Modern Poetry in Translation (MPT) is a biannual poetry magazine that publishes poetry from all over the world in English translation. Founded in 1965 by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort it has consistently published the very best of world poetry in the very best translations, and has introduced a number of famous poets and iconic translations to the English-speaking world.

MPT prints work of unsurpassed range and quality. Over the last decade it has featured over 90 languages, 463 poets and 349 translators. Boyd Tonkin in The Independent wrote that MPT ‘has a rare and precious talent’. The Sunday Times called it a ‘necessity’. There is no other magazine that has the same reach and the same consistent quality of poetry.

The trial issue features six poems by Tsvetanka Elenkova translated by Jonathan Dunne, three poems from Aldeburgh by Taha Muhammad Ali and Gabriela Mistral’s poem The Foreigner translated by Arthur McHugh.

Other features include a review by Jo Balmer of classic French and German translations, Charlie Louth examines the work of Don Paterson, Martyn Crucefix and Rilke and Stephanie Norgate presents two haiku versions of Lucretius.

MPT 'The Antidote to Agony: Focus on the Poetry of Greece and Cyprus', guest edited by Jessica Sequeira, features 30 selections of poems translated into English by contemporary poets expanding the linguistic boundaries of Modern Greek, Bulgarian and Arvanitika, reflecting on migrant crossings in the Mediterranean, female friendship, the transcription of orality, imagined plagues, the encounters of bodies, the AIDS pandemic, and artistic ruin, among other themes. Greek poetry, as perhaps all poetry, opens the heart to the beyond, to the liminal condition. The truth is that the idea of a national focus will forever be complicated given that migrants also form part of the tradition of a region, both those entering and those leaving (which is why a poem into Greek is also included, by a Cypriot poet residing in Ireland).

The authors translated in the Focus are Angelos Sikelianos, Anna Griva, Argyris Chionis, Argyris Stavropoulos, Christodoulos Makris, Danae Siozou, Dimitra Kotoula, Efstathia P., Eftychia Panayiotou, Eleni Kefala, Ersi Sotiropoulos, George Le Nonce, Iana Boukova, Iliassa Sequin, Ioannis Tsirkas, Jazra Khaleed, Katerina Anghelaki-Rooke, Katerina Iliopoulou, Konstantinos Loukopoulos, Krystalli Glyniadakis, Myrsini Ghana, Niki Chalkiadaki, Nikolas Koutsodontis, Panayotis Ioannidis, Peter Constantine, Phoebe Giannisi, Stamatis Polenakis, Suleyman Alayali-Tsialik, Thanos Gogos, Vassilis Kimoulis. Two introductory essays by Brian Sneeden and Kostya Tsolakis provide context.

In addition there are three non-Focus poem selections by Christine Bry from French, Manikkavacagar from Classical Tamil, and Roxana Crisólogo Correa from Peruvian Spanish.