Modern Poetry in Translation

The best of world poetry

When Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort founded MPT in 1965 they had two principal ambitions: to get poetry out from behind the Iron Curtain into a wider circulation in English and to benefit writers and the reading public in Britain and America by confronting them with good work from abroad. They published poetry that dealt truthfully with the real contemporary world. For more than 40 years MPT has continued and widened that founding intent.

MPT builds on the first editors’ extraordinary achievement. It affirms the vital importance of poetry in the modern world. It brings the best new translations, essays and reviews that address such characteristic signs of our times as exile, the movement of peoples, the search for asylum, and the speaking of languages outside their native home.

The editors of the Third Series (2002-2012), David and Helen Constantine, sought to widen and diversify the whole idea and practice of translation. They published transformations and metamorphoses of all kinds: down the ages, across the frontiers and cultures. They increased the rate and scope of MPT’s linked activities such as translation workshops, poetry pamphlets and public poetry readings here and abroad.

In 2013 the editorship of MPT passes to Sasha Dugdale. The magazine, the institution and the community will continue to grow. From 2013 the magazine will be issued three times a year, and in a new layout and design – one that hearkens back to the original iconic designs of the 1960s and 70s. We will continue to publish the very best of world poetry in translation, and in each issue we will have a short focus or a ‘thread’ around the poetry of a culture or country.

MPT will also expand its digital presence, with the planned digitalization of our immensely rich back catalogue and a more extensive website.

Read new editor Sasha Dugdale's article for 'In Other Words', the journal published by the British Centre for Literary Translation and find out some of her plans for the new look Modern Poetry in Translation.