Rika Lesser

Author's Bio

I have been translating poetry from German or Swedish nearly as long as I have been writing poetry in English. Now I am also turning attending to form abstractly and concretely through the practice of tai chi chuan and by training to become a Feldenkrais practitioner. Interesting to lose words for a while, and to find them again, in whichever languages, and with varying fluencies.

Publications and Prizes

Books:

Mozart's Third Brain by Göran Sonnevi (Yale University Press, 2009), Questions of Love: New and Selected Poems (Sheep Meadow Press, 2008), Siddhartha: An Indic Poem by Hermann Hesse (Barnes & Noble Publishing, 2007), Growing Back (University of South Carolina Press, 1997), All We Need of Hell (University of North Texas Press, 1995), A Child Is Not a Knife by Göran Sonnevi (Princeton University Press, 1993), Rilke: Between Roots (Princeton University Press, 1986), Etruscan Things (Braziller, 1983)

Journals:

Literary Imagination, New Republic, Paris Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Poetry, The New Yorker, Threepenny Review

Prizes:

Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Scholarship (1974). Ingram-Merrill Foundation Poetry Writing Grant (1978). Landon Poetry Translation Prize from the Academy of American Poets for Guide to the Underworld by Gunnar Ekelöf (1982). Poetry Translation Prize from the Swedish Academy (1996). Fulbright Senior Scholar Award (1999). National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship for Poetry Translation (2001). Yaddo Fellowship (2001). Twice the Translation Prize of the American-Scandinavian Foundation for selections of poetry by Göran Sonnevi (1992, 2002)

Rika Lesser Resume

Personal Favorites

What I'm Reading Now:

Awareness Through Movement by Moshe Feldenkrais, Cheng Tzu's Thirteen Treatises on T'ai Chi Ch'uan by Chen Man Ch'ing, Eros, Eros, Eros by Odysseas Elytis, translated by Olga Broumas

Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Listing last updated: March 22, 2010

More Information

Listed as:

Poet

Gives readings?

Yes

Travels for readings?

Yes

Prefers to work with:

Adults, Any

Fluent in:

Swedish

Born in:

Brooklyn, NY

Raised in:

Brooklyn, NY

Reviews, Recordings, and Interviews