Villon

Poetry. Translation. "Jean Calais--a pseudonym for Stephen Rodefer--is Villon's most interesting 'translator.' Running casually between version and imitations, Rodefer makes every tactical misprision it's possible to make. The result feels faithful in the broadest sense. Where, at the end of Villon's snowy catalogue-search for belles and heroines long deceased, Rosetti has him asking: 'And that good Joan whom Englishmen/ At Rouen doomed and burned her there,/ Mother of God where are they then?', Rodefer has already shut down the terminal and caught the dying moments of the happy hour"--Jeremy Harding.