James George "Jim" Kates is a minor poet and a literary translator. He has been awarded three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the
New Hampshire State Council on the Arts
The New Hampshire State Council on the Arts is a government agency of the U.S. state of New Hampshire. Ginnie Lupi is the agency's director, while Sarah Stewart is commissioner of the parent agency, the New Hampshire Department of Natural and Cul ...
, the Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation and a Käpylä Translation Prize. He has published three chapbooks of his own poems: Mappemonde (Oyster River Press) Metes and Bounds (Accents Publishing) and The Old Testament (Cold Hub Press) and two full books, The Briar Patch (Hobblebush Books) and Places of Permanent Shade (Accents Publishing). He is the translator of The Score of the Game and An Offshoot of Sense (Tatiana Shcherbina); Say Thank You and Level with Us (Mikhail Aizenberg); When a Poet Sees a Chestnut Tree, Secret Wars, and I Have Invented Nothing (Jean-Pierre Rosnay); Corinthian Copper (Regina Derieva); Live by Fire (Aleksey Porvin); Thirty-nine Rooms (Nikolai Baitov); Psalms (Genrikh Sapgir); Muddy River (Sergey Stratanovsky); Selected Poems 1957-2009, and Sixty Years (Mikhail Yeryomin); and Paper-thin Skin (Aigerim Tazhi). He is the translation editor of Contemporary Russian Poetry, and the editor of In the Grip of Strange Thoughts: Russian Poetry in a New Era.
Career
Since 1997, with Leora Zeitlin, Kates has co-directed Zephyr Press, a non-profit literary publishing house that focuses on contemporary works in translation from Russia, Eastern Europe, and Asia.
He is the translation editor of ''Contemporary Russian Poetry'', and the editor of ''In the Grip of Strange Thoughts: Russian Poetry in a New Era''. He was the president of the American Literary Translators Association.
Life
Kates grew up in
Elmsford
Elmsford is a village in Westchester County, New York, United States. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. Roughly one mile square, the village is fully contained within the borders of the town of Greenburgh. As of the 2010 census, the ...
and
White Plains, New York
(Always Faithful)
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. He attended
Hackley School
Hackley School is a private college preparatory school located in Tarrytown, New York, and is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League. Founded in 1899 by a wealthy philanthropist, Frances Hackley, Hackley was intended to be a Unitarian a ...
in
Tarrytown
Tarrytown is a administrative divisions of New York#Village, village in the administrative divisions of New York#Town, town of Greenburgh, New York, Greenburgh in Westchester County, New York. It is located on the eastern bank of the Hudson Rive ...
and graduated from
White Plains High School
White Plains Senior High School is a high school in the White Plains Public Schools system of White Plains, New York, United States. It was selected by the U.S. Department of Education as a School of Excellence in 1986–1987. The school's code ...
in 1963. He volunteered for the
Mississippi Summer Project after his freshman year at
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...
in 1964, helping to implement a special court order encouraging voter registration in
Panola County. In the fall of 1964, he organized a Friends of the
SNCC
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC, often pronounced ) was the principal channel of student commitment in the United States to the civil rights movement during the 1960s. Emerging in 1960 from the student-led sit-ins at segrega ...
/
COFO
The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was a coalition of the major Civil Rights Movement organizations operating in Mississippi. COFO was formed in 1961 to coordinate and unite voter registration and other civil rights activities in the sta ...
in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
, France, to support the work of the American civil rights movement. He returned to America in 1965 to work in
Natchez, Mississippi
Natchez ( ) is the county seat of and only city in Adams County, Mississippi, United States. Natchez has a total population of 14,520 (as of the 2020 census). Located on the Mississippi River across from Vidalia in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, N ...
. He later became a public school teacher, a non-violence trainer for interpersonal and political movements, and a poet and literary translator.
He is married to Helen Safronsky Kates. They have two children, Stanislav (1986) and Paula (1994).
Awards
* 1984 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry
* 1995 Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts
* 2006 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Project Fellowship
[
]
* 2013 Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation
* 2017 National Endowment for the Arts, Translation Project Fellowship
* 2018 Käpylä Translation Prize
* 2022 Der Hovanessian Prize in Translation
Published works
poetry
* ''Mappemonde'' (
Oyster River Press Oyster River Press is a small press based in Durham, New Hampshire. The press specializes in new and international poetry, as well as books on Chinese myths, the environment, and the art of living. Bilingual editions of translations are also a focu ...
)
* ''Metes and Bounds'' (Accents Publishing)
* ''The Old Testament'' (Cold Hub Press)
* ''The Briar Patch'' (
Hobblebush Books)
* ''Places of Permanent Shade'' (Accents Publishing)
translations
* ''Sixty Years'' (poems by Mikhail Yeryomin) Black Widow Press: 2022
* ''Paper-thin Skin'' (poems by Aigerim Tazhi) Zephyr Press: 2019
* ''I Have Invented Nothing'' (poems by Jean-Pierre Rosnay) Black Widow Press: 2018
* ''Muddy River'' (poems by Sergey Stratanovsky) Carcanet Press: 2016
* ''Thirty-nine Rooms'' (a poem by Nikolai Baitov) Cold Hub Press: 2015
* ''Selected Poems 1957-2004'' (poems by Mikhail Yeryomin) White Pine Press: 2014
* ''Psalms 1965-1966'' (poems by Genrikh Sapgir) Cold Hub Press: 2012
* ''A Voice Among the Multitudes: Jewish Poets from Latin America'', with Stephen A. Sadow, Northeastern University Libraries: 2011
* ''Live by Fire'' (poems by Aleksey Porvin) Cold Hub Press: 2011
* ''An Offshoot of Sense'' (poems by Tatiana Shcherbina) Cold Hub Press: 2011
* ''Level with Us'' (poems by Mikhail Aizenberg) Cold Hub Press: 2011
* ''Corinthian Copper'' (poems by Regina Derieva) Marick Press: 2010
* ''Secret Wars'' (poems by Jean-Pierre Rosnay) Cold Hub Press: 2010
* ''When a Poet Sees a Chestnut Tree'' (poems by Jean-Pierre Rosnay) Green Integer Press: 2009
* ''Contemporary Russian Poetry'' (translations editor) Dalkey Archive Press: 2008
* ''Say Thank You'' (poems by Mikhail Aizenberg) Zephyr Press: 2007
* ''Less Than a Meter'' (poems by Mikhail Aizenberg) Ugly Duckling Presse: 2004
* ''Las Edades / The Ages'' (poems by Ricardo Feierstein, with Stephen A. Sadow) Colleción Poesía: 2004
* ''The Score of the Game'' (poems by Tatiana Shcherbina) Zephyr Press: 2003
* ''Self-Portraits and Masks'' (poems by Isaac Goldemberg, with Stephen A. Sadow) Cross-Cultural Communications: 2002
* ''In the Grip of Strange Thoughts: Russian Poetry in a New Era'' (editor) Zephyr Press: 1999
* ''We, the Generation in the Wilderness'' (poems by Ricardo Feierstein, with Stephen A. Sadow) Ford-Brown Press: 1989
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kates, J.
1945 births
Living people
American male poets
American translators