WISP by Jan Wagner: An Event with Translator David Keplinger

A chance to hear some beautiful poetry on a Friday night, you're invited to hear from David Keplinger's new translation of Jan Wagner's poems from German, titled WISP. It's a gorgeous dual-language book examining impermanence as the source of beauty.

Over the course of a partnership spanning nearly two decades, poets Jan Wagner and David Keplinger have crafted a distinctly collaborative exchange between original German and American letters. Together, they muse at the constraints of translation, challenging its boundaries while weaving their distinct voices in lyrical call and response. They marvel at what translation can be: a tempered conversation in metered rhyme.

Come enjoy this translation at Bird in Hand and let it shift your perception of how close observation can cross language.

Order WISP here!

David Keplinger is the author of eight collections of poetry, including Another City, which was awarded the 2019 UNT Rilke Prize, and Ice, which won the 2024 Ellen Anderson Award from the Poetry Society of Virginia. He is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Colorado Book Award, the T.S. Eliot Award, the Minds on Fire Award, the Emily Dickinson Award from the Poetry Society of America, and other honors. His six volumes of literary translation include Jan Wagner’s The Art of Topiary and Carsten René Nielsen’s Forty-One Objects, which was longlisted for the 2020 National Translation Prize. In 2022 American University named him Teacher-Scholar of the Year. In 2025, he was awarded the Joseph Brodsky Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. He lives in Washington, D.C.