Sweet Hunter

The Complete Poems of St. Teresa of Ávila (Bilingual Edition)

Translated by Dana Delibovi

Paperback
978-1-958972-49-6
US $22.99 Indiepubs Bookshop Amazon Barnes & Noble
eBook available
October 2024

This bilingual edition of St. Teresa of Avila’s poems with commentary engages readers with all facets of the Saint’s life: the mystic and monastic reformer, the artist and proto-feminist, and the philosopher with a penchant for paradox.

“What a gift then to read Dana Delibovi’s translations of St Teresa d’Ávila’s complete poems—sweet treasure!—so elegant and concise, the language lyrical yet simple and accessible, the music of the stanzas and the profundity of her voice carried into English. I also appreciated Delibovi’s curation: the short introductions and thematic arrangement of the poems—nothing overly ponderous and academic. It’s as if we are on a pilgrimage into the heart and soul and song of this amazing woman and spiritual leader and poet.” —Julia Alvarez, poet, novelist, and essayist; author of The Cemetery of Untold Stories

“Dana Delibovi’s translations and the essays that accompany them are thoughtful, inviting, insightful, and rich. Through them, Saint Teresa’s passionate words pierce through the page and bloom beautifully in the reader’s mind – and heart.” —Randon Billings Noble, author of Be with Me Always: Essays and editor of A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays

“Saint Teresa has, at last, found an English translator who has deeply penetrated the poet’s essence, her revelatory reverence and rapturous beauty.” —Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno, author of Night Suite, Remission, and A Continual Pilgrimage: American Writers in Paris, 1944-1960

St. Teresa of Avila’s poems, written in the 16th century, speak to the spiritual longing of our times and invite us to find peace amid turmoil. St. Teresa walked a path of grace, seeking the divine within the human soul, and her poetry lights this path for all of us. This is the first translation of St. Teresa’s poetry by a woman poet and captures the saint’s spiritual vigor and famously conversational tone in English. That voice is echoed in well-researched commentary strengthened by the translator’s willingness to share her spiritual journey.

Dana Delibovi began translating the poetry of St. Teresa of Ávila in 2019, after retiring from a hybrid career as an advertising copywriter and adjunct instructor of philosophy. Her translations of Teresa's poetry and her essays on Teresa’s legacy have appeared in journals including  Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry, U.S. Catholic, After the Art, and Confluence, with translations forthcoming in Catholic Poetry Room and a new anthology from Word on Fire. Delibovi's writing has also appeared in Noon, Psaltery & Lyre, Salamander, and Slippery Elm. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, a Best American Essays notable essayist, and 2023 co-winner of the Hueston Woods Poetry Contest. Delibovi is Consulting Poetry Editor at the literary e-zine Cable Street. She received her BA from Barnard College, Columbia University, and holds MA degrees from New York University and Bank Street College of Education.

“Poem by poem, Delibovi renders Ávila’s vision with a clarity faithful to the original but which works in tones and nuances that speak to our contemporary moment. Delibovi’s notes which accompany each poem add further depth and provide a running commentary where Delibovi’s own voice mixes with that of previous translators, ultimately creating a lively meditation filled with insightful details from Ávila’s life and practice. What Delibovi has gifted us is much more than a selection of poems: it’s a wholly distinct poetic journey.” —José Angel Araguz, author of Rotura and Ruin & Want

“Dana Delibovi’s new English translation of the poems of Saint Teresa of Ávila provides the reader not only with an occasion to contemplate through Teresa’s vision the meaning of Christ on the Cross, but also to become a carillo, one of Teresa’s dear addressees in the poems, feeling through her voice an intimacy with the divine and, therefore, achieving a kind of mysticism—a mysticism that leads the reader to the ultimate goal of Teresa’s art—that we not fear death.” —Mary Ann B. Miller, editor-in-chief of Presence: A Journal of Catholic Poetry

“A gorgeous collection. Dana Delibovi’s translations and the essays that accompany them are thoughtful, inviting, insightful, and rich. Through them, Saint Teresa’s passionate words pierce through the page and bloom beautifully in the reader’s mind—and heart. Lovers of her poems will return to this book again and again.” —Randon Billings Noble, author of Be With Me Always: Essays and editor of A Harp in the Stars: An Anthology of Lyric Essays

“Dana Delibovi’s luminous translations of St. Teresa’s poetry are as imaginative as they are faithful, deftly balancing the mystical with the pragmatic, the exuberant with the introspective, the sensual with the soulful. Passionate, visceral, yet warmly conversational, these stunning translations reunite us with our own yearnings even as they introduce us, with great depth and musicality, to St. Teresa’s pathbreaking poetry.” —Nandana Dev Sen, translator of Acrobat: Poems by Nabaneeta Dev Sen

“Dana Delibovi’s rendering of these works—by turns mystical, sensual and practical—removes all sense of distance between Teresa’s life and our own, permitting her voice to resonate with an astonishing intimacy. This fusion of the idiom of Catholic faith with the manifest language of a poet’s soul stands as a revelation unto itself.” —Eric Darton, author of Free City and Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York’s World Trade Center

“Saint Teresa has, at last, found an English translator who has deeply penetrated the poet’s essence, her revelatory reverence and rapturous beauty.” —Christopher Sawyer-Lauçanno, author of Night Suite, Remission, and A Continual Pilgrimage: American Writers in Paris, 1944-1960

“The power and fluidity of Dana Delibovi’s superb translations spark the poems of St. Teresa of Avila into the 21st century. Sassy and ebullient (especially in her advice to her convent sisters) yet profoundly spiritual, Teresa has found an ideal translator in poet Delibovi, who holds the seeming contradictions of St. Teresa’s mystical yet physical nature in her capable hands. Sensuous yet strict, feminist yet practical, Teresa navigated a sexist, hierarchical world with brilliance.” —Molly Peacock, author of The Widow’s Crayon Box: Poems

“What a gift then to read Dana Delibovi’s translations of St Teresa d’Ávila’s complete poems—sweet treasure!—so elegant and concise, the language lyrical yet simple and accessible, the music of the stanzas and the profundity of her voice carried into English. I also appreciated Delibovi’s curation: the short introductions and thematic arrangement of the poems—nothing overly ponderous and academic. It’s as if we are on a pilgrimage into the heart and soul and song of this amazing woman and spiritual leader and poet.” —Julia Alvarez, poet, novelist, and essayist; author of The Cemetery of Untold Stories

“In Sweet Hunter: The Complete Poems of St. Teresa of Ávila, a new translation with commentary, poet Dana Delibovi delivers as promised. Drawing on her lifelong fascination with Teresa, Delibovi offers a lively English translation alongside the original Spanish and excellent essays that open Teresa’s sometimes hidden depths for readers." —Maryanne Hannan, U.S. Catholic magazine