Rhina Espaillat

Espaillat is of mixed Afro-Dominican, Spanish, French, and Arawak descent. She is the daughter of Carlos Manuel Homero Espaillat Brache and the grandniece and god-daughter of Dominican diplomat Rafael Brache.[3] Through her great-uncle, Espaillat is a distant cousin of Democratic Party chairman Tom Perez), a Dominican diplomatic attaché, and Dulce María Batista.[1] Her aunt Rhina Espaillat Brache founded the first ballet institute of La Vega.[4] Espaillat is fourth-cousin once-removed of Adriano Espaillat and great-great-great-grand-niece of Dominican President Ulises Espaillat, and is descended from the French immigrant François Espeillac.[4]

In 1937, Espaillat's father and great uncle, Rafael Brache, were Dominican diplomats stationed in Washington, D.C.. After dictator Rafael Trujillo ordered the Parsley Massacre of Haitians living along the Dominican border, Brache wrote a letter to Trujillo denouncing the massacre and, "saying he could no longer be associated with a government that had committed such a terrible criminal act."[5]

In response to the letter, the whole embassy staff were declared traitors and were exiled. Espaillat was temporarily left with her maternal grandmother in the Dominican Republic. In 1939, however, her parents felt more settled in the United States and Rhina joined them in Manhattan.[6]

She is a graduate of Hunter College where she got her Bachelor of Arts in 1953.[1] In 1964 she completed her M.S.E. at Queens College.[1] She taught English in the New York City public schools for many years, and retired to Newburyport, Massachusetts, where for more than a decade she has led a group of New Formalist poets known as the Powow River Poets.[7][8]

Espaillat attended the first West Chester University Poetry Conference in 1995 and later recalled, "I was the only Hispanic there, but I realized that these people were open to everything, that their one interest was the craft. If you could bring something from another culture, they were open to it."[9]

Espaillat subsequently took charge of, "teaching the French Forms and the forms of repetition," but also made sure to teach classes in, "the Spanish and Hispanic examples of the forms" such as the décima and the ovillejo."[9]

Due to Espaillat's teaching and encouragement, the ovillejo, particularly, has become very popular among younger New Formalists writing in English. While being interviewed for a book about her life, Espaillat gleefully commented, "On the internet and in the stratosphere, everybody loves it."[10]

Espaillat writes poetry in both English and Spanish, and has translated the poetry of Robert Frost and Richard Wilbur into Spanish.[11]

Of her translations of Frost, Espaillat once said, "...something like The Witch of Coos seems to be written in a kind of New Hampshirese that's very hard to translate into Spanish. It's too idiosyncratic. But I've been pleased with the shorter lyrics I've done. In the past, I've only seen a few translations of Frost into Spanish, and I don't care for any of them. One of them actually translated Frost into free verse, which I don't think is appropriate at all, and I'm sure that Frost was turning in his grave."[12]

According to biographers Nancy Kang and Silvio Torres-Saillant, Espaillat, "has also accrued a solid track record as English translator of Spanish and Latin American verse from across diverse historical periods."[13]

Espaillat has produced and published English translations of the verse of Dominican poets Quiterio Berroa y Canelo, Manuel del Cabral, and Héctor Incháustegui Cabral.[13]

She has also translated poetry written in Spanish by fellow Dominican-Americans Juan Matos, César Sánchez Beras, Diógenes Abréu, and Dagoberto López.[14]

From other Latin American countries, Espaillat has translated the poetry of Miguel de Guevara, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Manuel González Prada, Rafael Arévalo Martínez, Gabriela Mistral, Vicente Huidobro,[13] and Alfonsina Storni.[15]

From Spain, Espaillat has translated the verse of Saint John of the Cross, Gabriel Bocángel, Gabriel García de Tassara, Miguel de Unamuno, and Miguel Hernández.[13]

Espaillat has also translated the poetry of Antero de Quental from Portuguese and the verse of Blas de Otero from Catalan.[13]

During an interview with William Baer, Espaillat said, "I can't imagine a world without translation because we'd have no Bible, no Homer, and no Virgil. All of our libraries would shrink down to a single room. So we desperately need translation, but it's crucial for the translator to face the fact that he's not going to get it all. There are going to be losses, which he should try to keep to a minimum, but he can never flatter himself that he's really bringing the poem into another language because it simply can't be done. I think the translator needs to begin with humility. As far as the actual process goes, I think a translator first needs to understand the poem as much as he can, try to get under the author's skin, and see if he can reconstruct the thought process of the original author. The primary job of the translator is to carry the poem from one language to the other with as little damage as possible. Personally, I enjoy the challenge very much, even though I'm never fully satisfied."[16]

Espaillat continued, "Whenever I speak to Hispanic groups, I tell the young people to make sure they hold onto their Spanish, and keep it clean, and constantly increase their vocabulary, just as they're doing with English. Then I encourage them and say, 'Now, since you know two languages, for heaven's sake, translate! We need you! Both languages need you to bridge the gap.'"[16]

Her work has appeared in Poetry, The American Scholar, and many other journals. She is a two-time winner of the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award, and she judged the 2012 Contest. Her second poetry collection, Where Horizons Go, was published by Truman State University Press in conjunction with her selection for the 1998 T. S. Eliot Prize. Her 2001 collection, Rehearsing Absence, was published by University of Evansville Press after winning the Richard Wilbur Award.[17][18]

Her work has been included in many popular anthologies, including The Heath Introduction to Poetry (Heath 2000); The Muse Strikes Back (Story Line Press 1997); and In Other Words: Literature by Latinas of the U.S. (Arte Publico Press 1994). She is also known for her English translations of the Spanish language poems of St. John of the Cross (1542–1591), which have appeared in the American journal First Things.[19]

Her poetry contains rhythmic sonnets describing family life and domestic settings, called "snapshots" she also addresses issues of ancestry, assimilation, and immigration.[2]

Following the 2020 Presidential Election, President-Elect of the United States Joe Biden received a petition signed by more than 70 poets, who urged him to select Espaillat to read her poetry at Biden's Presidential Inauguration.[20]

Of her courtship with Alfred Moskowitz, Espaillat once said, "I met him at the wedding of my best friend, Mimi, and his best friend, Harry. I was still at Hunter College, in my junior year, and we ended up sitting at the same table at the wedding on Thanksgiving Day in 1951. And we started talking, then dancing, and - I know this sounds like madness - he proposed five weeks later on New Year's Eve, and we were married in June of 1952."[21]

Following their wedding, Moskowitz deferred to his wife's fame within American poetry by allowing her to continue publishing under her maiden name in literary magazines. In legal paperwork, however, Espaillat would always sign her name as Mrs. Alfred Moskowitz.[22]

Moskowitz was an industrial arts teacher and sculptor, who had grown up speaking Romanian Yiddish in the home and had fought as a GI during the 1944 Battle of the Bulge. According to Esaillat's biographers Nancy Kang and Silvio Torres-Saillant, "Moskowitz brought to the household a sense of stark realism as experienced by U.S. military personnel during World War II. This was a time when many young Americans took to the front with a profound desire to fight for freedom and justice against regimes that endorsed tyranny and oppression."[23]

They remained together until he died in 2016; the couple had three sons.[7]

• Where Horizons Go: Poems (1998)
• Rehearsing Absence (2001)
• The Shadow I Dress In (2004)
• The Story-Teller's Hour (2004)
• Playing at Stillness (2005)
• Her Place in These Designs (2008)
• And After All (2018)
• The Field (2019)

• "Rhina P. Espaillat". The Poetry Foundation. Short biography of the poet.
• "Rhina Espaillat-Weighing In". Poetry Everywhere. Public Broadcasting System. Short video of an animation that accompanies Espaillat's reading of her poem "Weighing In"; the animation was created by Christopher Dudley Thorpe.

• Official website