Indianapolis, IN
Place of Principle Residence: Ypsilanti, MI
Biography:
Clayton Eshleman was born to Gladys and Clayton Eshleman in 1935 in Indianapolis, IN. He attended Indiana University and received his BA in philosophy in 1958 and M.A.T. in Creative Writing in 1961. He was an instructor in English for a year before moving to Kobe, Japan as an English language and writing instructor for Matsushita Electric Corporation. In 1966 he moved to New York City as an instructor at the American Language Institute and as a publisher and editor for Caterpillar books and Caterpillar magazine. Eshleman became founder and editor of Sulfur magazine in 1981. Starting in the 1970s Eshleman traveled around the country as a visiting professor and poet in residence. In 1986 he moved to Eastern Michigan University as a Professor of English. Eshleman is a known translator, winning the National Book Award in 1979 for his co-translaton of Cesar Vallejo’s Complete Posthumous Poem. In addition to being the main American tranlator of Cesar Vallejo, Eshleman has also translated books by Antonin Arlaudi and Bernard Bador, among others. Eshleman has made frequent trips with his wife, Caryl, to France to study Ice Age Cave Art and finished his research in the 1990s with publishing his findings in his book, Juniper Fuse. He has one son, Matthew, by his first wife Barbara Novak.
Selected Works:
Poetry:
- Cantaloups and Splendour (1968)
- Under World Arrest (1994)
- Archaic Design (2007)
Prose:
- Companion Spider (2002)
Translation:
- The Collected Poetry by Aimé Césaire (1984)
- The Complete Poetry of César Vallejo (2007)
Awards:
- 1968 Poetry Magazine Award for “Five Poems”
- 1977 Carnegie Author’s Fund Award
- 1978 Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry for research on Upper Paleolitic Cave Art
- 1989 Distinguished Faculty Research/Creativity Award, Eastern Michigan University
- 1992 Michigan Artists Award, Arts Foundation of Michigan
- 2002 Landon Translation Prize, Academy of American Poets, for “Trilce”
- 2002 Sabio Award for Excellent in Literary Translation, San Diego State University
Critical Reception:
“This [The Complete Poetry, César Vallejo] is a crucially important translation of one of the poetic geniuses of the twentieth century.”
- William Rowe, author of Poets of Contemporary Latin America: History and the Inner Life.
“Sulfur must be the most important literary magazine which has explored and extended the boundaries of poetry. Clayton Eshleman has had a nose for smelling out what was going to happen next in the ceaseless evolution of the art.”
- James Laughlin, New Directions Books.
Relevance of Place to Author’s Work:
Eshleman is a Professor of English at Eastern Michigan University.
House, Gloria A. (Aneb Kgositsile)
February 4th, 1941—
Place of Birth: Tampa, FL
Place of Principal Residence: Detroit, MI
Biography
Dr. Gloria A. House is a poet, scholar, and activist for African-American and Third World liberation movements. She earned an M.A. at the University of California (1969), followed by a Ph.D. at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (1986).
Dr. House has served as Associate Professor of Humanities at Wayne State University in Detroit and has also taught at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2001, she was appointed as a Writer-in-Residence at The Dudley Randall Center for Print Culture. In addition to her writing and teaching careers, she has held various other jobs, including French instructor at San Francisco State College (1965), and News & Editorial Copy Editor for the Detroit Free Press (1969-1971), demonstrating versatility of language.
Several books by Dr. House have been published by Broadside Press, and she has also written non-fiction, including translations and book introductions.
Selected Works
- Blood River (1983)
- Rainrituals (1990)
- Tower and Dungeon: A Study of Place and Power in American Culture (1991)
- Shrines (2004)
Awards
- 1988 Distinguished Award, United Black Artists
Nims, John Frederick
November 20, 1913 — January 13, 1999
Place of Birth: Muskegon, MI
Biography
John Frederick Nims was born to Anne and Frank Nims at Muskegon, MI on November 20, 1913. Ever since he was a tot, Nims has respected and enjoyed poetry, commenting “ever since the age of six or seven, I thought poems part of the natural world, as real certainly as the rabbits and collies we kept.” Nims earned his A.B. and M.A. at the University of Notre Dame in 1937 and 1939, respectively, and his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1945. He has been all over the world teaching English, including schools like the University of Florence, the University of Madrid, the University of Toronto, and Harvard University. Eventually Nims settled at the University of Illinois, where he spent the rest of his life. His first book, The Iron Pastoral, was published in 1947 and was inspired by his experience in Chicago. Nims became a well-known author and translator, earning raving reviews on works such as Knowledge of the Evening and Sappho to Valery: Poems in Translation. His awards include a National Book Award nomination, several fellowships, and two Fulbright grants. Nim died on January 13, 1999 in Chicago and was survived by his wife, Bonnie, his three children: Frank, Emily, and Sally, and three grandchildren.
Selected Works
- The Iron Pastoral (1947)
- A Fountain in Kentucky (1950)
- Knowledge of the Evening (1960)
- The Kiss: A Jambalaya (1982)
- Zany in Denim (1990)
- The Six-Cornered Snowflake and Other Poems (1990)
Nims translated many works, most famously Sappho to Valery: Poems in Translation (1971). He also wrote several critical works and a well-known textbook: Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry (1983).
Awards
- 1942 Harriet Monroe Memorial Award
- 1943 Guarantors Prize
- 1944 Levinson Prize
- 1982 Distinguished Fellowship, Academy of American Poets
- 1952, 1953 Fulbright Grantee
- 1958, 1959 Smith Mundt Grantee
- 1967-1968 National Foundation Arts and Humanities Grantee
- 1968 Award for Creative Writing, American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 1974 Creative Arts Citation, Brandeis University
- 1986-1987 Guggenheim fellow
- 1991 Aiken Taylor Award for Modern Poetry
- n/a Nominated for a National Book Award for Knowledge of the Evening
Critical Reception
-
For The Complete Poems of Michelangelo:
- “Wonderful. . . . Nims gives us Michelangelo whole: the polymorphous love sonneteer, the political allegorist, and the solitary singer of madrigals.” - Kirkus Reviews
- “A splendid, fresh and eloquent translation. . . . Nims, an eminent poet and among the best translators of our time, conveys the full meaning and message of Michelangelo’s love sonnets and religious poems in fluently rhymed, metrical forms.” - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
- “The best so far. . . . Nims is best at capturing the sound and sense of Michelangelo’s poetic vocabulary.” - Choice
- “Surely the most compelling translations of Michelangelo currently available in English.” - Washington Times