A Translator Poet: Peter Cole's "Hymns and Qualms"

Peter Cole is a poet and translator who has recreated Spain's golden age of Jewish culture and adapted tenth-century Arabic-language poetry to 21st-century English so skillfully that the lines sing.

This episode features translations from Cole's new book Hymns and Qualms: New and Selected Poems and Translations, which features poems originally written in Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic, alongside Cole's new poetry.

Here is an excerpt from the poem "Blessed Are Those" by Avraham Ben Yitzhak, translated by Cole from the original Hebrew:

Blessed are those who sow and do not reap—
they shall wander in extremity.
Blessed are the generous
whose glory in youth has enhanced the extravagant
brightness of days—
who shed their accoutrements at the crossroads.

Text:
Hymns and Qualms: New and Selected Poems and Translations. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017.

Music:
Etti Ankri – Mi Yitneni
Etti Ankri –Avdei Zman
Etti Ankri –Yefe Nof