A little lost in the immense shuffle of the European Poetry Festival was the project’s debut publications, released in limited edition, in partnership with Sampson Low Ltd. and Kingston University. This series of four new books, half original works of visual literature and half new translations from the Norwegian, presents four of Norway’s most considerable contemporary poets. For more info visit https://www.europeanpoetryfestival.com/sampsonlow

I had the personal pleasure of editing these books, working closely with the poets, and in the case of Jon Stale Ritland’s Orbiting the Yellow Ball, working very deeply with the translation process. I don’t have usable Norwegian so my role was to reform crib translations, which I’ve been asked to do many many times but rarely have said yes to, as that process is inherent fraught. This case different because Jon Stale’s English, as with most Norwegians, is better than mine. So it was much closer to a collaboration, and Jon Stale generously made me feel a part of the final poems were connected to my own often oblique poetics. I’m proud of the book, and that I had a role in it

Moreover working with the remarkable Alban Low, as I’ve had the opportunity to do often over the last few years, was a joy. He is as selfless as publishers come, working extremely hard to make the publications something special, a gift, for the poets. You can buy the whole series here https://sampsonlow.co/wck-pamphlets/european-poetry-festival-books/