Poetry

Because of a Woman: Two Poems

Dutch poet Babeth Fonchie Fotchind remembers the women in her family and evokes her family’s immigration from Cameroon to the Netherlands in these two poems.

Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison

Photo by Parker Coffman on Unsplash

Ancestors: Two Poems

By Alfred Schaffer

Dutch poet Alfred Schaffer remembers his parents and evokes his Aruban ancestors in these two poems.

Translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison

MultimediaMultilingual

Photo by Owen Yin on Unsplash

Black and White: Three Poems

By Nisrine Mbarki

In these three poems, Nisrine Mbarki contemplates her parents’ life as immigrants in the Netherlands and their tumultuous relationship.

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

Speech and solitude intertwine in this poem by Ukraine’s Iryna Shuvalova.

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

Three short poems by Uyghur poet Imran Sada’i consider how our thoughts and emotions inhabit the world around us.

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

go escape while you can go 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

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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

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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

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

In this poem by Brazilian writer and artist Laura Erber, a professor's digressions lead from the realm of metaphor to mid-sentence fumbles and the prosaic concerns of her students' lives.

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

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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

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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

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[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

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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

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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

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Poetry

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

Linguistic Threads, translated by Barbara Ofosu-Somuah

Cereté, Córdoba

You Will Tell Them

Say to the Tomb

It’s difficult to calculate the influence of the missus of the night

Sinkings

In Human-Made Society