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Poetry

Illuminated highways in Kyiv at night
Photo by Levi Kyiv on Unsplash
a moving grove
By Iryna Shuvalova
One year after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, poet Iryna Shuvalova proposes an aesthetics of escape.
Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker
MultimediaMultilingual
Rows of headstones in a cemetery
Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Name Day
By Adam Zagajewski
Clare Cavanagh remembers the Polish poet Adam Zagajewski and translates a poem from his final collection “True Life,” out this week from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh
A colored floral illustration on paper
Detail of “Leopard Bearing Lion's Order to Fellow Judges", Folio 51 recto from a Kalila wa Dimna. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Alice and Nasli Heeramaneck Collection, Gift of Alice Heeramaneck, 1981
All It Seems
By Befaam
Meena Desai translates a Gujarati ghazal by Befaam about love and appearances.
Translated from Gujarati by Meena Desai
Multilingual
a barefoot man chained to a post
Photo via social media
Khodanur
By Mahdi Ganjavi
Oh Khodanur, / Your half-finished dance / Makes walking on earth unjust.
Translated from Persian by the author
A black wire bird against a colorful background
Photo via Khashayar “Kes” Mohammadi
Day by Day
By Saeed Tavanaee Marvi
The little girl told her mother: / I wish my hair was made of fire
Translated from Persian by Khashayar “Kes” Mohammadi
Tree of life carving at the Sidi Saiyyed Mosque
Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Ahmedabad
By Bharat Trivedi
Those days of leaping carefree into the Sabarmati / Are long gone
Translated from Gujarati by Mira Desai
A large wave crashes in a stormy ocean
Photo by Todd Turner on Unsplash
The Strength of Water
By Gawani Gaongen
“Do not make the water angry,” they say.
Translated from Kankanaey by the author
Multilingual
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
Two swallows in flight
Photo by Julian on Unsplash
Spring
By Nga Ba
Dreams, denied, / turned into maps.
Translated from Burmese by ko ko thett
Photo of a man walking alongside his bike on a tree-lined path
Photo by Akshat Vats on Unsplash
To Loved Ones
By Jayesh Jeevibahen Solanki
The bazaar reveals this to us: / I sell / Get sold / Someone buys me / and I buy someone else
Translated from Gujarati by Gopika Jadeja
A black and white image of a hairbrush with an engraved handle
Photo by Michèle C., licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The Making of Tenderness
By Lyuba Yakimchuk
and where do they make this tenderness / as the war rages on around them?
Translated from Ukrainian by Oksana Maksymchuk
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
Vibrant green northern lights against a dark sky
Photo by Federico Bottos on Unsplash
Two Poems
By Rönn-Lisa Zakrisson
Show me to those southerners / Tell them about all the tongues that are mine / all the nature that’s mine
Translated from Swedish by Fiona Graham
Multilingual
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
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
A close-up of a threaded needle
Photo by Sunbeam Photography on Unsplash
Throwing Voices
By Linnea Axelsson
With this needle she can create anew what would otherwise disappear.
Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel
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
Etching of The Rape of Caenis from Ovid's 'Metamorphoses' by Antonio Tempesta
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1951
poets per square foot
By Raquel Salas Rivera
we take to the poem, a miracle with no church, with no witness.
Translated from Spanish by the author
MultimediaMultilingual
A dock extending into the ocean
Photo by Nikita Castro on Unsplash
[The sea swarms. Your shout extends]
By Claudia Becerra
How likable the island when it isn’t / more than a door that opens outward.
Translated from Spanish by Jacqui Cornetta
A burning match against a blue background
Photo by Gift Habeshaw on Unsplash
Embers Fed
By Xavier Valcárcel
My mother and I will burn it all.
Translated from Spanish by Raquel Salas Rivera
Dramatic clouds over a mountain and ocean in Puerto Rico
Photo by Rick Lipsett on Unsplash
Onto Dust We Shall Come
By Manuel Ramos Otero
I return to the world as I depart, / having birthed another phantom, / a dweller of nebulous coasts, / a brief enemy of metaphors.
Translated from Spanish by Cristina Pérez Díaz
White and yellow filter on empty blue swimming pool wall without water
Photo by Antonio Jiménez Macías on Unsplash
verses of circumstance
By Laura Erber
sometimes i don’t want to be saved
Translated from Portuguese by Pedro Vainer
A woman's mouth, chin, and neck
Photo by Pan Yunbo on Unsplash
Ligature Marks
By Lee Hyemi
The interplay of night and day. Deception and falsity.
Translated from Korean by Soje
Multilingual
A silhouette of a man looking at his phone
Photo by Warren Wong on Unsplash
Seventh Scene
By Maria Borio
In the third scene we talk / motionless across a screen in the ether
Translated from Italian by Danielle Pieratti
The Lights of the Donbas
By Danyil Zadorozhnyi
then there’s the war / that flabby, shriveled, animal word “war”
Translated from Russian by Yuliya Charnyshova & Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
Exile Poem
By Tuhin Das
Afterwards, heads of hushed army snipers / pop up on every rooftop.
Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha
February 23, 2022
By Danyil Zadorozhnyi
“second time I’ve lost my home,” she utters with hatred / “officially, this time”
Translated from Ukrainian by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler & Yuliya Charnyshova
Until the Threads Burn to Ash
By Aleksey Porvin
Hold an assault rifle with my hand, use my mouth
Translated from Russian by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler
There’s No Getting Out
By Olga Bragina
we won't recognize this city anymore
Translated from Russian by Elina Alter
Multilingual
The Water Freezes
By Alla Gorbunova
Your cheeks are pinked with Parnassus rose.
Translated from Russian by Elina Alter
Children of the Xam
By Khadija Tracey Heeger
Watch Khadija Tracey Heeger read her poem “Children of the Xam” in the original Kaaps.Poet Khadija Tracey Heeger honors a rich and complex heritage.Between the vertebrae of the Langeberg…
Translated from Kaaps by Olivia M. Coetzee & Khadija Tracey Heeger
Multilingual
Affirm
By Martin SIEP Muller
Watch the music video for “Affirm” performed by SIEP, in the original Kaaps.This rap performance by SIEP uplifts and speaks truth.I affirm the soul in each personI affirm the soul in each…
Translated from Kaaps by Andre Trantraal
Multilingual
I Lift My Eyes Up
By Nashville Blaauw
Where moving out is mostly in a coffin
Translated from Kaaps by Andre Trantraal
scratch cards
By Shirmoney Rhode
and that which has no use will be discarded
Translated from Kaaps by Andre Trantraal
Multilingual
Eyes of the Wave
By Francis C. Macansantos
Eyes of blue-green watch you, / Dimpled smiles hidden in water.
Translated from Zamboangueño Chavacano by the author
MultimediaMultilingual
Mr. Marcos (A Soliloquy)
By Francis C. Macansantos
The moon taunts, smiles, / “Come into my parlor, old man.”
Translated from Zamboangueño Chavacano by the author
MultimediaMultilingual
Pantun
By Nironjini Pillay, Shagina Bhalan, Nadarajan Mudalier & Mahendran Pillay
We are known as the Chetti of Melaka, / Guardians of tradition and culture.
Translated from Chetti Malay by Nurul Huda Hamzah & Stefanie Shamila Pillai
MultimediaMultilingual
The Land of Our Lives
By Magin Mario Balthazaar
The fish sing over here, / The fish sing.
Translated from Sri Lanka Portuguese by Hugo C. Cardoso
MultimediaMultilingual
My Beloved Lady
By Magin Mario Balthazaar
There will be no trouble, life will be good, / Come and dance the káfriinha.
Translated from Sri Lanka Portuguese by Hugo C. Cardoso
MultimediaMultilingual
Macau, Our Homeland
By H. Miguel de Senna Fernandes
A tiny land of a thousand wonders / A flower for anyone in grief
Translated from Patuá by the author
MultimediaMultilingual
Afroinsularity
By Conceição Lima
They left the islands a legacy / of hybrid words and gloomy plantations
Translated from Portuguese by Shook
MultimediaMultilingual
[0]
By Lauri García Dueñas
to the rain looming over mexico city open your jaws for us make kids laugh dogs bark
Translated from Spanish by Olivia Lott
MultimediaMultilingual
Monsoon Fable
By Jack Malik
frog cries saturate. life inundates. crane stares blacken. death curdles. ancestral winds whirl.
Translated from Malay by Thira Mohamad
MultimediaMultilingual
Poem in June
By T. Alias Taib
a field stretches, a pilgrim shuffles in despair
Translated from Malay by Eddin Khoo
MultimediaMultilingual
Linguistic Threads, translated by Alta L. Price
By Rahma Nur
Afro-Italian poet Rahma Nur describes her experience as a member of a diaspora living in Italy, noting how language marks the body and how it shapes one’s sense of loss.As you make headwaybetween…
Translated from Italian by Alta L. Price
MultimediaMultilingual
Linguistic Threads, translated by Candice Whitney
By Rahma Nur
Afro-Italian poet Rahma Nur describes her experience as a member of a diaspora living in Italy, noting how language marks the body and how it shapes one’s sense of loss.In the step that you takeBetween…
Translated from Italian by Candice Whitney
MultimediaMultilingual
Linguistic Threads, translated by Barbara Ofosu-Somuah
By Rahma Nur
Afro-Italian poet Rahma Nur describes her experience as a member of a diaspora living in Italy, noting how language marks the body and how it shapes one’s sense of loss.In that step you takebetween…
Translated from Italian by Barbara Ofosu-Somuah
MultimediaMultilingual
Cereté, Córdoba
By Raúl Gómez Jattin
I love you all even more in exile
Translated from Spanish by Katherine M. Hedeen & Olivia Lott
You Will Tell Them
By Mariem Mint Derwich
You will say to them that she sleeps in the calabash of worlds
Translated from French by Emma Ramadan
Multilingual
Say to the Tomb
By Bios Diallo
Here the poem ends
Translated from French by Emma Ramadan
Multilingual
It’s difficult to calculate the influence of the missus of the night
By Bergrún Anna Hallsteinsdóttir
it’s difficult to appraise the unseeable
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
Multimedia
Sinkings
By Haukur Ingvarsson
the glacier is black / polar bears run on hot sand
Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich
Multimedia
In Human-Made Society
By Eva Rún Snorradóttir
In order to get a visa, they had to explain to him how two women went about having sex.
Translated from Icelandic by Larissa Kyzer
Essays, or the Opening and Closing of the Okra Flowers During the Eclipse
By Alba Cid
The work of German photographer Karl Blossfeldt and his relationship to plants is reimagined in this poem by 2019 Poems in Translation Contest winner Alba Cid from her collection Atlas.Light is choral…
Translated from Galician by Megan Berkobien & Jacob Rogers
Multilingual
[My mother works in a cannery]
By Luisa Castro
A mother-daughter conversation and a child's search for her origins lead from the grandiose to the dreary in this poem by Luisa Castro.My mother works in a cannery.One day my mother said to me:love…
Translated from Galician by Laura Cesarco Eglin
Multilingual
Stress
By Antón Lopo
I suspect something in Kinue / reminds him of his own life.
Translated from Galician by Erín Moure
This, I Don’t Know
By Samuel Solleiro
These are the years directly preceding the onset of vulnerability.
Translated from Galician by Neil Anderson
Letter to Ukraine
By Danyil Zadorozhnyi
Like the border between the word leave / and the concept of returning
Translated from Russian by Isaac Stackhouse Wheeler & Reilly Costigan-Humes
blurry image of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in St. Petersburg behind a canal
Murashko olga, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
About Time to Smile at Homeless People
By Dinara Rasuleva
Dinara Rasuleva questions received notions of home and national identity in this poem about her relationship to Russia.
Translated from Russian by Hilah Kohen
Multilingual
Three Observations, Untitled
By Ksenia Zheludova
The most horrible things, remember this, are incremental.
Translated from Russian by Josephine von Zitzewitz
MultimediaMultilingual
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