After Fame

After Fame is a discursive rendering of the Roman epigrammatist Martial's Book I. Its 118 poems, on themes such as work, friendship and public life, are modelled after the source material through a variety of 'treatments' - most notably machine translation (for which Latin still presents near-insurmountable difficulties), employing the results as scaffolding for poems that quickly improvise their way clear of their originals. As it progresses, the book is increasingly interrupted by reflections on authorship, technology, cultural complicity and the privileged, mediating role of the poet: all fixations of Martial's work that still resonate today. Pitched between translation and new writing, After Fame challenges the integrity of both categories, dramatising the obscurity of its source, refraining from easy equivalences, while insisting on its contemporary relevance.

Sam Riviere is the author of the poetry books 81 Austerities (2012), Kim Kardashian's Marriage (2015), and After Fame (2020), as well as numerous limited-edition titles. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 2009, and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection in 2012. Born in Norwich, he currently lives in London, where he runs the micropublisher If a Leaf Falls Press. His first novel, Dead Souls, is published by W&N in the UK and Catapult in the US. His latest poetry collection Conflicted Copy was published in 2024.