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Michael Bazzett is a poet, teacher, and translator. His debut collection of poems, You Must Remember This, won the Linquist & Vennum Prize in 2014, and his fourth collection, The Temple, was published by Bull City Press in 2020.
His fifth book, The Echo Chamber, is forthcoming from Milkweed Editions in 2021. His work has appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Threepenny Review, Image, The Sun and Ploughshares, and his verse translation of the Mayan creation epic, The Popol Vuh, (Milkweed, 2018) was longlisted for ALTA’s National Translation Award, as well as being named one of 2018’s ten best books of poetry by the NY Times.
He has received fellowships from the NEA, Teachers & Writers’ Collaborative; you can find out more at www.michaelbazzett.com.
[…] Michael Bazzett spoke to in mid-December of 2020 from Minneapolis which he describes as quite “hibernatory” during the winter months. A writer and translator, Bazzett allows as how he has not been prodigiously productive throughout the pandemic. One work that Bazzett has translated, however, is the Popul Vuh, the mythology and history of the K’iche’ people, part of the Mayan culture. This work is told primarily in the present tense – a facet that stems from the oral tradition but that also brings an immediacy to this creation myth about hero twins who become the sun and the moon. Recently Bazzett published a book of poems titled The Temple. The title is based on a quote by W.S. Merwin, “If you find you no longer believe, enlarge the temple.” In the book, Bazzett considers what we believe now as well as considering the body as a temple. To hear more about this book, the Popul Vuh and more, listen to the complete interview. […]
[…] Michael Bazzett spoke to in mid-December of 2020 from Minneapolis which he describes as quite “hibernatory” during the winter months. A writer and translator, Bazzett allows as how he has not been prodigiously productive throughout the pandemic. One work that Bazzett has translated, however, is the Popul Vuh, the mythology and history of the K’iche’ people, part of the Mayan culture. This work is told primarily in the present tense – a facet that stems from the oral tradition but that also brings an immediacy to this creation myth about hero twins who become the sun and the moon. Recently Bazzett published a book of poems titled The Temple. The title is based on a quote by W.S. Merwin, “If you find you no longer believe, enlarge the temple.” In the book, Bazzett considers what we believe now as well as considering the body as a temple. To hear more about this book, the Popul Vuh and more, listen to the complete interview. […]