Actors vie for Academy Awards, but English translators of European poetry seek the prestigious honor of the Corneliu M. Popescu Prize from the Poetry Society in London.

Tom Bishop from the Case Western Reserve University department of English became a finalist for this year's Popescu Prize for his work translating Ovid's "Amores," the Roman author's first volume of love poems and notes.

This year, publishers nominated 56 books, which the Poetry Society on Earl's Court Square claimed was double the normal entries, in the biennial Popescu Prize competition. Carcanet Press in London submitted "Amores." (Bishop's book is distributed in the United States by Routledge Press.)

"For a translator, this is like a nomination for literature's (Man) Booker Prize," Bishop said. "Translators get few bones thrown their way."

The Case associate professor of English, a Shakespearean scholar, spent five years working on "Amores."

He said he started the project by happenstance when he was "chasing down" a reference and found a translation by a famous scholar—whom he will not name—"unexciting."

With Latin learned during high school in his native Australia and put to use in his Renaissance studies classes, Bishop began, couplet by couplet, to present Ovid's work in a contemporary voice that revealed the poet's personality, his early beginnings as a writer and his calling to a literary career.

"Translating became addictive," Bishop said.

While he was not overly concerned with getting an exact Latin syntax, Bishop said he wanted "to keep the poetry in a workable English voice."

Bishop said Ovid-from Sulmo and a family that wanted a senatorial career in Rome for their son-was like many contemporary writers from small towns who found their ways to big cities like New York and Paris and become enthralled with the lifestyle.

"He is one of those provincial boys who comes to the city and just goes bananas because now he is in the big candy store: poetry, women, banquets, gossip, jealousy and a whole exciting world around him," Bishop said.

In his works, the young Ovid remains conscious that his early work is a "first step," and treads with care, according to Bishop. Later love poems in "The Art of Love" lead to Ovid's claims of immorality and responsibility for corrupting the minds of Roman citizens and, ultimately, to his exile in what is today Romania.

The Corneliu M. Popescu Prize was named in honor of a 19-year-old Romanian translator, who died in a 1977 earthquake. The young man had translated into English the works of Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu.

David Constantine's translation of Hans Magnus Enzensberger's "Lighter than Air" eventually received this year's Popescu Prize.

Return to the online edition of the 10-9-03 Campus News.