Research into the translation of poetry dominates translation studies (Jones, 2011: 181), due to the high status of the genre (Bassnett, 2002: 114) and the “ wide variety of problems” (Jones, 2011: 182) this poses for translators. This essay will discuss the challenges faced by translators of poetry – both those faced by all literary translators and those specifically related to poetry. I will illustrate my points by referring to Roy Campbell's translation (Fleurs du mal, 2014) of Baudelaire's 1861 poem L'Albatros and James Kirkup's translation (University of Pennsylvania, 2014) of Apollinaire's poem 1912 The Mirabeau Bridge (see appendix). Due to space constraints, I will focus only on issues associated with the translation process itself, rather than those related to the broader concern of making a living translating poetry (e.g., securing funding and dealing with publishers). According to Holmes (1988: 9), poetry is "the most complex of all linguistic structures, [in which] a whole range of meanings, and not simply the most obvious or logical meaning, coalesce to create "meaning "total and the total effect". The reliance on ambiguity and polysemy (which, according to Landers (2001: 97) is “one of the hallmarks of literature”) is of less concern for translators working with prose texts (Holmes, 1988: 9 ), since the context usually specifies what type of text is prose. a specific meaning is intended. However, if the source text (whether poetry or prose) is ambiguous or polysemous, this must be reproduced in the target text so that it too is open to a variety of interpretations (Boase-Beier , 2009: 195) and does not “reduce” the dynamic role of the reader” (Hatim and Mason, 1990: 11). One of the most important questions for any literary translator, not just in the middle of the article...... Literary context. American Modern Language Association. Osers, E. (1993) Some aspects of the translation of poetry. In H. Schulte and G. Teuscher (eds.) The Art of Literary Translation. University Press of America, 159-173. Paul, G. (2009) Translation in practice: a symposium. Champaign: Dalkey Archive Press.Preminger, Alex Brogan, TV Brogan and VF Terry (1993) The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. 3rd edition. London: Princeton University Press/Macmillan. Sorrell, M. (2000) The Wrongs of Rhymes: Dealing with Verlaine's Rhymes in English. In M. Salama-Carr (ed.) On the translation of French literature and cinema. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 73-88. University of Pennsylvania (2014) Apollinaire, the Mirabeau bridge. Web page, on the Penn website: University of Pennsylvania. Available at http://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/Apollinaire_Mirabeau.html, accessed May 18 2014.