Bennington Translates Hosts Jen Hofer

Jen Hofer is a poet, translator, interpreter, educator, book-maker, urban cyclist, and co-founder of the language justice and language experimentation collaborative Antena Aire and the language justice advocacy collective Antena Los Ángeles. They identify as a queer white Latinx (Argentinean) Jewish BDS supporter who grew up mostly monolingual in a bilingual/bicultural family and find in both language justice work and literary experimentation a powerful intersection between healing, social justice, and the transformative possibilities of language and radical listening across difference.

Jen has received fellowships and awards from CantoMundo, the Academy of American Poets, the City of Los Angeles, the NEA, and PEN American Center, and is the 2021 visiting Holloway Professor in Poetry & Poetics at UC Berkeley. They publish poems, translations, and visual-textual works with numerous small presses, including Action Books, Atelos, belladonna, Counterpath Press, Kenning Editions, Insert Press, Les Figues Press, Litmus Press, LRL Textile Editions, NewLights Press, Palm Press, Subpress, Ugly Duckling Presse, and in various DIY/DIT incarnations. Jen's most recent books are translations by Mexican writers Dolores Dorantes (Kenning Editions), Myriam Moscona (Les Figues Press), and Rodrigo Flores Sánchez (Ugly Duckling Presse); translations of Uruguayan poet Virginia Lucas will be published in 2021 by Litmus Press. Between Language and Justice: Selected Writings from Antena Aire will be published in 2021 by The Operating System.

Jen lives on unceded Tongva land at the confluence of the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Seco in Northeast Los Angeles where they teach writing, DIY bookmaking and literary translation at Otis College of Art + Design and at Occidental College and support community groups in building equitable communication and strengthening interpreter crews.

Antena Aire (formerly called Antena) was a language justice and language experimentation collaborative by Jen Hofer and JD Pluecker, both of whom are writers, artists, literary translators, bookmakers and activist interpreters. From 2010-2020, Antena Aire used on-the-ground practices building equitable communication as a generative strategies for making artistic works.

Visit Jen Hofer's website, or view their work on the Poetry Foundation Website.

This is an in class visit, all are welcome. Please contact Marguerite Feitlowitz if you would like to attend.

This event is part of Bennington Translates.