Reviews
Masterful . . . Writing of such authority is not translation in the conventional sense, but a reawakening of an ancient voice in the voice of a poet who is sitting, as it were, on the other side of the room. Ferry takes his bearings from the great blank verse poets of the last two hundred years, especially Frost, and while he manages to be faithful to the meaning, substance and shades, of the Latin original, Ferry achieves through his historical, cultural, and linguistic cross-pollination something more important and lasting than mere translation: he brings to life new as well as old possibilities for poetry in America now. The all-but-amazing fact is that this is now the third time that Ferry has performed this feat, his Gilgamesh (1992) and Horace's Odes (1997) being the other and even more remarkable instances., "Reading these versions we feel as if the streets that Horace walked have opened onto our own."- Peter Campion , Raritan "Masterful . . . Writing of such authority is not translation in the conventional sense, but a reawakening of an ancient voice in the voice of a poet who is sitting, as it were, on the other side of the room. Ferry takes his bearings from the great blank verse poets of the last two hundred years, especially Frost, and while he manages to be faithful to the meaning, substance and shades, of the Latin original, Ferry achieves through his historical, cultural, and linguistic cross-pollination something more important and lasting than mere translation: he brings to life new as well as old possibilities for poetry in America now. The all-but-amazing fact is that this is now the third time that Ferry has performed this feat, his Gilgamesh (1992) and Horace's Odes (1997) being the other and even more remarkable instances."- Harry Thomas, Harvard Review, "Reading these versions we feel as if the streets that Horace walked have opened onto our own." -- Peter Campion, Raritan "Masterful . . . Writing of such authority is not translation in the conventional sense, but a reawakening of an ancient voice in the voice of a poet who is sitting, as it were, on the other side of the room. Ferry takes his bearings from the great blank verse poets of the last two hundred years, especially Frost, and while he manages to be faithful to the meaning, substance and shades, of the Latin original, Ferry achieves through his historical, cultural, and linguistic cross-pollination something more important and lasting than mere translation: he brings to life new as well as old possibilities for poetry in America now. The all-but-amazing fact is that this is now the third time that Ferry has performed this feat, his Gilgamesh (1992) and Horace's Odes (1997) being the other and even more remarkable instances." -- Harry Thomas, Harvard Review, "Reading these versions we feel as if the streets that Horace walked have opened onto our own."-Peter Campion, Raritan "Masterful . . . Writing of such authority is not translation in the conventional sense, but a reawakening of an ancient voice in the voice of a poet who is sitting, as it were, on the other side of the room. Ferry takes his bearings from the great blank verse poets of the last two hundred years, especially Frost, and while he manages to be faithful to the meaning, substance and shades, of the Latin original, Ferry achieves through his historical, cultural, and linguistic cross-pollination something more important and lasting than mere translation: he brings to life new as well as old possibilities for poetry in America now. The all-but-amazing fact is that this is now the third time that Ferry has performed this feat, his Gilgamesh (1992) and Horace's Odes (1997) being the other and even more remarkable instances."-Harry Thomas, Harvard Review
