Funds for Bookworm are provided in part by Lannin Foundation.

You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read

The cow goes moon

From KCRW Santa Monica, I'm Michael Silverblatt, and this is Bookworm.

Today, I have a special program.

I found that two wonderful poets had done translations of the French poet Pierre Reverde.

Both of these volumes are going to be coming from Black Square editions.

Brooklyn Rail is the distributor.

You can get these books at small press distribution,

and they are the prose poems of Pierre Reverde.

I had seen poems by Reverdee in various anthologies,

and I had read about Reverde,

but I had not had a sustained experience of the work until I encountered these translations.

And I became transfixed, fascinated, and I thought it would be wonderful to have the two poets who've done these extraordinary translations with me together.

One book is the early prose poems, and it's translated by Ron Padgett.

The other is a long prose poem called Haunted House, and it's translated by John Ashbury.

Now, what is known about Refordee?

John?

Well, actually, I'm not an authority.

...