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Angles reads at the Academy of American Poets' annual Poets Forum
WMU Department of Foreign Languages professor Jeffrey Angles is the winner of the 2011 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award. His book “Forest of Eyes: Selected Poems of Tada Chimako” was published in 2011 by University of California Press.
It is the first time a translation from Japanese was recognized with the annual award. The award was announced Friday, Oct. 21 during the Academy of American Poets’ annual Poets Forum in New York City. The most prestigious national award in the United States for the translation of poetry, it includes a prize of $1,000.
Angles’ book is the first full-length retrospective of the work of Tada Chimako (1930-2003), a major Japanese poet known for her use of mythological images and beautiful writing. In “Forest of Eyes,” Angles has provided translations of more than 100 of her most famous poems, plus commentary and an introduction.
“Within these poems, one sees her concern for the metaphysical bonds that draw men and women together, as well as her concern for the future of humanity and the environment,” he said.
This is the second major prize Angles has won for “Forest of Eyes.” In April 2010, Columbia University’s Donald Keene Center for Japanese Studies awarded Angles the 2009 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature for this book.
Angles is the co-director and advisor for WMU’s Japanese language program, as well as the new director of its Michitoshi Soga Japan Center. His book, “Writing the Love of Boys: Origins of Bishonen Culture in Modern Japanese Literature,” was published in 2011 from University of Minnesota Press, and his next translation, the memoirs of the author Mutsuo Takahashi, will be published by the University of Minnesota Press in fall 2012.
