Michael Barnholden

Michael Barnholden: I approach translation as a form of listening: that part of reading that hears. And what you hear is because you return to the text—the words—over and over until you hear them and having heard, can then render the text. In the two years I have put into translating Louis Riel’s “Flat Willow Creek Poems,” circumstances — retirement — have allowed me to spend time listening deeply.