Gallatin’s Hightower Wins Poetry Translation Prize

Scott Hightower, an adjunct professor in NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, has been awarded a Willis Barnstone Translation Prize for his translation of the Aurora de Albornoz poem “In Search of Those Children in a Row, #3” from its original Spanish.

      The award, named in honor of the American poet and translator Willis Barnstone, is given by the University of Evansville in Indiana. Barnstone served as this year’s final round judge.

      The award, now in its sixth year, is made annually for an unpublished translation of a poem from any language and time period—from ancient to contemporary.

      The Spanish-born de Albornoz spent much of her adult life in Puerto Rico.

      Hightower’s published works include Part of the Bargain (Copper Canyon Press, 2005), a range of poems differing in style and subject matter. He is currently finishing Self-Evident, a manuscript that centers on the values of the Enlightenment and democracy and includes poems about scientists in the French Revolution and intellectual families affected by WWII and the Spanish Civil War.

      Hightower shares the prize with Dante translator Michael Palma.

—James Devitt