Thoughts

In a bookstore in Rome, I noticed an Italian edition of Jorie Graham’s To 2040 (2023) from across the room: what caught my eye was the shape of the book. This is a tall book, kind of like a pocket novel; by contrast, Graham’s recent poetry uses a very long line (what typographers call the “measure”). A long line and a narrow page don’t work together very well: whoever’s setting the poem has to break the line to make it fit. It used to be that these run-over lines would be on the right side of the next line with a “[” to the left to indicate that something had overflowed; since computerized typesetting, it’s more common that a run-over line of poetry is indented, though then you run the risk of confusing the poet’s indentation with the side effects of typesetting. The American edition, by Copper Canyon, deals with the problem my having a wider page; the result is a tad inelegant. Translation often means even longer lines, compounding the problem. How would Crocetti Editore – who publish a number of facing-page translations – solve this problem here?

With some ingenuity, it turned out. Whoever put this book together – Cristiano Guerri is credited as the art director, and Antonella Francini translated the book with the collaboration of the author – decided to rotate the page by 90 degrees. To read the book, you have to hold it sideways, but there are no roll-over lines at all. Some poems are right-aligned; they have plenty of space. It’s a smart idea! And there’s a bonus: this is actually a facing-page translation. The top/left page is in English; the bottom/right page is in Italian. Because there are relatively few lines on a page (and there’s an English version), the book is much thicker than the original, around 300 pages.

It’s an interesting approach. There are precedents for this: the one I think of is Michel Butor’s Mobile (1962), which in the French original also went sideways. (The English translation managed to lose this.) The effect in that book – loosely considered a travel journal through American place names – is river-like, a cascade of words. Turned sideways, the codex feels a bit more like a scroll.

The Italian 2040 feels a bit like that, though the interleaved English gets in the way of the flow: the (presumably bilingual) reader starting from the top would read a bit of English, then the same thing in Italian, then move on to the next page: repetition slows the rhythm.

(I would not present myself as an expert on the history of Italian poetry design: though I haven’t seen one, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were an Italian edition of Walt Whitman that looked like Francini’s 2040. Francini also translated Place as Il Posto, but I haven’t found a copy of that yet.)

Could we do a Circumference book like this? I don’t think we’ve seen something with such long lines – poets, after all, tend to write for an imagined publication, and the imagined book page is usually tall and narrow. (The paper used for printed drafts might come into this as well: European printers use A4 paper, designed to have proportions more similar to those used in books than the comparatively squat 8.5″ x 11″ format used by American printers. Is the shape of paper connected to the length of lines a poet uses? Someone should write a thesis on this – but that’s a problem for another time.) It does feel unfamiliar to turn a book sideways to read it! But for the right book, it could be a good solution.

There are two events for Andrew Schelling's translation of Old Time Love Songs in February. On February 14th, the translator will be reading at Tor House in Carmel, California; there doesn't look to be information about it online yet, but you might check their website. Then on February 17th, he'll be reading with Red Pine at Seattle University; details are here.

It is with regret that we note that Vinod Kumar Shukla passed away on December 23rd, 2025, at the age of 88; he was given a state funeral with honors on the 24th. There’s been a great deal of press:

• The Hindustan Times, and a second piece there
• The Federal, and a second piece there
• Scroll.in
• The Indian Express (with one of Arvind’s translations); and another piece there that mentions Treasurer of Piggy Banks
• The Times of India
• The Hindu
• The Economic Times

Scroll.in has excerpts from his fiction and a poem that Arvind Krishna Mehrotra translated for us. Achal Mishra’s documentary about the poet, Char Phool Aur Hain Duniya Mein is also up on YouTube in full at the moment.

Paul Nelson has posted a forty-minute interview with Andrew Schelling about his Vidyā translation, along with a short excerpt from Old Time Love Song Magic.

Translator Andrew Schelling will be at an event for Old Time Love Song Magic at Tor House in Carmel, CA, on February 14, 2026. More information as it becomes available.

There are events for #evolutionarypoems! Here's what we have so far:

• Austin, Alienated Majesty, Tuesday, November 25, 2025, more info here.
• Washington DC: Lost City Books, Thursday, December 4, 2025
• Arlington, VA: Marymount Ballston Center, December 5, 2025, 7 p.m.

Here’s a flyer for the Marymount University event:

More Vinod Kumar Shukla news: he’s won the Jnanpith Award, one of India’s most prestigious awards. The official site for the award doesn’t seem to have been updated yet, though it’s in a bunch of news stories out of India.

(Also! Literary Activism has put out an Indian edition of Treasurer of Piggy Banks. You can go there and read translator Arvind Krishna Mehrotra's introduction to Treasurer of Piggy Banks, as well as another piece he wrote about the poet.)

If you sign up for Woodland Pattern’s Small-Press Bundle this month, you’ll get a Circumference book! It’s Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s translation of Vinod Kumar Shukla’s wonderful Treasurer of Piggy Banks. Even if you already have a copy – I hope you’re up to date on our catalogue! – subscribe anyway, give our book to a friend, you’ll still get a new book by Renee Gladman (!) and Jimin Seo’s debut collection.

MUBI in India (and maybe in other places) is showing a documentary on Vinod Kumar Shukla, Achal Mishra’s Chaar Phool Hain Aur Duniya Hai. Some of Arvind Krishna Mehrotra’s translation of Treasurer of Piggy Banks feature in the subtitles! Though there’s no credit, which is a disappointment. But watch it if you can – there’s some discussion of it on Letterboxd as well.

On Saturday, 22 February, Poets House is presenting an online reading by Brynja Hjálmsdóttir and Rachel Britton presenting A Woman Looks Over Her Shoulder. Tickets are free! More information here.