But for the past five decades he's also worn another hat: that of a translator. Bly, who reads from his work at the Burlington Book Festival finale this Sunday, hasn't just tinkered away at the odd foreign poet. He is like a one-man U.N. Since 1960, the 78-year-old poet has shepherded more than two dozen poets into English from languages as diverse as Norwegian, Swedish, Spanish, Hindi, Chinese and German.