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

Poetry

“I don’t carry your picture in my purse”

By Doris Kareva

I don't carry your picture in my purse;

Translated from Estonian by Tiina Aleman

Discovery

even ants tremble at nightfall

Translated from Chinese by Diana Shi & George O’Connell

Landing

Flying over God's mountains, canyons, wastelands

Translated from Chinese by Diana Shi & George O’Connell

Moon

So many things follow us / like the moon, listening for our primal cries.

Translated from Chinese by Diana Shi & George O’Connell

At 30

The first ten years of my life,

Translated from Chinese by Diana Shi & George O’Connell

Almost Parnassus

By Gentian Çoçoli

Now comes the labor of descent.

Translated from Albanian by Erica Weitzman

Underground Flower

There is an orchid that only blooms underground.

Translated from Korean by Won-Chung Kim & Christopher Merrill

White Birds in a Black Space

By Ashur Etwebi

You may walk into the spaces of mildness and obedience / with the rebellious, the dreamers and the scared;

Translated from Arabic by the author

Cutting off a Finger

My mother's finger was cut off / by a slamming door.

Translated from Korean by Won-Chung Kim & Christopher Merrill

How Far Does the Light

That pomegranate lives the same life,

Translated from Korean by Won-Chung Kim & Christopher Merrill

Scale and Stairs

The child reflected in the black sheen of the piano

Translated from Korean by Won-Chung Kim & Christopher Merrill

Tired Theseus

By István László G.

You took down the pale blue garbage bag / with yogurt caps, banana skins, colors

Translated from Hungarian by István Geher

Crying over Light Green

No, the word “green” is hardly adequate.

Translated from Korean by Won-Chung Kim & Christopher Merrill

Crystal-Study

By István László G.

Your neckline, like a glacier / among the ice-slopes of your skin, displays

Translated from Hungarian by István Geher

The Jungle

By István László G.

It was dark like the inside of a / piano,

Translated from Hungarian by István Geher

Aqua Fortis

By István László G.

You don't deserve the Light.

Translated from Hungarian by István Geher

For the Voice of the Psalms

By István László G.

Hide me in the shadow of your wings,

Translated from Hungarian by István Geher

“Idleness Is Often Empowering . . . “

By Doris Kareva

Idleness is often empowering,

Translated from Estonian by Tiina Aleman

Puberty

By Gunnar Harding

was it at the Palace of Sport in 1952? a whole school class

Translated from Swedish by Roger Greenwald

Galaktioni and I

By Terenti Graneli

Yesterday, I was sick, I was dying,

Translated from Georgian by Adam J. Sorkin & Nana Bukhradze

Waiting Room

By Francesc Parcerisas

The love you didn't expect is always more pure.

Translated from Catalan by Lawrence Venuti

Sun in an Empty Room, 1963

By Ernest Farrés

In this bedroom devoid of furniture / and unpolluted the action is set.

Translated from Catalan by Lawrence Venuti

Summer Evening, 1947

By Ernest Farrés

Being a couple is twice the fun.

Translated from Catalan by Lawrence Venuti

Summer in the City, 1949

By Ernest Farrés

The man is looking for trouble,

Translated from Catalan by Lawrence Venuti

Self-Portrait, 1925-1930

By Ernest Farrés

On the spot where I write all this hodgepodge of verses / stands Edward Hopper,

Translated from Catalan by Lawrence Venuti

What Time Is It?

By Galaktion Tabidze

Now, no doubt, the hour must be late . . .

Translated from Georgian by Adam J. Sorkin & Nana Bukhradze

Halfway to a House

By Rosa Alice Branco

I take light from the closet drawers. The first day / of fall.

Translated from Portuguese by Alexis Levitin

A Juicer

So many saints / that they obstruct the heavens.

Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska

The Smells of Evil

The secret agent of order.

Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska

A Splinter

I like you a twenty-year old poet writes to me.

Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska

Indiscretion

Had she busied herself in time

Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska

Colorful hearts and circles over a maroon striped background.

Textile Design with Horizontal Undulating Strips of Pearls with Alternating Offsetting Bundles of Pearls and Heart Shapes over a Background of Alternating Overlapping Scales. Anonymous, Alsatian, 19th century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum Accession, transferred from the Library. Public Domain.

Number One

Ewa Lipska pens an ode to love in a market-driven world.

Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska

The New Century

The new century came as no surprise.

Translated from Polish by Robin Davidson & Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska

Song of Seeing

By Manoel de Barros

Having lived many years in the scrub grass in the way of birds

Translated from Portuguese by Idra Novey

Devotion

By Manoel de Barros

There was a high wall between our houses.

Translated from Portuguese by Idra Novey

I brought flowers . . .

By Ana Paula Tavares

I brought flowers / They're not all white, Mother

Translated from Portuguese by Richard Zenith

Petty Tyrants

By Conceição Lima

Petty tyrants / who founded kingdoms at the foot of their sorrow

Translated from Portuguese by Amanda Hopkinson

The House

By Conceição Lima

Here I wanted my house built.

Translated from Portuguese by Amanda Hopkinson

The Tale of the Sorceress

By Conceição Lima

San Malanzo was old, so old. San Malanzo was poor, so poor.

Translated from Portuguese by Amanda Hopkinson

The Conversation of the Hours

By Alexander Vvedensky

Translated from Russian by Eugene Ostashevsky

Dark Thoughts

By Regina Derieva

I'm almost like that dark hallway

Translated from Russian by Valzhyna Mort

Unity of Form

By Regina Derieva

People zealously granted me headless nails / and spools without thread.

Translated from Russian by Valzhyna Mort

Learn

Ars Poetica

By Roque Dalton

Forgive me for having helped you see

Translated from Spanish by Kelly Washbourne

Bad News on a Scrap of Newspaper

By Roque Dalton

These days when my friends die / only their names die.

Translated from Spanish by Kelly Washbourne

(“Lengua”: María Zambrano)

The word’s dawn is meaning’s nightI walk in springtime. The wild, strange, violent spring. Birdsong. The beginning ofeverything, verdure that seems to levitate. Death with a cig in its long…

Translated from Swedish

(“Analogia”)

This poem could be a faceNot the right one, but the true one. Analogies deal with relationships that hold. ItSpeaks. The poem’s similarity to the face consists, among other things, in the poet’scapacity…

Translated from Swedish

(“Parousía”)

Our time, whyshouldn’t I go backward into the moment with my trembling preferences, my restlessdesire, my thought’s uttermost solitude? When I blinkI usually see my mother, sitting onthe sofa…

Translated from Swedish

from “The Moment for Pindar Is a Small Space in Time”

(Analogia)This poem could be a faceNot the right one, but the true one. Analogies deal with relationships that hold. ItSpeaks. The poem’s similarity to the face consists, among other things, in…

Translated from Swedish

Estuary

By Alexei Parshchikov

Once again, darling, yours is a resinous, intimate whisper.

Translated from Russian by Wayne Chambliss

Illuminations

By Sohrab Sepehri

A cloudless sky,no breath of wind,I sit beside the courtyard pool.The slow stirrings of the goldfish,the radiance and I,the earth and water—Life clusters in a fresh washed bunch. My mother…

Translated from Persian by Jerome W. Clinton

Water

By Sohrab Sepehri

Let’s not muddy the water.Imagine that close by a doveis drinking from it,or in a distant grove a finchis washing its wings in it,or in some village it fills a storage jar. Let’s not…

Translated from Persian by Jerome W. Clinton

Address

By Sohrab Sepehri

In it there is love as wide as the blue wings of true friendship.

Translated from Persian by Jerome W. Clinton

Quasi Sonnet

By Paulo Henriques Britto

There is nothing that leads to nothing.Even to sit in a room, quiet and nudeas Blaise Pascal, will have some effecton Tanzania maybe, or on New Guinea,just as the beating wings of a lepidopter—according…

Translated from Portuguese by Idra Novey

Crimean Sojourns to the Movies

susan sarandonfrom the family felidaedoesn’t like to cryand never crieswe aren’t let into the moviesbut they write, that it’ll be funin the same green chairslike it was 40 years agothe…

Translated from Russian

well hell then what

well hell then whatwhat hell what thenwax with one handleaning with the cheekrubbing with a legshe’s a dyed in the wool pioneerperfect pallor, not a drop of tannot a gram of consciencein a shirt,…

Translated from Russian

How Is One to Hang Up?

By Cathrine Grøndahl

It should be well known that / the voices can be piercing,

Translated from Norwegian by Roger Greenwald

Let the Small Words Come to Me

By Cathrine Grøndahl

Let the small words come to me / Don't let the demanding ones stop them

Translated from Norwegian by Roger Greenwald

Far from Here

By Harry Martinson

I want to send a dream far from here.

Translated from Swedish by Lars Nordstrom

Twenty-two Things Not to Be Trusted

By Håkan Sandell

Twenty-two things not to be trusted: /not night-old ice, not a winter in Skåne

Translated from Swedish by Bill Coyle

The Bonsai’s Boast

I, you mindless fools,am a pint-sized giant.Time passes me by,distance can’t touch me,my breast is pure coral.All I need is water and thirstto decode the book of life.True greatness is in detail.For…

Translated from Spanish