The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations

"This dazzling, intensely personal compendium is a passionate feast." —Jane Hirshfield

Robert Bly had always been amazingly prescient in his choice of poets to translate. The poetry he chose supplied qualities that were lacking from the literary culture of this country. For the first time Robert Bly’s brilliant translations, from several languages and spanning twenty-two poets, have been brought together in one book.

At a time when editors and readers knew only Eliot and Pound, Robert Bly introduced the earthy wildness of Pablo Neruda and Cesar Vallejo and the sober grief of Trakl, as well as the elegance of Jiménez and Tranströmer. He also published high-spirited versions of Kabir and Rumi, and Mirabai, which had considerable influence on the wide culture of the 1970s and 1980s. Bly’s clear translations of Rilke attracted many new readers to the poet, and his versions of Machado have become models of silence and depth. He continues to bring fresh and amazing poets into English, most recently Rolf Jacobsen, Miguel Hernandez, Francis Ponge, and the ninteenth-century Indian poet Ghalib. As Kenneth Rexroth has said, Robert Bly “is one of the leaders of a poetic revival which has returned American literature to the world community.”

What treasures did he bring back to the American literary shore?

• Modernist Masters: Experience the earthy wildness of Pablo Neruda, the profound silence of Antonio Machado, and the visionary genius of Federico García Lorca.
• Germanic Visionaries: Discover Bly’s famously clear translations of Rainer Maria Rilke and the sober grief of Georg Trakl’s haunting imagery.
• Ecstatic Mystics: Encounter the high-spirited versions of Rumi, Kabir, and Mirabai—three legendary poets whose work transformed the culture of the 1970s and 80s.
• The Art of Translation: In personal, passionate introductions, Robert Bly shares his intimate process and explains why each of these twenty-two poets is essential for the English-speaking world.

The astonishing collection of the translations Robert Bly has been producing for more than fifty years, introducing foreign poets to American readers for the first time.

Robert Bly has always been amazingly prescient in his choice of poets to translate. The poetry he selected supplied qualities that seemed lacking from the literary culture of this country. At a time when editors and readers knew only Eliot and Pound, Bly introduced Neruda, Vallejo, Trakl, Jiménez, Traströmer, and Rumi. His most recent translations include Rolf Jacobsen, Francis Ponge, and the nineteenth-century Indian poet Ghalib. Here, in The Winged Energy of Delight, the poems of twenty-two renowned and lesser-known poets from around the world are brought together. As Kenneth Rexroth has said, Robert Bly "is one of the leaders of a poetic revival that has returned American literature to the world community."

“Bly is today one of the leaders of a poetic revival which has returned American literature to the world community.” - The Nation

“For more than fifty years Robert Bly has been exploring the poetry of other languages, cultures, ages, in order to reach past the inherited conventions of poetry in English which he grew up with in mid-century. Using intermediaries when necessary, he embodied some of his discoveries in English translations which helped broaden the horizon for generations of readers of poetry. A retrospective collection of his translations from these decades is an important summary.” - W.S. Merwin

“Through more than five decades of persistent digging in the the fields of world literature, Robert Bly has aerated, enlarged, and profoundly transformed American poetry and culture as powerfully as anyone alive. This dazzling, intensely personal compendium is a passionate feast, both in the translated poems and in the unparalleled insight Bly brings to the work of each included poet. These pages offer a profound and necessary education—not only in the range of the lyric poem but in what human consciousness looks like when it is broadly awake, fully aware, and imaginatively and responsibly connected to the energies of both the inner and outer worlds.” - Jane Hirshfield

“Robert Bly lives in the company of poets he translates. He generously introduces his friends. The word spreads. Robert’s life in poetry has made possible the community of shared delight and compassion that Pablo Neruda and Kenneth Rexroth longed for.” - Coleman Barks

“For more than fifty years Robert Bly has been exploring the poetry of other languages, cultures, ages, in order to reach past the inherited conventions of poetry in English which he grew up with in mid-century.” - -- W.S. Merwin