Rattner taught in the Peruvian city of Chachapoyas, did research for the Museum of American Finance, and currently talks sports with people like Charles Oakley for SLAM Magazine (check out Oak Speaks here).

Together with Marta del Pozo, Rattner also translated a book called Fire Wind by Yván Yauri, providing a dictionary for the Quechua words that could not be brought fully into English.

Here’s a line from one of the poems in Fire Wind called “Down the Tumultuous River,” to give you a taste of the way Rattner works with words. Bookslut calls this poem “one continuous, panting exhalation.”

You brand your tracks

on the hairy breasts

of my rustic grandmothers.

 

You are a distant speck. 

The stranger on the ledge

who precipitates

an incandescent delta

through his veins. 

Click here for more information about Rattner’s class, which begins September 18th.