Poetry Archives - Page 2 of 99 - Words Without Borders

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

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

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

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

A blue and yellow ceramic bowl in the shape of an ocean wave.

Wave bowl attributed to Christopher Dresser, ca. 1880. Glazed earthenware. Public domain, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Purchase, James David Draper Gift, in memory of Robert Isaacson, 2001.

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

Palm trees and other foliage against heavy, dark gray clouds

Ramesh Kunnappully, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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

An aerial view of wooded green islands in a large river

Aerial view of the Congo River near Kisangani. Photo by MONUSCO/Myriam Asmani, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Two Poems

By Fiston Mwanza Mujila

I don’t live in exile / exile lives in me

Translated by J. Bret Maney

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

A wrecked wooden ship lying on its side, half-buried in the sand

Photo by Tradd Harter on Unsplash

Sinkings

By Haukur Ingvarsson

the glacier is black / polar bears run on hot sand

Translated from Icelandic by Meg Matich

Multimedia

Medical tools hang on the wall in a doctor's office.

Unsplash

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

Love is a work of art in a can.

Translated from Galician by Laura Cesarco Eglin

Multilingual

Renfe’s Middle Distance train sits on the tracks at a station in Vigo, Galicia.

Flickr

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

In Puget Sound

By Isabel Zapata

before their paths divided, they formed, together, three glints of light and shadow moving on at last

Translated from Spanish by Robin Myers

Elephant

By Yu Jian

O, it is a defeated god, approaching the dusk of time.

Translated from Chinese by Xin Xu

Birds in Flight, 1965

By Enrique Villasis

Not as a multitude, but as one.

Translated from Filipino by Bernard Capinpin

MultimediaMultilingual

Brown steel bell hanging from a mint-green wooden wall

Photo by Luís Perdigão on Unsplash

Trial Run

By Yau Ching

nothing is certain but and taxes

Translated from Chinese by Chenxin Jiang

MultimediaMultilingual

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Poetry

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

Two Poems

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

Essays, or the Opening and Closing of the Okra Flowers During the Eclipse

[My mother works in a cannery]

Stress

This, I Don’t Know

Letter to Ukraine

About Time to Smile at Homeless People

Three Observations, Untitled

In Puget Sound

Elephant

Birds in Flight, 1965

Trial Run