Lit & Found: A New Translation of Imru al-Qays by Robyn Creswell

Over at the Poetry Foundation website, scholar-translator Robyn Creswell has a beautiful new translation of Imru al-Qays.

The sixth-century poet’s “Suspended Ode” has been translated by a number of different translators and translator-poets, from Sir William Jones to A.J. Arberry to Desmond O’Grady to Kareem James Abu-Zeid, but to be a classic work means to bear out many translations.

Creswell’s appears in the May 2022 issue of Poetry and opens with lyric precision:

Read it over at the Poetry Foundation website.

Also read:

“The Wolf,” by Imru al-Qays, translated by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

On Translating al-mu‘allaqāt, The Hanging Poems