Creative Writing: Events

January 2026

Translation as a Language that Doesn't Exist: A Talk with Poet and Translator Jake Levine and Professor Janice Lee

Wednesday, Jan. 14 | 3:30pm | FMH 302

Have you used Chat GPT or Gemini recently? It is often said that one of the first jobs to get replaced in the age of AI will be translators. But can AI translate poems? AI can translate poems into something that looks like a poem, but is it a poem? How do you convey untranslatables, effects, rhythms and energy? Where is the pain of strange grammar? The beauty of weird conjugation? How does a machine relay uncommunicable and unspoken contexts? When we are translating poetry, we are not translating from language A to language B. We are translating from the imaginary language of a poem into another imaginary language. Why is it so hard for the machines to translate poems? Because when you are translating poetry, you are translating into a language that doesn't exist. In this talk and reading the award-winning translator, editor, and poet Jake Levine will read from some of his translations. Drawing from the text, he will discuss translating Korean contemporary poetry as a creative act, how translation pushes us to think differently about the language we use, what we think literature is, and how it reminds us how we are never quite at home in our interpreted world.

Jake Levine has written and translated or co-translated over a dozen books. They include collections of poems by Kim Kyung Ju, Kim Minjeong, Kim Haengsook, Hwang Yuwon, Seo Daekyung, Ha Jaeyon, and more. His co-translation of Kim Yideum’s Hysteria (Action Books, 2019) was the first book to be awarded both the National Translation Award and the Lucien Stryk Prize. Jake founded and currently edits the award-winning contemporary Korean poetry series, Moon Country, at Black Ocean. He has also translated other cultural content, including the artist Yun Hyong-Keun’s diaries, narration for the K-pop group ENHYPEN, and children’s stories. He lives in Daegu, South Korea, where he is a professor of creative writing at Keimyung University. His latest full-length book of poetry, The Imagined Country, is out with Tolsun Books and his selected book of poems, Attachment Trauma, is coming out in winter 2026 on Lavender Ink. You can find out more about Jake at his website: absorbeverything.com.

Poetry Reading: Jake Levine, Janice Lee, John Beer

Friday, Jan. 16 | 7pm | Word Virus Books (203 SW 9th Ave, Portland, OR)

February 2026

Visiting Writers Series: Teresa Carmody and Prageeta Sharma

Wednesday, Feb. 4 | 6pm | SMSU 333

Teresa Carmody (she/they) is a writer of fiction, creative nonfiction, inter-arts collaborations, and hybrid forms. Her books include A Healthy Interest in the Lives of Others (Autofocus, 2025), The Reconception of Marie (Spuyten Duyvil, 2020), Maison Femme: a fiction (Bon Aire, 2015), and Requiem, recently rereleased by punctum books. In 2025, Boabab Press released their novella, Today Must Be Sunday, as part of Agency 3. Carmody lives in Omaha and teaches in the Writer’s Workshop and low-residency MFA in Creative Writing Program at University of Nebraska Omaha.

Prageeta Sharma is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently, Onement Won (Wave, 2025) and Grief Sequence (Wave, 2019). She is the founder of the conference Thinking Its Presence: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Race, Creative Writing, and Artistic and Aesthetic Practices, the Henry G. Lee ’37 professor of English at Pomona College and a recent recipient of the 2025 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship.

Ongoing

Filament Reading Series

The Filament Reading Series hosts monthly readings in venues throughout Portland. For updates, follow Filament on Instagram.

Portland Lit Mic Series

Jordan Marzka (BFA alum) and Grace Lawrence (BFA alum and current poetry MFA candidate) run the very popular Portland Lit Mic Series, which has become a pillar of the Portland literary scene. For updates, follow Portland Lit Mic on Instagram.