Join us in the BCAC conference space for a public reading and book talk by Martin Bidney. The focus of this reading is Bidney’s Rilke’s Art of Metric Melody. In this volume you’ll find, form-faithfully translated, New Poems I and II (1907–1908), containing 179 works by lyric poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926). An innovative feature is the pairing of each lyric with a “reply” poem by the translator, or translated by him from another poet writing on a related theme. The result is a richly diverse book-length dialogue or symposium, a pioneering colloquy on comparative literature.

Martin Bidney is an experienced Professor Emeritus at Binghamton University with a demonstrated thirty-five year history of working in higher education and since “retirement” a founder-editor of Dialogic Poetry Press and publisher of 17 books of poetry original and/or translated from Polish, Russian, and German (three of these titles with State University of New York Press). Skilled in verse translation and writing with a strong emphasis on faithfulness to rhythmic pattern and alliterative-assonantal word harmony. Strong education professional graduated with BA Indiana U, MA Harvard U, PhD Indiana U.