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Poetry

The Cupboard with Strawberry Jam
By Lee Hyemi
If I had a spare season, I would’ve rushed to whisper vulgar words
Translated from Korean by Soje
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Like Any Messiah Taken Unaware by Death
By Aisha al-Saifi
Death is colder than a cup of water on my body, and/ Fonder to me than sand
Translated from Arabic by Robin Moger
Multilingual
Electronic Thorns
By Reem Allawati
Its scent is like infirmity, / This soul
Translated from Arabic by Ghayde Ghraowi
Multilingual
A Life Diverse and a Life Inverse
By Rogério Manjate
my pact with hope is evergreen: / immense this green that makes a heart.
Translated from Portuguese by Sandra Tamele & Eric M. B. Becker
De(s)igns
By Hélder Faife
She tattoos the wavering future / on the bare skinned wall.
Translated from Portuguese by Sandra Tamele & Eric M. B. Becker
From Voids
By Mbate Pedro
and now my eyes are knives slicing the night to / split the mist
Translated from Portuguese by Sandra Tamele & Eric M. B. Becker
The Prayer of the Flame that Sparked the Forest Fire
By M Aan Mansyur
Tell the sad stories to the sky.
Translated from Indonesian by John H. McGlynn
Multilingual
Two people walk through the snow with the sun rising behind mountains in the distance
Tadeáš Gregor, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
From “Aednan”
By Linnea Axelsson
What kind of home is it / where no one dares say / our son’s name
Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel
Multilingual
Interlude
By Mara Lee
He squinted at me, swaying in the wind. Blood or soil, he asked.
Translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel
From “White Monkey”
By Adrian Perera
I say change is always painful, / someone has to be the first.
Translated from Swedish by Christian Gullette
Multilingual
From “Twenty-Five Thousand Miles of Nerves”
By Nino Mick
I want to reside in the hard and permanent / so I construct a suite of poems and a man to live inside
Translated from Swedish by Christian Gullette
Multilingual
From “The Night Inside”
By Djamal Amrani
The slumber at the edge/ of my well of fever
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
Beneath a Pile of Rubble
By Djamal Amrani
Because death is stronger than hunger
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
Minus One
By Samira Negrouche
I would like/ in a faraway language/ to tell you what I don’t/ understand
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
MultimediaMultilingual
A shadowy orange canyon with twisting rock formations
Photo by Peter Forster on Unsplash
In the Shadow of Grenada
By Samira Negrouche
She tells me not to be / a holy land / or a mine of tenderness
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
MultimediaMultilingual
Celebration of the Absent One
By Habib Tengour
The father’s house is a living language/ Open to guests passing through
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
MultimediaMultilingual
The Tartar from the Kremlin
By Habib Tengour
This particular Tartar is unbeatable at cards/ Except for whist (not a game for Tartars)
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Three Poems
By Ricardo Aleixo
A Black man is always somebody's Black man.
Translated from Portuguese by Dan Hanrahan
Multimedia
Four Poems
By Cristiane Sobral
Time, lord of the hours / reigns sovereign
Translated from Portuguese by John Keene
Multilingual
A Chair on a Highway on a Rainy Afternoon
By P.K.
a chair standing by itself on a highway / means its life is over
Translated from Vietnamese by the author
Multilingual
Fragments
By Pháp Hoan
Dissonant music lingers in the bodiless ear of the present tense
Translated from Vietnamese by Kaitlin Rees
Somewhere Better Than This Place Nowhere Better Than This Place
By Nguyễn Hoàng Quyên
We have found in the deterioration of flesh and bones a spiritual liberation
Translated from Vietnamese by the author
Multilingual
The Poem as Epiphyte
By Fady Joudah
Hope in the right place, you said, is hope misplaced
Military Drills
By Lela Samniashvili
Who can escape his own charisma
Translated from Georgian by Mac Dunlop & Natalia Bukia-Peters
MultimediaMultilingual
A Run in My Stocking
By Lela Samniashvili
I know there is the curse of god and the curse of being human
Translated from Georgian by Mac Dunlop & Natalia Bukia-Peters
MultimediaMultilingual
The Children of Beslan (To My Children)
By Irakli Kakabadze
We left toys with wilted smiles on the beds
Translated from Georgian by Mary Childs
MultimediaMultilingual
Seventeen Poems by Iaki Kabe
By Irakli Kakabadze
It had rained, / The lilacs were rejoicing.
Translated from Georgian by Mary Childs
MultimediaMultilingual
This City I Come From
By Agnes Lam
no disputes / chroniclers and chronicled as one / reunification, yes, reunification
Translated from Chinese by Natascha Bruce
Searching for Light
By Yao Feng
The light retires to the lamp / and suddenly all is dark again
Translated from Portuguese by Julia Sanches
Mrs. Robinson at the Hotel Estoril
By Un Sio San
Soaking in time he sees fallen Estoril
Translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang
Multilingual
A metal bowl against a white background
Khalili Collections / CC-BY-SA 3.0 IGO, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, via Wikimedia Commons
“Chhanna,” the Metal Bowl
By Amarjit Chandan
Contemplating a family heirloom, a ruminative Amarjit Chandan finds the past staring back at him.
Translated from Punjabi by Sarabjeet Garcha
Mustard Flowers
By Ajmer Rode
Morning starts / when lights turn green.
Translated from Punjabi by the author
While I Slept
By Navtej Bharati
I will not accept this old age / grafted slyly on my body.
Translated from Punjabi by the author
Nihilism
By Nhã Thuyên
I can’t stand that one the way someone with a chronic sinus infection can’t stand abnormal shifts in weather.
Translated from Vietnamese by Kaitlin Rees
MultimediaMultilingual
[You’re Right]
By Sveta Grigorjeva
you’ve no idea what it means to stand in a sausage line!
Translated from Estonian by Adam Cullen
“Forgetting” & “Home”
By Arvis Viguls
The pawn shop, where we sold your rings, / was shuttered.
Translated from Latvian by Jayde Will
MultimediaMultilingual
from “Clairvoyant in the City of the Blind”
By Amina Saïd
I hope and despair at the same moment
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Two Poems
By Ines Abassi
I / am stolen splendor on a darkened street
Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid
Roadkill
By Hiromi Itō
“Roadkill’s something you get used to seeing in America”
Translated from Japanese by Jeffrey Angles
Multilingual
The Assassin
By Tuhin Das
Still we couldn't stop writing.
Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha
MultimediaMultilingual
from “Latitudes”
By Piedad Bonnett
We searched for the words. We sipped our tea / looking down the bitter well of the past . . .
Translated from Spanish by Ezra E. Fitz
MultimediaMultilingual
“Bird Spirit” and “Handful of Earth”
By Fredy Chicangana
These songs to Mother Earth in a major key / are whispers that come from distant forests
Translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schimel
“Wayuu (II)” and “Roots”
By Vito Apushana
We are life, this way
Translated from Spanish by Lawrence Schimel
I Will Die Young
By Rasul Mīr
Are they more beautiful than me?
Translated from Kashmiri by Sonam Kachru
I Will Not Sing
By Dīna Nāth Nādim
When the thunder of guns tears out the tongue from the nightingale
Translated from Kashmiri by Sonam Kachru
The jewels of my eyes I’ll lay at your feet
By Arinimal
Hyacinth! Lift your head your head from within the mud
Translated from Kashmiri by Neerja Mattoo
Multimedia
Born of earth, I fell into contemplation
By Roop Bhawani
You kindled hope in me. Now fill my cups.
Translated from Kashmiri by Neerja Mattoo
Multimedia
Triptych
By Raquel Lubartowski
It's this: we’re seeking water / Where there is only thirst.
Translated from Spanish by Carolina De Robertis
Hand 3
By Juan Mari Lekuona
Everything—including life— / ends when the hands give up.
Translated from Basque by Amaia Gabantxo
A Memory
By Miren Agur Meabe
Our knees were trusting doves; the ribbons in our hair, delicious bait.
Translated from Basque by Amaia Gabantxo
Multilingual
The Fall of Icarus
By Joseba Sarrionandia
Almost no one cares for the wounds of others.
Translated from Basque by Amaia Gabantxo
Multimedia
Life with a Tiger
By Harkaitz Cano
Hardly anyone comes to visit when you live with a tiger.
Translated from Basque by Amaia Gabantxo
Multilingual
From “Poems”
By Mikhail Eremin
The post-war ruins (Roofs ripped off, / The charred walls.)
Translated from Russian by Alex Cigale
Multilingual
ways of knowing and other poems
By Maria Cabrera
i know the fear in your eyes at dawn. and the crackle of flames, the hidden creaking of the woods, the madness of the birds beating paths in the air.
Translated from Catalan by Mary Ann Newman
Three Poems
By Shamshad Abdullaev
The day was silent to distraction, / only the dog’s growl traveled beyond the window
Translated from Russian by Alex Cigale & Dana Golin
Multilingual
Eddie’s Funeral
By Amarsana Ulzytuev
But his dirty ears are resistant to their tender entreating, / And the thick lips will not stretch from these ears into a smile
Translated from Russian by Alex Cigale
Multilingual
Two Poems
By Francesc Garriga
the voices of a body spent / venture new rhymes, / i can’t fathom what they mean to say
Translated from Catalan by Adrian Nathan West
An Open Wound
By Tanja Bakić
Water drinks me while I drink the water itself.
Translated from Montenegrin by Jim Phelps & Tanja Bakić
MultimediaMultilingual
Time
By Dragana Tripković
Everyone has already said it all about time.
Translated from Montenegrin by Peter Stonelake
Multilingual
Two Poems
By Jovanka Uljarević
A herald will knock on your door / with news about what is yet to come
Translated from Montenegrin by Peter Stonelake
Multilingual