Josephine Balmer’s collections include The Word for Sorrow (Salt, 2009 & 2013) and Chasing Catullus: Poems, Translations & Transgressions (Bloodaxe, 2004). Her classical translations include Catullus: Poems of Love and Hate (2004), Classical Women Poets (1996) and Sappho: Poems & Fragments (1984 & 1992), all published by Bloodaxe. Her study of classical translation and poetic versioning, Piecing Together the Fragments: Translating Classical Verse, Creating Contemporary Poetry , was published by Oxford University Press in 2013. Letting Go: Mourning Sonnets is forthcoming from Agenda Editions. She has written widely on poetry and translation for publications such as The Observer , the Independent on Sunday , the Times Literary Supplement , the New Statesman , and The Times , for which she compiles the daily Word Watch and weekly Literary Quiz. A former Chair of the Translators’ Association, she was reviews editor of Modern Poetry in Translation from 2004-2009, and is a judge for The Guardian / Stephen Spender Prize for poetry translation, and an advisor to the journal, Agenda. She studied Classics and Ancient History at University College, London, and was awarded a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing by the University of East Anglia.