Skip to main content
Outdated Browser

For the best experience using our website, we recommend upgrading your browser to a newer version or switching to a supported browser.

More Information

2022 Words Without Borders–Academy of American Poets National Translation Month Series

September 2022

To celebrate National Translation Month, we’ve once again partnered with the Academy of American Poets to bring you a series of four poems in translation published throughout the month of September. Translated from Spanish, Malay, Arabic, and French, the poems will appear in Words Without Borders and the Academy of American Poets’ “Poem-a-Day.” Each translation will be accompanied by its original-language text and audio recordings by the authors and translators.

Sculpture of Coyolxauhqui
who were these goddesses
By Jeannette L. Clariond
For days, / years, they walked with jade beneath their tongues, seeking / home.
Translated from Spanish by Samantha Schnee
MultimediaMultilingual
yellow smoke curling against a black background
Photo by Олег Жилко on Unsplash
kretek-ing
By Zahid M. Naser
bloodrush like the swell of desire in a room / surging higher and higher to my eyes, craving life
Translated from Malay by Pauline Fan
MultimediaMultilingual
The Monastery of Saint Naum
Fif' from Paris, France, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Near the Shrine of Saint Naum
By Najwan Darwish
I stood in the red church, / its tiny domes like buds / blossoming in stone
Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid
MultimediaMultilingual
sun setting behind a field of grass
Photo by Jake Givens on Unsplash
Anna
By Samira Negrouche
your mother like Mecca is a promised land—you must go there only once
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
MultimediaMultilingual