The Transformation Review

09/09/2026

We are delighted to welcome three distinguished poets as judges for the 2027 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Elisa Biagini has published several poetry collections, including 𝙇’𝙊𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙩𝙚 (2004); 𝙁𝙞𝙖𝙩𝙤. 𝙋𝙖𝙧𝙤𝙡𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙧 𝙢𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙘𝙖 (2006/2026); 𝙉𝙚𝙡 𝘽𝙤𝙨𝙘𝙤 (2007); 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙂𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙒𝙤𝙤𝙙 (2013), which won the University of Rochester’s Best Translated Book Award for Poetry; 𝘿𝙖 𝙪𝙣𝙖 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙖 (2014); 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙋𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝘿𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙜 (2017); 𝘿𝙚𝙥𝙪𝙞𝙨 𝙪𝙣𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙨𝙨𝙪𝙧𝙚 (2018), winner of the 2018 Prix Nunc; 𝙁𝙞𝙡𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙞 (2020); 𝙁𝙞𝙡𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 (2022); 𝙏𝙍Å𝘿𝘼𝙍 (2023); 𝙁𝙞𝙡𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙨 (2024); 𝙇’𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙫𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙤 (2024); 𝙐𝙧 𝙚𝙣 𝙨𝙥𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙠𝙖 (2025); and the anthology 𝙌𝙪𝙖𝙣𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙢𝙚 𝙖𝙞 𝙫𝙚𝙩𝙧𝙞 (2025).

Her poems have been translated into fifteen languages and she has translated numerous contemporary American poets for reviews, anthologies, and complete collections (𝙉𝙪𝙤𝙫𝙞 𝙥𝙤𝙚𝙩𝙞 𝙖𝙢𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙞, 2006), as well as a selection of Paul Celan’s poems. She teaches Writing at NYU Florence and is the artistic director of the international poetry festival, 𝙑𝙤𝙘𝙞 𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙚, 𝙑𝙤𝙘𝙞 𝙨𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙚.

Together, Ken Babstock, Elisa Biagini, and Sandeep Parmar will undertake the task of selecting the 2027 Griffin Poetry Prize longlist, shortlist, and winners, including the International Griffin Poetry Prize, Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize, and Canadian First Book Prize.

Read more about the 2027 judges on our website: https://buff.ly/b2alw0c

09/09/2026

09/09/2026

Announcing the 2027 Griffin Poetry Prize Judges! ✨

We are delighted to welcome three distinguished poets as judges for 2027: Ken Babstock (Canada), Elisa Biagini (Italy), and Sandeep Parmar (UK / US).

Read more: https://buff.ly/b2alw0c

📚 Publishers: submissions for books published between June 30 and December 31, 2026 are due Friday, December 18, 2026. Full details and entry forms are available on our website.

09/09/2026

Sarah Maguire Prize 2026 Shortlist

Bodies Found in Various Places brings Elvira Hernández’s vital Chilean poetry to English readers. Translated from Spanish by Daniel Borzutzky and Alec Schumacher, this first English-language anthology spans 35 years of work from 1981 to 2016. Hernández is a central figure of the Southern Cone and the Chilean neo-avant-garde whose quiet, mordant voice offers deep social critique alongside themes of love, survival, and persistence. Recipient of Chile’s National Literature Prize 2024, her work is now shortlisted for the Sarah Maguire Prize for poetry translation.

As the first comprehensive English curation of her work, this bilingual collection brings together six major poetry titles into a single volume. Hernández spent decades writing from a self-described "ethics of invisibility," crafting sharp, satirical verse while maintaining a quiet presence away from official institutions. This landmark publication offers literature professionals, academic researchers, and poetry readers a crucial entry point into 20th-century Latin American poetics and contemporary Chilean literature.

Read more at:https://www.poetrytranslation.org/sarah-maguire-prize/

09/09/2026

🎉 We're incredibly excited to introduce you to the winners of the 2026 ALTA Travel Fellowships! https://buff.ly/DeTJ9EL

📚 Venka, 2026 Peter K. Jansen Memorial Travel Fellow (Telugu)
📚 Cynthia Shin (Korean)
📚 Hammad Rind (Urdu, Panjabi, Welsh, Persian, Arabic, English)
📚 Naomi Harris (Hittite)
📚 Piera Chen (Chinese)

The following applicants are honorably mentioned as this year’s Travel Fellowship finalists:

• Elizabeth Chesla
• Hayden Slentz-Kesler
• Kate McNamara
• Lauren Peat
• Sevana Ohandjanian
• Wafa Asher Syeda
• Zhiyuan Mark Ma

Each year, between four and six $1,000 Travel Fellowships are awarded to emerging (unpublished or minimally published) translators to help them pay for hotel and travel expenses to the annual ALTA conference.

This year’s winners were selected by judges Anushka Sen, Calvin Olsen, and Michelle Mirabella. The 2026 ALTA Travel Fellowships are made possible thanks to the generous support of ALTA’s Past Presidents Council, the Peter K. Jansen Memorial Travel Fund, and numerous individual donors, including translators and other devoted supporters of the craft and art of literary translation.

ALTA will celebrate this year’s Travel Fellows with a reading at ALTA’s annual conference, ALTA49: Give and Take. The ALTA49 conference will take place from October 21-24, 2026 in Portland, OR.

09/08/2026

How did our little journal end up publishing such a wonderful Nicole Brossard book translated by Karen McPherson? https://www.thetransformationreview.com/essays/the-essay-that-created-a-press
Included in the link is Karen's introduction and a taste of the poems in the book.

You also can buy direct today. https://www.thetransformationreview.com/book/the-backtalking-back-of-words/order

09/08/2026

09/05/2026

I pull a universe from my empty sleeve, one silver strand I pluck like a nerve, and resurrect the martyrs for five minutes.

09/04/2026

Congrats to Maria Stepanova and Eugene Ostashevsk for having Ovoid Void published by World Poetry Books being named to the longlist for the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA) National Translation Award in Poetry! See Dan Alter’s review of the book on The Transformation Review https://www.thetransformationreview.com/reviews/ostashevsky-translates-ovid-ovid-void-1