Rosmarie Waldrop (born Rosmarie Sebald; August 24, 1935) is an American poet, novelist, translator, and Publishing. Born in Germany, she has lived in the United States since 1958 and has settled in Providence, Rhode Island since the late 1960s. Waldrop is a co-editor and publisher of Burning Deck Press.
Early life in Germany
Waldrop was born in
Kitzingen am Main on August 24, 1935. Her father, Joseph Sebald, taught physical education at the town's high school.
[Steve Evans, " Rosmarie Waldrop," Dictionary of Literary Biography v.169 (1996).] Towards the end of the Second World War, she joined a travelling theatre, but returned to school in early 1946. At school, she studied piano and flute and played in a youth orchestra. During Christmas in 1954, the orchestra gave a concert for American soldiers stationed at Kitzingen. After the performance,
Keith Waldrop, a member of the audience, invited members of the orchestra to listen to his records. He and Rosmarie became friendly and worked together over the next few months, translating
German poetry into
English language.
University years
That same year, she entered the University of Würzburg, where she studied
literature,
art history and
musicology. In 1955, she transferred to the University of Freiburg, where she discovered the writings of
Robert Musil and participated in a protest against a lecture given by
Martin Heidegger. She then moved to the University of Aix-Marseille, where Keith spent 1956–57 on his
GI Bill. At the end of the year, he returned to the University of Michigan. In 1958, he won a
Hopwood Award, sending most of the money to Rosmarie to pay for her passage to the United States.
In the United States
The couple married and Rosmarie enrolled at the University of Michigan, where she received a Ph.D. in 1966. She also became active in literary, musical and artistic circles around the university and the wider Ann Arbor community. She began serious translation of
French poetry and
German poetry. In 1961, the Waldrops bought a second-hand printing press and started
Burning Deck Magazine. This was the beginning of Burning Deck, which was to become one of the most influential small press publishers of innovative poetry in the United States. As such, she is sometimes closely associated with the
Language poets.
Poetry and translations
Rosmarie Waldrop started publishing her own poetry in English in the late 1960s. Since then, she has published over three dozen books of poetry, prose and translation. Today her work is variously characterized as verse experiment, philosophical statement and personal narrative. Of the many formative influences on her mature style, a crucial influence was a year spent in
Paris in the early 1970s, where she came into contact with leading
avant garde French poets, including Claude Royet-Journoud, Anne-Marie Albiach, and Edmond Jabès. These writers influenced her own work,
while at the same time she and Keith became some of the main translators of their work into English, with Burning Deck one of the main vehicles for introducing their work to an English-language readership.
Awards and honors
Rosmarie Waldrop has given readings and published in many parts of Europe as well as the United States. She has received numerous awards and fellowships and was made a Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government. In 2003 she was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts' Grants to Artists Award. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2006. She received the 2008 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation for her translation of
Ulf Stolterfoht's book
Lingos I - IX. Her translation of
Almost 1 Book / Almost 1 Life by
Elfriede Czurda was nominated for the Best Translated Book Award in 2013. She was given the America Award in Literature for a lifetime contribution to international writing in 2021.
Selected publications
Poetry
-
The Aggressive Ways of the Casual Stranger, NY: Random House, 1972
-
The Road Is Everywhere or Stop This Body, Columbia, MO: Open Places, 1978
-
When They Have Senses, Providence: Burning Deck, 1980
-
Nothing Has Changed, Windsor, VT: Awede Press, 1981
-
Differences for Four Hands, Philadelphia: Singing Horse, 1984; repr. Providence: Paradigm Press, 1999
-
Streets Enough to Welcome Snow, Barrytown, NY: Station Hill, 1986
-
The Reproduction of Profiles, NY: New Directions, 1987
-
Shorter American Memory, Providence: Paradigm Press, 1988
-
Peculiar Motions, Berkeley, CA: Kelsey Street Press, 1990
-
Lawn of Excluded Middle, NY: Tender Buttons, 1993
-
A Key Into the Language of America, NY: New Directions, 1994
-
Another Language: Selected Poems, Jersey City: Talisman House, 1997
-
Split Infinites, Philadelphia: Singing Horse Press, 1998
-
Reluctant Gravities, NY: New Directions, 1999
-
(with Keith Waldrop) Well Well Reality, Sausalito, CA: The Post-Apollo Press, 1998
-
Love, Like Pronouns, Omnidawn Publishing, 2003
-
Blindsight, New York: New Directions, 2004
-
Splitting Image, Zasterle, 2006
-
Curves to the Apple,
[brings together three volumes: The Reproduction of Profiles, Lawn of Excluded Middle, and Reluctant Gravities] New Directions, 2006
-
Driven to Abstraction, New Directions, 2010
-
Gap Gardening: Selected Poems, New Directions, 2016
-
The Nick of Time, New Directions, 2021
Fiction
-
The Hanky of Pippin's Daughter, Barrytown, NY: Station Hill, 1986
-
A Form/of Taking/It All, Barrytown, NY: Station Hill, 1990
Essays and criticism
-
Against Language?, The Hague: Mouton/Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1971
-
The Ground Is the Only Figure: Notebook Spring 1996, Providence: The Impercipient Lecture Series, Vol. 1, No. 3 (April 1997)
-
Lavish Absence: Recalling and Rereading Edmond Jabès, Wesleyan University Press, 2002
-
Dissonance (if you are interested), University Alabama Press, 2005
Translations
-
The Book of Questions by Edmond Jabès, 7 vols. bound as 4, Wesleyan UP, 1976, 1977, 1983, 1984
-
From a Reader's Notebook, by Alain Veinstein, Annex Press, Ithaca New York, 1983
-
Paul Celan: Collected Prose, by Paul Celan, Manchester & NY: Carcanet & Sheep Meadow, 1986
-
The Book of Dialogue by Edmond Jabès, Wesleyan UP, 1987
-
Late Additions: Poems by Emmanuel Hocquard (with Connell McGrath), Peterborough, Cambs.: Spectacular Diseases, 1988
-
The Book of Shares by Edmond Jabès, Chicago UP, 1989
-
Some Thing Black by Jacques Roubaud, Elmwood Park, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1990
-
The Book of Resemblances by Edmond Jabès, 3 vols., Wesleyan UP, 1990, 91, 92
-
From the Book to the Book by Edmond Jabès, Wesleyan UP, 1991
-
The Book of Margins by Edmond Jabès, Chicago UP, 1993
-
A Foreigner Carrying in the Crook of His Arm a Tiny Book by Edmond Jabès, Wesleyan UP, 1993
-
Heiligenanstalt by Friederike Mayröcker, Providence: Burning Deck, 1994
-
The Plurality of Worlds of Lewis by Jacques Roubaud, Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive Press, 1995
-
Mountains in Berlin: Selected Poems by Elke Erb, Providence: Burning Deck, 1995
-
The Little Book of Unsuspected Subversion by Edmond Jabès, Stanford UP, 1996
-
With Each Clouded Peak by Friederike Mayröcker (with Harriett Watts), Los Angeles, CA: Sun & Moon Press, 1998
-
A Test of Solitude by Emmanuel Hocquard, Providence: Burning Deck, 2000
-
(with Harry Mathews and Christopher Middleton) Many Glove Compartments by Oskar Pastior, Providence: Burning Deck, 2001
-
Desire for a Beginning Dread of One Single End by Edmond Jabès (Images & Design by Ed Epping), New York, New York : Granary Books, 2001
-
The Form of a City Changes Faster, Alas, Than the Human Heart by Jacques Roubaud, Dalkey Archive Press; Translation edition, 2006
-
Almost 1 Book / Almost 1 Life by Elfriede Czurda, Providence, Burning Deck, 2012
-
Under the Dome: Walks with Paul Celan by Jean Daive, San Francisco: City Lights Books, 2020
Notes
Further reading
Rosmarie & Keith Waldrop:
Ceci n'est pas Keith, Ceci n'est pas Rosmarie: Autobiographies, Burning Deck (Providence, Rhode Island, 2002)
External links
- Exhibits, sites, and homepages
- Readings and talks (audiofiles)
- Others on Waldrop including reviews, criticism, and retrospectives
- Interviews
- Work online including poems and essays
