Dudley Poore (September 6, 1893 – 1981) was an American poet, author, and translator. He was renowned for his translations of notable works from Spanish and Portuguese into English, including “Our Daily Bread” (1943) by Ecuador’s Enrique Gil Gilbert, which received honorable mention at Farrar Rinehart’s Latin-American Prize Novel Contest. Poore’s translation of “The Bonfire” (1944) by Cecilio J. Carneiro of Brazil also garnered critical acclaim. Apart from translation, Poore co-edited “Fiesta in November: Stories from Latin America” (1942) and “North American Storytellers” (1946). His poetry was featured in “Eight Harvard Poets” (1917). The “Dudley Poore papers,” which document both his personal and professional life, are housed in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. This collection includes his correspondence, writings, photographs, notebooks, and other materials.
Background
Before the First World War, Dudley Poore attended Harvard University. He served in the Army Ambulance Corps and Red Cross during the war. At Harvard University, he was part of a circle of writers that also included John Dos Passos, E.E. Cummings, Robert Hillyer, Cuthbert Wright, and Robert Stewart Mitchell. Letters from these associates appear in his correspondence, as well as from John Peale Bishop, Robert Finch, Katherine Anne Porter, Dudley Fitts, Arthur K. McComb, among others. He was homosexual and was a one-time partner of Stewart Mitchell’s lifelong partner, Richard David Cowan.
Poore’s poetry is included in “Eight Harvard Poets” (1917).
Translation of Ecuadorian novel
In 1943, Dudley Poore translated Ecuadorian author Enrique Gil Gilbert’s only novel, “Nuestro pan” (1942) into English as “Our Daily Bread” ( Farrar & Rinehart, New York).
In The Latest Works of Fiction section of The New York Times (July 18, 1943), Eudora Welty, a literary critic, wrote the following about Gil Gilbert’s novel “Our Daily Bread” (translated by Poore): “…From the start, the jungle absorbs the characters, breeding all deeds and presiding over them. The book [Our Daily Bread] grows out of it – like a fern, like a canoe plying its river torrent. Señor Gilbert has written a novel with eyes turned upon the land, written it with eyes, ears, nose and mouth. When you finish his book you will have smelled and tasted Ecuador, stroked the soft pile of the Ecuadorian night and felt its tropic texture…The vigor of this book is fundamental. The special enchantment of its background gives it a startling beauty and a spiritual meaning.”
Family
Dudley Greene Poore was the son of Alvin B. and Mary L. Poore.