If the squirrels were to devour your eyes Modigliani would bring you to life in one of his paintings. For the next poem in this sequence, click here.

Note: This poem was originally written in Mazateco.IFour hundred zontles in the distance.Four hundred leagues toward infinity,light, darkness, shapes.The voice of the wise man reaches far,the singer,…

Where do you go, Marías, where do you go?

Note: This poem was originally written in Yucatecan Maya.The owl is here.He perches on the wall. And meditates.Whose death does he announceif no one lives in this village?The fossils of the peopledo not…

There is a place in the Universe / where the memory of time / is recorded.

This poem from an indigenous Purépecha author celebrates the heroism of a seemingly ordinary woman.

Forgetting is like leaves. Some fall others are born. They stop being leaves only when the tree stops being a tree. For the next poem in this sequence, click here.

The landscape is effective. We’re calling out the hills.Echoes want untwining. We’re drawing water from fountains.A half-open window. The half-closed sea.The rest just flickers andwe are taking…

Note: This poem was originally written in Zapoteco. They say that the ancient Zapotecs came down from the clouds. The center of the sky was their home. Very old men, very old women and a great number…

The vampire bats and I were waiting for the coming of the night to play with the stars on the patio of the moon. For the next poem in this sequence, click here.  

— What are those things that shine in the sky, — I asked my mother. — Bees, she answered Every night since then, my eyes eat honey. For the next poem in this sequence, click here. The…

Note: This poem was originally written in Zapoteco. To speak, to say yes to the night; To say yes to the darkness. With whom to speak, what to say if there is no one in this house and so alone, I hear…

Note: This poem was originally written in Zapoteco. I am like a solitary star shining in the sky, and I do not need another to glitter.  

Note: This poem was originally written in Zapoteco. I am like an otter when he crosses the rivers and the sea, I do not need a ship to sail.  

Note: This poem was originally written in Yucatecan Maya. Do you remember the days when we were young? Do you remember those afternoons in January when I visited your house? Those nights, at the door,…

Note: This poem was originally written in Zapoteco. It was first published in Valencia, Spain, in 1607. Fray Gregorio had heard the story from Zapotecs. The work is a fragment. The name 1-deer, referring…

Earl Shorris and Sylvia Sasson Shorris prosent a new translation of this Classical Náhuatl poem from the sixteenth century.

There were many stars in the pool; I asked my father to take them out. He transferred the water drop by drop and put them in my hands. At dawn I wanted to see if he had really taken them out. And it was…

It has been years, many years, since cats learned to look after little girls. If some bothersome spirit comes near, the cats bristle, give a jump, and the evil spirits are gone. For the next poem in this…

Note: This poem was originally written in Zapoteco. To travel the seas of silence becoming nothing in the foam as if the body could have no meaning. The eyes attached to a ship, and the fate in the balance…

Note: This poem was originally written in Zapoteco. My chatty little girl: pile up your words, cut your words into pieces and anoint me with them to see if they can soothe the pain I feel now. My chatty…

Now and thenI walk backwards.It is my way of remembering.If I only walked forward,I could tell youabout forgetting.This last poem in this sequence was originally published in Guchachi 'Reza' 'Iguana…

Note: There are fewer than 100 fluent Comanche speakers in the world today.A long time agowhen animalscould talk,the languageof the peoplewas spoken,sweet—like sugar.Today, few speakComanche,its…

My own joy in working for Words Without Borders is a chance to discover new voices-the thrill of finding a poet or translator whose music changes the way I view the world, the way I breathe, if only for a moment.

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…

Or do we all, Baghdad, / belong to the executioner?

An anthologist from Berlin asks me / for poems new or recognized:

Arcades: steps toward the sun. / Stone crossbeams with figures of griffins and nereids.

Peat bog, fossilized air, loops of an evening sky.

I find the trace of your teeth in the foreign town.

From unexpiated sins / poems are born

The sea's color is green. / The white sand is stained with blood.

Uh huh says the streetcar, or it seems to say.

Only when I turned it over on its other side did I see that the heavy sandstone circle which looked like the top half of a mill

Sun in your eyes, craving on your lips

and the mountains are kneeling like runners at the starting line

Remember the very first time you did it / tough wasn't the word.

That the book that you were reading at your chair / is now opened again in the darkness

Weeks spent. a month / devoted to the study of a detail

Her house in the middle of spring. / Ribbons in girls' hair, a smell of starch.

Good night

A boy stood on a narrow balcony / in the afternoon: autumn was moving

You are paid to be a murderer.

trembling I scatter at their touch / their heartbeats open doors

I peel potatoes, stroke you on the head, pick up a leaf

I put off three dreams about father until later

I lose verbs most quickly, nouns are left,

exactly the forehead, exactly the mouth, exactly the hands

four drab women / Want Hardship Worry Guilt

you have no name, no place

if I only possessed a sunlit room / for sure I'd rid myself of my foes

And once again / the past begins

The blue winter sky like a stone on which angels

Over the principality a cloud of snores rises, red as a cauldron.

the day is shorter / the sundial stands

The real renaissance of angels came with the development of airline companies.

my gray zone / is starting to include poetry

she secured the halo on the top of her head

Like a clumsy bumblebee / he alights on a flower

The question about this fact-free life brimming / with great notions is, can you live up to it?