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Poetry

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
The Sewing Machine
By Aman Mirzai
Mother is the needle's thread.
Translated from Dari by Zuzanna Olszewska
Multilingual
Dolorès
By Christine Germain
Where hard veins wake up on a mattress of abandonment.
Translated from French by Jonathan Kaplansky
Multilingual
From “The Window of Time”
By Hélène Dorion
Shadows crash across the flesh of houses
Translated from French by Jonathan Kaplansky
Multilingual
An Uncoincidence, a Noncoincidence
By Larissa Miller
Someone rushes to a house that's been moved away.
Translated from Russian by Richard McKane
LearnMultilingual
Crossing
By Habib Tengour
Noon is an extravagant abyss.
Translated from French by Marilyn Hacker
From the Deep Earth
By Nguyen Phan Que Mai
Your gaze opens the sky. The sun rises and forgets to set.
Translated from Vietnamese by Nguyen Phan Que Mai & Bruce Weigl
Freeing Myself
By Nguyen Phan Que Mai
The wind hands me a pair of wings and tells me to free myself from wings.
Translated from Vietnamese by Nguyen Phan Que Mai & Bruce Weigl
Thangara
By Cobbin Dale
He roamed the land eating men.
Translated from Yindjibarndi by Shon Arieh-Lerer
Rooms and Gardens
By Grzegorz Wróblewski
They will greet you with mysterious / smiles, those who were there before you.
Translated from Polish by Agnieszka Pokojska
Multilingual
Oyacachi
By Ulises Estrella
The uncertainty spread: / who will watch over those without eyes? / ears?
Translated from Spanish by David Backer
El Terrible
By Ulises Estrella
Life is postponed defeat / victory is death by an authentic hand.
Translated from Spanish by David Backer
Pedestrian of Quito
By Ulises Estrella
Impossible to live with dead citizens / noosed to the floor of a stage
Translated from Spanish by David Backer
The Amigo
By Ioan Es. Pop
He’s so drunk he can hardly stand and he’s bruised all over.
Translated from Romanian by Adam J. Sorkin & Lidia Vianu
The Boy in the Cave
By Ko Un
When night fell he kept company with ghosts
Translated from Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé & Lee Sang-Wha
A Monk with No Name
By Ko Un
Buddha, don’t stay in a temple like this.
Translated from Korean by Brother Anthony of Taizé & Lee Sang-Wha
Connection
By Forugh Farrokhzad
I sensed my skin crack from love’s dilating joy.
Translated from Persian by Sholeh Wolpé
Learn
Desert Lights
By Murathan Mungan
Before winter arrives you must / hire a handsome assassin
Translated from Turkish by Aron Aji
From “23”
By Shams Langeroody
The sky is torn in shreds, and song and light / gush from its heart.
Translated from Persian by Zara Houshmand
Sunshine in the Closet
By Granaz Moussavi
They become little stars and screech at the night
Translated from Persian by Zara Houshmand
Changing
By Akhtar Ul-Iman
In this teeming city, is there none / Who might recognize me?
Translated from Urdu by M. A. R. Habib
Our City
By Makhdum Moinuddin
In its houses, corpses have stayed for years / renting.
Translated from Urdu by M. A. R. Habib
You’re Where You’ve Always Been
By Azra Abbas
Standing before a poster of Marilyn Monroe / Unbidden I salute her beauty.
Translated from Urdu by Muhammad Umar Memon