In this addition to the Cahier Series, through two sequences of poems, American poet Idra Novey explores several notions of translation. In the first sequence, Letters to Clarice, she channels her recent experience of translating work by the Brazilian novelist Clarice Lispector, sending Lispector poems in the form of letters. In the second sequence, Regarding Marmalade, Cognates, and Visitors, she discovers in what way translating relates to the activity of hosting visitors, most important of whom is her newborn son. Idra Novey’s texts are complemented by illustrations by the artist Erica Baum, whose images of books both invite and resist attempts to read them.
