Sa Mga Pagitan ng Buhay at Iba Pang Pagtutulay ni Ralph Semino Galan

Kung ang pagsasalin ay paglikha ng tulay na mag-uugnay sa mga wika, si Ralph Semino Galán ay isang master na inhinyero. Napag-ugnay niya ang dalawang magkahiwalay na wika sa pamamagitan ng kaniyang mga salin, at naitawid, hindi lámang ang kahulugan kundi ang puso at kaluluwa ng mga tulang naririto, mula sa Ingles tungo sa Filipino, at vice versa. Patunay ang aklat na ito na si Galán ay hindi lámang makatà at kritikong tarikan, kundi mahusay na tagasalin, tagapag-ugnay hindi lang ng ating mga wika, kundi ng ating mga búhay at panitikan.
- Jerry B. Grácio

Ralph Semino Galán’s salutary translation of 45 contemporary poets—from other countries (like Louise Glück, Pablo Neruda) and our own poets writing in English and Filipino (like Edith Tiempo, Eric Gamalinda, Ruth Elynia Mabanglo, Michael M. Coroza)—offers a gateway for our own poets, teachers, and students to the ever-changing galaxy of the world’s poetry where all poems constellate to forge our humanity. As the translation bears across the words of other languages the very soul or diwa of our day-to-day experience, so too does the imagination, as we read close, open the poem’s text.
- Gémino H. Abad

An exceptional variety is collected and recollected in Sa Mga Pagitan ng Buhay at Iba Pang Pagtutulay. Ralph Semino Galán’s translations are accessible, graceful and delicious. Atwood, Duffy, Forche, Glück, Hadewijch of Brabant, Neruda, Nye, Oliver, and St. John of the Cross drift seamlessly into Abad, Alunan, An Lim, Ayala, Baquiran, Barrios, Coroza, Delos Reyes, Dimalanta, Gamalinda, Gervacio, Grácio, Linmark, Mabanglo, Moreno, Santos, Teodoro, Tiamson-Rubin, Tiempo, and Galán himself. The sheer amount of inner conflict and turmoil in these poems, as rendered by Galán, offers a retrospective of insights for anyone who loves, reads or writes.
- Jose Wendell P. Capili