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Marrying Music And Meaning With Spanish Translations Of Robert Frost Poetry

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Rhina Espaillat is a bilingual poet and translator in Newburyport. (Courtesy Nicole Sanchez)
Rhina Espaillat is a bilingual poet and translator in Newburyport. (Courtesy Nicole Sanchez)

Translating a sentence from one language to another is difficult enough, but what about art and poetry? How do you capture the music of one language in another?

That is the challenge faced by Rhina Espaillat, an award-winning bilingual writer and translator of poetry. Among her many accolades, she's known as the most prominent translator of Robert Frost's poetry into Spanish.

Born in the Dominican Republic, she came to the U.S. when she was 7 years old, already attracted to poetry. We spoke about why poetry is universal and the intricacies of translating the iconic works of Robert Frost.

Rhina Espaillat will be speaking Wednesday, Jan. 13 at the Pollard Memorial Library in Lowell.

Guest

Rhina Espaillat, bilingual writer and translator, founder of the Powow River Poets writing group in Newburyport.

More

Rattle: A Conversation With Rhina P. Espaillat

  • "Poetry is very popular where I come from; everybody loves it. So I heard it before I understood it. I didn’t know what the grown-ups were doing, but I knew I wanted to do it, because it looked like so much fun."

This segment aired on January 12, 2016.

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