The Ouroboros Review, the U-High literary translation journal, is currently accepting student submissions for its fourth edition and is organizing a poetry contest.
Student translations of poems are due March 7.
“They can be previously translated works or previously untranslated works,” Maja Teref, Ouroboros faculty adviser, said. “Because it’s through retranslation that we keep works of literature alive.”
Additionally, the magazine staff is interested in creative translations of works from other media, such as visual art, into written form.
The journal staff is also running a poetry workshop in conjunction with a workshop that they are co-hosting with Latinos Unidos.
The workshop will be taught by Daniel Borzutzky, an associate professor of English and Latino studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago, who will also be judging the contest submissions. The contest is called the Imagination Challenge and requires students to choose from a set of prompts and write a poem about it. Submissions are due on Feb. 28.
The goal of the magazine is to expose students to the unique and underappreciated literary art of translation.
“It’s important for students to play with language, and by translating from another language they’re learning about how highly accomplished writers think,” Ms. Teref said. “By translating someone, you actually live in their head for a little while, and it’s nice to see how other people think and maybe allow yourself to be influenced by one of those voices.”