Stanley Lombardo interview

3009 and 2601 students: You can find the text of an interview with Stanley Lombardo here.

How did this interview come about? Stanley Lombardo came to our campus in November 2001 as a special guest at a conference for high-school teachers who teach the Odyssey. When he was taking questions (after a great reading of Book 5), he was saying wonderful things about Homer and translation. Later in the day I asked him if he'd ever been interviewed about such stuff. He hadn’t. So I asked if he’d like to do an interview. He was very generous with his time, and we were both very happy with what resulted.

I think anyone who’s started reading Homer can get something from this interview--you don't have to be an “expert.” I'm reluctant to point brand-new readers of Homer to it, but students who’ve read this interview after reading Homer for a while have told me that they wish they’d read it earlier on. If you read the interview, e-mail me and let me know what you get from it.

For anyone interested in contemporary poetry, Jacket, the home of this interview, is an indispensable resource, edited and published by John Tranter in Australia.

(Thanks to Rachel for showing me how to do italics and links.)