Yes, Michael Benedikt! Too bad Ashbery is not as good a prose-poet as Michael Benedikt, whowever the hell he is. I haven't thought of him in years. Michael Benedikt of the baleful influence, Russell Edson of the baleful influence!

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We hold translators to an impossibly low standard. A translator should not be allowed to get away with things just because it's a translation. Some of the greatest poems in the language are translations, but they are still poems of our language. Usually, the failure is rhythmical and linguistic. The language is not convincing and the rhythmic impulse is desultory. Translators of Brodsky and Milosz are particularly bad. Eastern European poetry in general has not been served well. It's read for sentimental reasons: "look, they have something to write about, unlike our crappy unpoetical suburban American reality!" I have written many invectives against translation. Not against translation itself, but against the hubris of calling a mediocre translation a "poem in English."