Marilyn Kallet's Blog
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Mar.28.2012
This article about me came out yesterday at the University of Tennessee. The author, Lynn Champion, is in charge of communications and outreach at UT. I often feel that women editors are the hope of women writers--and then I remember how many brilliant men editors have helped me, and my...
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Dec.30.2011
Translating is a bridge--for me it is one that spans the Atlantic, that takes me into the Latin Quarter, into the narrow streets of Auvillar, into the harbor at Nantes, into the past, into the barracks where my poet, Benjamin Péret has just turned 16, and doesn't know what the year 1914 will bring...
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Dec.14.2011
A few years back, I composed a book of holiday stories and recipes, One For Each Night: Chanukah Tales and Recipes. The recipes are my mother-in-law's--Hilda used to be a caterer in Philadelphia, specializing in desserts. Each story centers around food (I'm Jewish!) and the recipes...
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Dec.05.2011
There was an Indian Philosophy professor at Tufts, when I was an undergrad, of whom it was rumored that he graded on the color of the students' astral bodies. Yes, Dr. Burch was extremely wise, and saw beyond the material plane.
I think of him...
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Nov.24.2011
I'm in love with the village of Auvillar, where I teach poetry each spring for the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts (VCCA-France). And so all the pictures seem to glow. I never realized how important emotion could be for poetry!
Every time I say I won't go back, and...
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Jul.13.2011
My new book, The Big Game, a translation of Surrealist Benjamin Péret's Le grand jeu, landed in my carport two days ago. I looked at the gleaming gorgeous cover--a Man Ray photograph of Péret--and laughed and fell in love all over again. I couldn't open the book though, because I knew I would...
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Jun.14.2011
A minor miracle--production has been speeded up on my new book of translation of Surrealist Benjamin Péret's The Big Game (Le grand jeu.) He was André Breton's best friend, and an uncompromising life-long Surrealist. When I started translating him, he acted like a squirrel, but once I got to...
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Apr.17.2011
Passover
My father heads our table,
cheeks flushed from the first cup of wine.
At sunset he left his wallet upstairs
with bags of quarters from the vending machines.
He's making jokes and laughing with his mouth shut,
giving us his bright side--boy, clown, inventor.
Tonight by candlelight...
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Mar.27.2011
I was irritated when my friend P. asked if the international writer could stay at our house for a few days. And Oh, by the way, she had no wine, and it being Sunday in Knoxville, could she have some bottles of ours. Red and white, please.
What could I say? I need the space to myself to get a...
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Feb.19.2011
For the last few years now, I've brought in white-out pens to my poetry classes. I offer them to my undergrads, grads, and carry them in my suitcase to my workshop in France. I find that some people feel a freedom to edit with white-out that they hadn't experienced before with the usual editing...
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Feb.18.2011
I've been with Lou for more than 30 years, and I only went contra dancing with him once. He's a great dancer, and he loves traditional music, English folk dancing, Morris dancing, and contra. I, on the other hand, don't like to be told what to do. If I'm going to dance, I want to express...
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Jan.01.2011
My ode to Bruce Bogartzs' duck breast got us a last-minute good table last night for New Year's eve! I told you poetry was useful!
Ode to the Duck Breast at Rouxbarb
With thanks to Bruce Bogartz
My butter knife slices through the duck breast,
and my French friend...
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Dec.29.2010
I tell my beginning poetry students to stay lean, meaning to cut, pare, tighten, so that the line has musical resonance. Yes, even sacrifice content for rhythm and sound. Let go of adjectives, adverbs, editorializing. "Stay lean," is probably my most frequent comment on the students'...
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Dec.14.2010
They are fat and prosperous-looking, and walk across my floor slowly, wrapped in thick fur--like the dons in mink coats, strolling the streets of Red Hook in the old days. If they had cigars, they'd be perfect.
Do I live in harmony with them? (I think that's what Galway Kinnell would do.) Or...
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Eternity is in love with the productions of time. ”
—William Blake
About Marilyn
Marilyn Kallet was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and grew up in New York. She is the author of 15 books, including Packing Light: New and Selected Poems, Black Widow Press; Circe, After Hours, poetry from BkMk Press; The Big Game, translation of...
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Causes Marilyn Kallet Supports
Southern Poverty Law Center, US Holocaust Memorial Museum, ACLU, Amnesty International, Save Darfur.