Monday, November 21, 2011

Francisco Aragon reads "Walt Whitman," after Ruben Dario, in Spanish and English

The American Literary Translators Association hosted Francisco Aragon and Fred Arroyo for a reading at the New Letters and BookMark offices Nov. 19, 2011. This recording is from Francisco's reading from his new book Glow of Our Sweat (Scapegoat Press, Kansas City.Here is his biographical information from the Poetry Foundation website: "Poet, translator, essayist, editor, and San Francisco native Francisco Aragón studied Spanish at the University of California at Berkeley and New York University. He earned an MA from the University of California at Davis and an MFA from the University of Notre Dame.Aragón’s multi-genre book Glow of Our Sweat (2010) includes poems, translations, and an essay. His translations appear in Federico García Lorca’s Selected Verse: A Bilingual Edition (1996). The editor of Bilingual Press’s Canto Cosas poetry book series and the anthology The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (2007)." Aragon's poetry appears in Inventions of Farewell: A Book of Elegies (2001) and Mariposa: A Modern Anthology of Queer Latino Poetry (2008). Aragon is a 2008-2011 national board member of the Association of Writers &Writing Programs. At the University of Notre Dame, Aragón directs Letras Latinas, the literary program of the Institute for Latino Studies, and edits for Momotombo Press, which he founded. Francisco studied and lived in Spain also.