Toad Suck #5: With New Translations of Marcel Lecomte
This week, I received copies of the latest issue of the Toad Suck Review, which published a number of my translations of Marcel Lecomte‘s poetry.
Among the laundry list of great work published here, the issue includes a letter from Jack Kerouac. (Had you told me I’d have work that appears in the same . . . anything . . . next to the Beat legend, I wouldn’t have believed you!) Nate Jordan, founder of Monkey Puzzle Press, introduces the letter–a small sample that reveals the optimism of a young writer and yet foreshadows the experimental and spontaneous style that we see in his more famous works:
Something is bound to happen, some revelation is bound to appear to me soon, like light; like a scientific discovery; but not in a formula; so that, in my work I will be able to reflect these mysteries in a glass–a glass not warp’d and dull like the glass of formulas–but a fiery glass. A pen that spurts golden fire and winds white shrouds around the man.
But the issue doesn’t stop there! Kerouac’s letter is in good company beside an essay by fellow Beat poet Diane di Prima, a funny letter from Black Mountain poet Ed Dorn (reprinted from Amiri Baraka and Edward Dorn: The Collected Letters), a short essay by sculptor and poet Linda King recalling the years she spent with Charles Bukowski and an interview with American Book Award winner, Jericho Brown. The Eco-Edge section is a fun addition to an already eclectic and yet remarkable cohesive book.
My own translations of Lecomte are also in good stead, just behind Gillian Conoley‘s set of Henri Michaux translations.
And this is just the tip of iceberg! Many thanks to Toad Suck editor Mark Spitzer for his feedback, guidance, and inclusion of my work!
The Projector 
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