LETTER from the EDITORS

In the spectral world of translation, there are no angels who miraculously render everything transparent at the wave of a pen: a dynamically equivalent translation, one which perfectly matches the original, exists only in the realm of the imagination.

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The translation itself, however, might take on a luminous life of its own as a ghost.

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This elegant issue of pulpmouth showcases images and texts around a theme of “translation as afterlife,” and persists in investigating “the thin partitions between the living and the dead, the place where psychogeography meets static electricity, the magnetism that happens when we sense the pulse of a body standing behind us: The underside of the document, the O, the gaps and absences and redactions that speak forth, or an ink stain tracing wallpaper.”  

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To this end, we invite you to dip into the electric cells of this hive, a celestial swarm of wildly eclectic and innovative writers who enliven the act of translation in the shapes of playful transitions, deftly transposing signs and symbols as interlinguistic and multimedia experiments.

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In this digital labyrinth, please enjoy the poetry of Paul Celan translated by Andrew Colarusso and the poetry of P.C. Bouten translated by Lucien Darjeun Meadows. Kyoko Yoshida translates the poetry of Sawako Nakayasu. James Belflower and Matthew Klane collaborate on images and text that coruscate, Katy Didden’s poetry maps a photograph by Kevin Tseng, and an image-text by Kelly Clare imagines a cloud. Correspondence between Seth Tourjee & Ren Evans and Mary-Kim Arnold & Erinrose Mager bring together voices in this time of social distancing.

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Here too, scintillating and deftly fierce, is the prose of Janalyn Guo, Yanara Friedland, Darcie Dennigan, Katherine Indermaur, Janice Lee, Never Angeline Nørth, and Leni Zumas. The radiant poems of Hari Alluri, Sommer Browning, Kenji C. Liu, Tyler Mills, Brianna Noll, JoAnna Novak, Claire Marie Stancek, Kailey Tedesco, Jennifer Tseng, S. Yarberry, and Khaty Xiong reveal the linguistic strata that extend the depths below the grid.

 

Thank you, dear readers, for your continuing interest in and support of these innards.

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Sincerely,

pulpmouth editors

 

Karen An-hwei Lee, Guest Editor

Bailey Pittenger 
Rachel Franklin Wood

ari k. castañeda

Evelyn Hampton