J. Kates


James George "Jim" Kates is a minor poet and a literary translator. He has been awarded three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, an Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation and a Käpylä Translation Prize. He has published three chapbooks of his own poems: Mappemonde Metes and Bounds and The Old Testament and two full books, The Briar Patch and Places of Permanent Shade. He is the translator of The Score of the Game and An Offshoot of Sense ; Say Thank You and Level with Us ; When a Poet Sees a Chestnut Tree, Secret Wars, and I Have Invented Nothing ; Corinthian Copper ; Live by Fire ; Thirty-nine Rooms ; Psalms ; Muddy River ; Selected Poems 1957-2009, and Sixty Years ; and Paper-thin Skin. He is the translation editor of Contemporary Russian Poetry, and the editor of In the Grip of Strange Thoughts: Russian Poetry in a New Era.

Career

Since 1997, with Leora Zeitlin, Kates has co-directed Zephyr Press, a non-profit literary publishing house that focuses on contemporary works in translation from Russia, Eastern Europe, and Asia. He is the translation editor of Contemporary Russian Poetry, and the editor of In the Grip of Strange Thoughts: Russian Poetry in a New Era. He was the president of the American Literary Translators Association.

Life

Kates grew up in Elmsford and White Plains, New York. He attended Hackley School in Tarrytown and graduated from White Plains High School in 1963. He volunteered for the Mississippi Summer Project after his freshman year at Wesleyan University in 1964, helping to implement a special court order encouraging voter registration in Panola County. In the fall of 1964, he organized a Friends of the SNCC/COFO in Paris, France, to support the work of the American civil rights movement. He returned to America in 1965 to work in Natchez, Mississippi. He later became a public school teacher, a non-violence trainer for interpersonal and political movements, and a poet and literary translator.
He is married to Helen Safronsky Kates. They have two children, Stanislav and Paula.

Awards

  • 1984 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry
  • 1995 Individual Artist Fellowship from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts
  • 2006 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Project Fellowship
  • 2013 Cliff Becker Book Prize in Translation
  • 2017 National Endowment for the Arts, Translation Project Fellowship
  • 2018 Käpylä Translation Prize
  • 2022 Der Hovanessian Prize in Translation

Published works

poetryMappemonde Metes and Bounds The Old Testament The Briar Patch Places of Permanent Shade
translationsSixty Years Black Widow Press: 2022Paper-thin Skin Zephyr Press: 2019I Have Invented Nothing Black Widow Press: 2018Muddy River Carcanet Press: 2016Thirty-nine Rooms Cold Hub Press: 2015Selected Poems 1957-2004 White Pine Press: 2014Psalms 1965-1966 Cold Hub Press: 2012A Voice Among the Multitudes: Jewish Poets from Latin America, with Stephen A. Sadow, Northeastern University Libraries: 2011Live by Fire Cold Hub Press: 2011An Offshoot of Sense Cold Hub Press: 2011Level with Us Cold Hub Press: 2011Corinthian Copper Marick Press: 2010Secret Wars Cold Hub Press: 2010When a Poet Sees a Chestnut Tree Green Integer Press: 2009Contemporary Russian Poetry Dalkey Archive Press: 2008Say Thank You Zephyr Press: 2007Less Than a Meter Ugly Duckling Presse: 2004Las Edades / The Ages Colleción Poesía: 2004The Score of the Game Zephyr Press: 2003Self-Portraits and Masks Cross-Cultural Communications: 2002In the Grip of Strange Thoughts: Russian Poetry in a New Era Zephyr Press: 1999We, the Generation in the Wilderness Ford-Brown Press: 1989