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Josephine Balmer is a poet and classical translator, whose collection Chasing Catullus: Poems, Translations and Transgressions, published by Bloodaxe Books in 2004, explored the border territory between these two disciplines to critical acclaim (‘a gripping read’ – TLS; ‘a moving and powerful meditation on bereavement’ – Independent on Sunday; ‘alchemy achieved in poetry’ – London Magazine). Other works include the translations, Sappho: Poems and Fragments (1992), short-listed for the US Lambda prize alongside Adrienne Rich and James Merrill, Classical Women Poets (1996), commended by the Hellenic Society Runciman Award and Catullus: Poems of Love and Hate (2004) (‘superb’ – Independent; ‘readable and witty… Catullus was never more alive than in these skilful, naturalist renditions’– New Statesman). In 2001, she edited Rearranging the World, an anthology of contemporary literature in translation, for the Arts Council and the British Centre for Literary Translation. Single poems and translations have also appeared in a wide number of publications including the Independent, the Independent on Sunday, the Observer, The Wolf, Horizon, and Modern Poetry in Translation, as well as being included in many anthologies. Poems, translations and interviews have also been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 & 4’s The Verb, Poetry Please, Pick of the Week, Foreign Books and Women’s Hour, and BBC TV’s The Greeks, Helen of Troy and Oxyrhynchus, amongst others. ‘The Tenth Muse’, using her translations of Sappho, was broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in 2006 and Poetica: Catullus, a thirty-minute programme based around her translations of Catullus, was broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Company in 2005. Her literary awards include a South East Arts’ Writers Bursary (for Chasing Catullus), two Society of Authors Authors Foundation Award (for Classical Women Poets & The Word for Sorrow), an Arts Council Write Out Loud award and a Wingate Foundation Scholarship (for her work on The Word for Sorrow). She has written widely on poetry and translation for publications such as the Observer, the Independent on Sunday, the Times, the Times Literary Supplement and the New Statesman, and is also Reviews Editor of the journal Modern Poetry in Translation. In addition, she has published many academic chapters and articles on classical translation and poetry, as well as given lectures, seminars, workshops and readings at both academic conferences and literary festivals including the Ledbury Poetry Festival, Poetry International at the South Bank Centre, British Council Literature Seminars, British Centre for Literary Translation Summer Schools and the Essex Book Festival. Chair of the Society of Authors Translators’ Association from 2002-05, she was a 2007 Royal Literary Fund Writing Fellow at the University of Sussex and is currently a judge for the Times Stephen Spender Prize for Poetry in Translation. She studied Classics at University College, London and has a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia. Born in 1959, she lives in Sussex and Cornwall.
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