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Poetry

Deus ex Machina
By José Mármol
Throw the dice, Lord, your turn has inevitably come.
Translated from Spanish by Erica Mena
Multilingual
From the Grave of My Grave
By José María Lima
stalker-yesterday says slowly / my death has not begun
Translated from Spanish by Erica Mena
Multilingual
Women’s Fantasies
By Suzanne Dracius
You’ll have no cause for complaint / You’ll be sated
Translated from French by Nancy Naomi Carlson
Multilingual
Invention of the Day
By José Mármol
thursday the man who invented death with his blood rested on a rock.
Translated from Spanish by Erica Mena
Multilingual
Bird’s Nest
By Aurora Arias
the honied bodies of whores / hold all the men.
Translated from Spanish by Erica Mena
Multilingual
lithograph
By Sjón
Marie was alone there and showed the painter how she and Pierre / wrestled with radium
Translated from Icelandic by David McDuff
The moon is visible in the pink sky over a snowy mountain valley and frozen river
Photo by Daiwei Lu on Unsplash
solstice
By Sjón
The earth (like the heart) leans back in its seat
Translated from Icelandic by David McDuff
Patriotic Poem
By Gerdur Kristný
The cold makes me / a lair from fear.
Translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
Multilingual
Skagafjörður
By Gerdur Kristný
I try to be / kind to the children / so they’ll tend my grave
Translated from Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
Multilingual
January 19th
By Sigurbjorg Þrastardottir
She says / she’s preparing herself.
Translated from Icelandic by T. Zachary Cotler
Multilingual
Three Women Poets
By Peter Constantine
A man in a pirate sweater / comes in through the door
Translated from Icelandic by the author
Your Dog
By Yu Xiang
A dog learns to run forward with a lighter in its mouth
Translated from Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Multilingual
four creaking wheels
By Sindri Freysson
perhaps they’re kindling the ovens at the crematorium.
Translated from Icelandic by Martin Regal
Multilingual
Dessert
By Kristín Ómarsdottir
You have all sucked at my breasts.
Translated from Icelandic by Peter Constantine
A Beethoven Chronology
By Yu Jian
Mozart says / keep your eye on this Beethoven / he’s going to rock the world
Translated from Chinese by Steve Bradbury
Multilingual
Immanuel Kant
By Yu Jian
Even god was still dreaming
Translated from Chinese by Steve Bradbury
Multilingual
Soul
By Hsia Yü
We were quite bewitched and forgot to ask her what the afterlife was like
Translated from Chinese by Steve Bradbury
Multilingual
Café Borges
By Sigurbjorg Þrastardottir
Up and down the hill the dead pass, patting the café wall.
Translated from Icelandic by T. Zachary Cotler
Multilingual
For Antonio Gamoneda
By Juan Antonio Masoliver Ródenas
Maestro, I said, tell me, / reveal to me the secret of poetry.
Translated from Spanish by Samantha Schnee
Multilingual
For Álvaro Pombo
By Juan Antonio Masoliver Ródenas
Because we lived in brothels / and in dungeons
Translated from Spanish by Samantha Schnee
Multilingual
For Eugenio Montejo
By Juan Antonio Masoliver Ródenas
That night / Of Greek drunkenness/ In a Berlin tavern
Translated from Spanish by Samantha Schnee
Multilingual
I Wish I Had a Master
By Julia Fiedorczuk
for one stray word / would mean the fall of kingdoms
Translated from Polish by Benjamin Paloff
On Tao Qian
By Nachoem M. Wijnberg
He writes the way someone who is no longer impatient speaks.
Translated from Dutch by David Colmer
Multilingual
Alterity
By Jacek Dehnel
There’s no such thing as comfort for unhappy men.
Translated from Polish by Benjamin Paloff
Multilingual
only i am
By Justyna Bargielska
only i am cruelty-free
Translated from Polish by Katarzyna Szuster
Timon vs. Newton
By Christopher Kontonikolis
By Zeus, do you know how to bring owls to Athens!
Translated from Ancient Greek by Andrew Barrett
Multilingual
An impressionist oil painting of a country house with trees and a garden in front of it.
"Spring in France" (1890) by Robert William Vonnoh. Wirt D. Walker Fund. Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago. Public Domain.
Adjectival Poem
By Piotr Sommer
Amazing spring, warm, humid / and full of backlit trees.
Translated from Polish by W. Martin & Christian Hawkey
Multilingual
Du Fu
By Nachoem M. Wijnberg
Every word Du Fu uses, he read somewhere.
Translated from Dutch by David Colmer
Multilingual
Bugging
By Piotr Sommer
All the hazel eyes are rotting now underground.
Translated from Polish by W. Martin & Christian Hawkey
Multilingual
Su Dongpo and the Trick he says he Learned from Tao Qian
By Nachoem M. Wijnberg
More to see left and right than he can list.
Translated from Dutch by David Colmer
Multilingual
Utensils Shrink
By Piotr Sommer
Verbs swell before your eyes or / burst their seams.
Translated from Polish by W. Martin & Christian Hawkey
Multilingual
Timoniad
By Christopher Kontonikolis
Hard as he tried, he could not save himself.
Translated from Ancient Greek by Andrew Barrett
Multilingual
Old-Fashioned
By Edward Pasewicz
And then she died on us, utterly.
Translated from Polish by Benjamin Paloff
Multilingual
Main Character
By Frederik Bjerre Andersen
His face is a baby’s bottom. And yet. Not.
Translated from Danish by Morten Høi Jensen
Multilingual
The Fountain
By Aïcha Arnaout
Rags of screams, a flight of black cloth.
Translated from French by Cécile Oumhani
Multilingual
A Telephone Conversation
By Rune Christiansen
You were unique, like / we all are unique.
Translated from Norwegian by Agnes Scott Langeland
Multilingual
Impromptu
By Rune Christiansen
When the snow covers your grave you have forgotten the snow.
Translated from Norwegian by Agnes Scott Langeland
Multilingual
From “The Horse Eaters”
By Thomas Boberg
The doorkeeper sniffs out your presence.
Translated from Danish by Morten Høi Jensen
Multilingual
1956
By Gunnar Harding
The shadow-play of thoughts / exposed what words concealed.
Translated from Swedish by Roger Greenwald
Multilingual
Path of Light
By Amina Saïd
I crawled to your lips across a bed of thorns
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
The Mothers
By Amina Saïd
Our second home is built / in the avenue of death, say the mothers
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Multilingual
Alaska
By Horacio Castillo
Three times I’ve offered my heart as bait.
Translated from Spanish by Samuel Gray
Multilingual
The White Breast, the Black Breast
By Horacio Castillo
My mother had a white breast and a black breast.
Translated from Spanish by Samuel Gray
Multilingual
Vigils
By Ernesto Mejía Sánchez
I no longer know / whether I live / or swoon.
Translated from Spanish by William Carlos Williams
Multilingual
Certain Suspicions
By Tarek Eltayeb
The glass in the windows will burst.
Translated from German by Wolfgang Astelbauer
Multilingual
With March’s Moon the Photo
By Olvido García Valdés
Slow, the moon / returns month by month
Translated from Spanish by the author
Multilingual
I Call You Tunisia
By Tahar Bekri
How the dream had lost its plumage / In the skies of your nest.
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
Epistle
By Horacio Castillo
The blind have been chosen to see it all.
Translated from Spanish by Samuel Gray
Multilingual
My Lot in the Days of the Lord
By Tarek Eltayeb
Yet the sun has been gone for months / And I have no veil to delude me
Translated from Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid
Multilingual
The Rook, the Crow, the Magpie
By Olvido García Valdés
In order to walk lost in thought each could /become a talker.
Translated from Spanish by Catherine Hammond
Multilingual
The City of the Sun
By Horacio Castillo
How could they suffer us to name the bird magnolia?
Translated from Spanish by Samuel Gray
Multilingual
O My Libya
By Laila Neihoum
When Nowhere’s left for you we’ll take your place.
Translated from Arabic by Sumaya Jirde Ali
Multilingual
She
By Prema Revathi
Love sowed its blue stars / On our private night
Translated from Tamil by A. Mangai
I am I
By Tanikawa Shuntaro
Because even after being forgotten I cannot fade away
Translated from Japanese by Peter Constantine
Passing Through Seongeup Village
By Lee Si-Young
I gaze into a horse’s virtuous eyes
Translated from Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé & Yoo Hui-Sok
Multilingual
Writing Poems without Meaning
By Ynhui Park
Sham-seeming life / gauze-mask-like thoughts
Translated from Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé
Multilingual
A Couple’s Old Sutra
By Yang Jian
people on two banks / change batch after batch / like summer fireflies
Translated from Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Multilingual
Narratives of 1960
By Yang Jian
Those who ordered her to kneel on snail shells / are mostly dead
Translated from Chinese by Fiona Sze-Lorrain
Multilingual
Take a Number on Saturdays
By Zahra Hosseinzadeh
Pull the moon or a star out of her sleeve.
Translated from Dari by Zuzanna Olszewska
Multilingual
The Destiny of a Leaf
By Qanbar Ali Tabesh
A man has the destiny of a leaf.
Translated from Dari by Zuzanna Olszewska
Multilingual