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Contributor

Alissa Valles

Contributor

Alissa Valles

Alissa Valles is a poet and translator from Russian and Polish. She has worked for the Institute of War Documentation in Amsterdam, where she grew up, and is now working toward a doctorate in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

Articles by Alissa Valles

Tiresias’s Farewell

By Janusz Szuber

From unexpiated sins / poems are born

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Good Later

By Marcin Sendecki

Uh huh says the streetcar, or it seems to say.

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

A Stone from New World

By Ryszard Krynicki

Only when I turned it over on its other side did I see that the heavy sandstone circle which looked like the top half of a mill

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Blurb

By Marcin Sendecki

Weeks spent. a month / devoted to the study of a detail

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Feverish Activity

By Marcin Sendecki

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

“I peel potatoes, stroke you on the head, pick up a leaf”

By Krystyna Milobedzka

I peel potatoes, stroke you on the head, pick up a leaf

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

“I put off three dreams about father until later”

By Krystyna Milobedzka

I put off three dreams about father until later

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

“I lose verbs most quickly, nouns are left”

By Krystyna Milobedzka

I lose verbs most quickly, nouns are left,

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

“exactly the forehead, exactly the mouth, exactly the hands”

By Krystyna Milobedzka

exactly the forehead, exactly the mouth, exactly the hands

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

From: “After the Cry”

By Krystyna Milobedzka

you have no name, no place

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Look

By Zbigniew Herbert

The blue winter sky like a stone on which angels

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Principality

By Zbigniew Herbert

Over the principality a cloud of snores rises, red as a cauldron.

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Angels of Civilization

By Zbigniew Herbert

The real renaissance of angels came with the development of airline companies.

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

She was doing her hair

By Zbigniew Herbert

she secured the halo on the top of her head

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

On Translating Poetry

By Zbigniew Herbert

Like a clumsy bumblebee / he alights on a flower

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Rue de Poitiers

By Ryszard Krynicki

A late afternoon, snow is falling.

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Sweet, innocent

By Ryszard Krynicki

Sweet, innocent words,

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Return from Assisi

By Ryszard Krynicki

A mutilated Giotto. A loud: Silenzio!

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Tiresias’s Lesson

By Janusz Szuber

What futures do the oracular oaks

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Special Section: Poland Unplugged

By Alissa Valles

On the other hand, maybe poetry can flout its own time, its own conventions, pieties, syntactical laws, aesthetic (anesthetic) canons and going definitions and habits. These are a few poets who think…

Translated from Polish

After Rain

By Ryszard Krynicki

Brother and sister, inscrutable sphinx, noble snail:

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest

By Ryszard Krynicki

How did you find yourself here, / poor mummy of an Egyptian princess,

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

He Who Always Knows

By Ryszard Krynicki

He who always knowsto which god he prays,will never be heard.

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Buddha, Christ

By Ryszard Krynicki

Buddha, Christ,in vain you are hidingin so many incarnations.

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Job’s Guilt

By Ryszard Krynicki

Everything was fulfilled,I was spared nothing.Who will forgive me.

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Who Doesn’t Exist

By Ryszard Krynicki

Fear Godwho doesn’t existin your heart.

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

This Year

By Ryszard Krynicki

This yearI bore no fruitonly leavesthat give no shadeI’m afraid, Rabbi,I’m afraid, Lord,that a hungryweary man curses meon the endless roadto Jerusalem

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

(from Meister Eckhardt or Zohar?)

By Ryszard Krynicki

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Fragments from the year 1989

By Ryszard Krynicki

. . .Mute,my head covered,I stand with a pebble on my lipsin front of a wall of fireand oblivioncountedamong the helpersof death. . .Take the ash from me,take the weight from me it’s notmy fault,…

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles

Save Me, Guide Me

By Ryszard Krynicki

Save me, shield me, faithful journey,from my own lies and from our era.Protect me, you, Angel and Guardian,but you, White Cloud, guide me.Keep me from thunder, hurricane,immaculate truth, give me light.Don’t…

Translated from Polish by Alissa Valles