Cantos from Dante's Inferno Book

Poetry. Armand Schwerner, one of the foremost translators and poets of his generation, died before completing his translation of THE DIVINE COMEDY. A few months before his death, he prepared the cantos from the INFERNO for publication. Michael Heller writes in the preface, The idiosyncratic power of what we have here, the great pleasure one gets out of Schwerner's play with both form and diction, reminds us of his peculiar brilliance as both poet and translator. To use one of his own favorite words, Schwerner has given us a translation full of 'availabilities,' entry points and registers of our hopes and understandings, leading us both foreward and back to the figure of Dante. What he aspires for in his poetry can be said of this translation, 'There's no old or new in it as long as I'm in language's changing weathers.' Such timeliness translates here as timeless -- Dante's of course, but also Schwerner's.