Featured Response by S.C. Garrett to "Who said poetry is what gets lost in translation?"

March 8, 2008

Dear Editors,

In answer to your web sites challenge concerning the quote widely attributed to Frost, "Poetry is what gets lost in translation," I couldnt help but send you an answer to this famous maxim I happened to write about two years ago:

Correction

Lost poetry
is what translation
gets in.

I, too, find the quote oddly fearful of a lack of artful commerce between languages (especially concerning the widely available range of excellent translations of poetry into and out of English) and wrote this as a rebuttal.

Sincerely,
S.C. Garrett