Author Description

Even as We Speak by Len Krisak, recipient of the 2000 Richard Wilbur Award, is an evocative and unforgettable collection of carefully-chosen and carefully-crafted poems and translations. Although there's a remarkable versatility in the collection -- satires, narratives, lyrics, and elegies -- most of the poems are written in a haunting meditative mode that's all the more effective for its quiet methods and its subtle indirections. The British Center for Literary Translation has described Krisak's translations as "brilliant," and Tom Lux, in choosing the author as the recipient of the Los Angeles Poetry Festival Award, has specifically cited and praised the author's "elegant contemporary sonnets." Even as We Speak is a unique and powerfully-affecting collection by a poet with the rare gift for finding the indelible significances of the past -- while simultaneously making them meaningful for the present.