Senior midfielder Mike Rogers of New Haven has had his share of notorierty on the field this season for the Hopkins’ boys’ lacrosse team as its leading scorer with 18 goals and three assists. But he is also garnering attention off the field with a unique academic project - translating Norse poetry.
Hopkins’ seniors, if they choose to, are allowed to replace one class the last seven weeks of the school year with a special project. Rogers decided to translate 64 lines of Norse poetry in a book of poems called Edda (author unknown).
“Some kids I knew liked pirates, I always liked the Vikings as a kid,” Rogers said. “That’s where the interest started with me. I have Nordic books and I’ve always loved reading about them.
“A friend of mine showed me some Nordic books on the Internet. We came across the Edda. a compilation of poems of Nordic folklore and religion and I thought it would be fun to translate it into English.”
The deadline to complete the project is next Friday. He has 40 lines translated and expects to be completed before the deadline. The last week of school all the projects are displayed and each student does a presentation of their work.
Hopkins boys’ lacrosse coach Sandy MacMullen is Rogers’ advisor on the project.
“Translating Norse poetry into English is certainly unique,” MacMullen said. “Mike has really really put a lot of time and effort into it.”