Poetry

An image of a collection of eggs of various sizes.

"Animals of the Past” by Frederic A. Lucas. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Doppelgänger

By Xavier Valcárcel

Xavier Valcárcel considers questions of solitude and care in this dreamlike poem.

Translated from Spanish by Roque Raquel Salas Rivera

Multimedia

A clocktower with a bright blue clock featuring the signs of the zodiac and a roman numeral for...

Photo by Josh Rangel on Unsplash

Me and the Stars

By Soje

Translator and “repentant Aries” Soje views a galaxy of translation and writing stars through an astrological lens in this witty poem.

Photo by Adrian Korte on Unsplash

Unfasten the Silk of Your Silence

By Souad Labbize

Algerian poet Souad Labbize pens a sequence of love poems to the voice of a female singer.

Translated from French by Susanna Lang

MultimediaMultilingual

A woman's hand is reflected in a mirror in this black-and-white photo

Photo by Михаил Секацкий on Unsplash

When Did You Know

By Mariana Spada

In this poem, Argentinian writer Mariana Spada echoes the questions and comments she receives about her trans identity from the people around her.

Translated from Spanish by Robin Myers

Multilingual

Four cloth sheep hang from a child's ceiling mobile

Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

Poem for Children with Trouble Sleeping

By Jean D’Amérique

Jean D’Amérique’s dark twist on the lullaby decries the state of the Haitian government.

Translated from Haitian Creole by Nathan H. Dize

MultimediaMultilingual

Dark coral reefs under aquamarine ocean water

Coral reefs in McBean Lagoon, off the coast of Providencia. Photo by Felviper, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Kriol Soldier

By Emiliana Bernard-Stephenson

These days Kriol is a song many people do not want to sing

Translated from San Andrés–Providencia Creole by the author

MultimediaMultilingual

Photo by Eduardo Barrios on Unsplash

The Last Letter of My Body

By Alex Averbuch

gardens are in bloom: cherries, oranges, mandarins / I talked through three phone cards in three days

Translated from Russian by Anne O. Fisher

Multilingual

Photo by Lute on Unsplash

Because of a Woman: Two Poems

By Babeth Fonchie Fotchind

I would praise your bravery when you were twenty-eight / when you boarded an airbus a330 a child in tow

Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison

Photo by Parker Coffman on Unsplash

Ancestors: Two Poems

By Alfred Schaffer

well you’re right we’re stone dead / nothing to worry about

Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison

MultimediaMultilingual

Photo by Owen Yin on Unsplash

Black and White: Three Poems

By Nisrine Mbarki

they speak different languages but will learn each other’s

Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison

Multilingual

An overhead shot of an empty brick elevator shaft

Paul Sableman, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

vox

By Iryna Shuvalova

I want to speak like a woman who burns a pile of old paper in the street / and the flame dances but you can’t see her face

Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker

Multilingual

black and white drawing of a boy with smoke coming up behind him floating over a red mound

Julia Griffin, "Smoke." Copyright Julia Griffin

Three Poems

By Imran Sada’i

I sit on the shores of emptiness / and watch my soul foaming red

Translated from Uyghur by Joshua L. Freeman

MultimediaMultilingual

Photo by Niels Weiss on Unsplash

vesper

By Iryna Shuvalova

do you see—the trees have gathered at the gates in the twilight

Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker

Multilingual

White foam swirling on a river's surface

Photo by kallern, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I float on worry

By Rania Mamoun

I live on the lip, split / between slipping & holding

Translated from Arabic by Yasmine Seale

Photo by Levi Kyiv on Unsplash

a moving grove

By Iryna Shuvalova

In this poem written a year after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Iryna Shuvalova proposes an aesthetics of escape.

Translated from Ukrainian by Uilleam Blacker

MultimediaMultilingual

Kgbo, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Name Day

By Adam Zagajewski

I wasn’t sure how to pray for the dead / in such tumult, in the shriek of recollection.

Translated from Polish by Clare Cavanagh

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

Even grief now becomes / a kind of delight, or so it seems.

Translated from Gujarati by Meena Desai

Multilingual

Photo via social media

Multilingual

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

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

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

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

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

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 Roque Raquel Salas Rivera

we take to the poem, a miracle with no church, with no witness.

Translated from Spanish by the author

MultimediaMultilingual

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 Roque 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

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

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Poetry

Doppelgänger

Me and the Stars

Unfasten the Silk of Your Silence

When Did You Know

Poem for Children with Trouble Sleeping

Kriol Soldier

The Last Letter of My Body

Because of a Woman: Two Poems

Ancestors: Two Poems

Black and White: Three Poems

vox

Three Poems

vesper

I float on worry

a moving grove

Name Day

All It Seems

Khodanur

Day by Day

Ahmedabad

The Strength of Water

Umbilical

Spring

To Loved Ones

The Making of Tenderness

Anna

Two Poems

Near the Shrine of Saint Naum

kretek-ing

Throwing Voices

who were these goddesses

poets per square foot

[The sea swarms. Your shout extends]

Embers Fed

Onto Dust We Shall Come

verses of circumstance

Ligature Marks

Seventh Scene

The Lights of the Donbas

Exile Poem

February 23, 2022

Until the Threads Burn to Ash

There’s No Getting Out

The Water Freezes

Children of the Xam

Affirm

I Lift My Eyes Up

scratch cards

Eyes of the Wave

Mr. Marcos (A Soliloquy)

Pantun

The Land of Our Lives

My Beloved Lady

Macau, Our Homeland

Afroinsularity

[0]

Monsoon Fable

Poem in June

Linguistic Threads, translated by Alta L. Price

Linguistic Threads, translated by Candice Whitney