1 1

  • David Larsen is a U.S. poet and translator of classical Arabic texts. His most recent translation is of Abū Zayd Al-Anṣāri's the Book of Rain (Wave, 2025). His translation of Ibn Khālawayh’s Names of the Lion (Wave Books) received the 2018 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. A former fellow of the Library of Arabic Literature, he is at work on a bilingual edition of the poems of Jamīl Buthaynah. David Larsen lives in New York City. 


  • Reviews of books translated by David Larsen

    Names of the Lion

  • - David Larsen's translation blog

    Interviews
    - Poetry Foundation, with Brandon Brown, conducted by Thom Donovan

  • Video
    - A selection of poetry videos, circa 2008.

    - Reading "Look Away," "Dear Winged Sandals," and "Letting the Arts be Sciences" in Philadelphia (2009):



    - Reading "Julian Brolaski," "That's the Chronic," "U.S.S.S.S.S.S.," "Look Away," an elegy for a rooster (tr.) by Abu 'l-Hasan 'Ali ibn Zurayq (d. 1029 CE), "The Bolt," "Letting the Arts be Sciences," and a cat poem (tr.) by Abu 'Amir al-Fadl ibn Isma'il al-Jurjani (d. 1065) at The St. Mark's Poetry Project (2011):

View full details