International Poetry Review – Spring 2005

Not to be confused with Poetry International out of San Diego State, The International Poetry Review is published by the Department of Romance Languages at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Not to be confused with Poetry International out of San Diego State, The International Poetry Review is published by the Department of Romance Languages at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. This perfect-bound journal includes 100 pages of poems and a few reviews. Roughly half of the journal features poems in translation, showing the poem in the original language and the English translation; the other half features poems written in English with international subject matter. Some of the translated poems seem, indeed, to lose something in the move from their original language to English, where they often seem choppy, amateurish. Not all, however; Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s poem, translated by Yvette Neisser, “The Altar of Mirrors,” is quite lovely: “The pirates knew / how to guard their captives; / among mirrors and mirrors / they kept them…” Among the poems written in English, Susan Rich’s long sectioned poem, “Iska’s Story” is moving and lyrical, and Jay Groswold’s “Clandestine Music” is a surreal adventure. [International Poetry Review, Department of Romance Languages, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402-6170. Single issue $5. www.uncg.edu/llc/intl_poetry_review/ipr.html/IPR.htm] —Jeannine Hall Gailey