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Peter -- Could you say more on the writing of the younger Americans about translation? I hadn't been aware of any Know-Nothing policy. Ben Friedlander's translations of Heiner Muller seem as good as anybody else's, Jennifer Moxley has worked on the French of Jacqueline Risset, Bill Luoma's versions of Sappho and Don Cheney's Catullus are indebted to Bernadette Mayer's translations more than any Penguin Classic, Odetta Norton has been working on Francophone African writers, etc etc. In any case it's very rare, the switch hitter who can do things with someone's words _in another language_ as well as they can with their own. As for "replicating the reading experience of the original poem", it _is_ absurd to assume it is what translation does, but is it necessarily absurd to take it as an ideal? Maybe. I disagree though that having this ideal renders one ignorant and incapable of action. Anyway, if there is a citation for the article by a younger writer, please send; I think I'll understand your argument better if I know who has provoked it. Sincerely, Jordan Davis %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%