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Belarus

Sunset over a field with melting snow

Photo by Vitali Adutskevich on Unsplash

Umbilical

By Julia Cimafiejeva

I thought I unburdened / myself / but even invisible / the braid grows / with memory

Translated from Belarusian by Valzhyna Mort & Hanif Abdurraqib

Multilingual

A sprig of berries in shadow

Photo by Dmitry Bukhantsov

A Little Hole

By Alhierd Bacharevič

They stuffed these intoxicating little spheres into their mouths and kissed the juice off of the palms of their hands.

Translated from Belarusian by Jim Dingley & Petra Reid

Shelter in Poems: Poetry to Break the Isolation of Social Distancing

By Words Without Borders

Words Without Borders is leaning into poetry’s ability to fill the void of isolation.

Baudelaire

By Uladzimir Niakliaeu

Your torturer is sleeping because it’s his holiday.

Translated from Belarusian by Valzhyna Mort

Memory of Cranes

By Uladzimir Niakliaeu

Now it shrieks as if somebody were sawing iron: / It’s you! It’s you!

Translated from Belarusian by Valzhyna Mort

A Game

By Uladzimir Niakliaeu

I leaned, picked up the fire, and tossed it / from one hand to the other.

Translated from Belarusian by Valzhyna Mort

From “Ode to The Dove”

By Avrom Sutzkever

Trapped on the lips are sounds, like pearls of forts oceanate

Translated from Yiddish by Zackary Sholem Berger

Parting, a scene

By Dvorah Baron

. . . then the sun began to set.

Translated from Hebrew by Tsipi Keller

“maybe you too sometimes fantasize”

By Valzhyna Mort

maybe you too sometimes fantasizethat god resembles your most difficult teacherthe one who never gave the highest markone day he invites your parents to schooland who knows what he is telling them thereperhaps…

Translated from Belarusian by Franz Wright

“What would I wish for”

By Valzhyna Mort

and the mountains are kneeling like runners at the starting line

Translated from Belarusian by Franz Wright

Men

By Valzhyna Mort

trembling I scatter at their touch / their heartbeats open doors

Translated from Belarusian by Franz Wright

Belarusian

By Valzhyna Mort

this is how love loved to visit us / and snatch us veiled

Translated from Belarusian by Franz Wright

The Wondrous Deer of the Eternal Hunt

By Svetlana Alexievich

He was a wildly lonely person. I loved him.

Translated from Russian by Marian Schwartz

Learn

The Happiness of Also Refusing Happiness

By Avrom Lyesin

Cry of pain exalted sings / I am on fire, and in terror: frost

Translated from Yiddish by Zackary Sholem Berger

Seclusion (from the poem “Kotzk”)

By Arn Tseytlin

The Jew is loneliness.

Translated from Yiddish by Zackary Sholem Berger