With 1994's The Inferno of Dante (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), Robert Pinsky, America's poet laureate from 1997 to 2000, joined the long line of bards—including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dorothy Sayers, and John Ciardi—who had translated at least one canticle of Dante's Divine Comedy into English. Earlier Pinsky had been among 20 poets tapped by author and anthologist Daniel Halpern to translate one or two cantos of Inferno for a new collection. That volume's introduction hinted at the potential for 20 new translations, but so far Pinsky is the only writer to take the challenge.

To find out what drew this contemporary poet to the nearly 700-year-old Comedy, Christian History e-mailed Pinsky at Boston University, where he teaches English and creative writing. He also serves as poetry editor for the online magazine Slate.

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