A witch gave you a pair of legs
(and other things I won’t mention).
Satisfied with your new body, you set off
for dry land. It was August and nobody
was surprised to see you on the beach,
naked and smiling
Featured Translation
Two Poems by Luis Alberto de Cuenca
Concerning My Daughter by Kim Hye-jin
translated from the Korean by Jamie Chang,
reviewed by Jacqueline Schaalje
The daring viewpoint of a homophobe widow makes for a toe-curling, but also hopeful read in the riveting Korean bestseller by Kim Hye-jin, Concerning My Daughter, dealing with the loneliness and ostracism of a lesbian couple and a single elderly woman.
The Poem Under Gag by Abdellatif Laâbi
translated from the French by Allan and Guillemette Johnston
Hello sunshine of my country
how good it is to be alive today
so much light
so much light around me
Of Bad Borders by Mohammad-Ali Sepanlou
translated from the Persian by Siavash Saadlou
I am writing of the morning of fair dreams,
of the dancing of your hands; those beautiful
lithe hands that hoist before the new morning…
Two poems from Mes forêts (My Forests) by Hélène Dorion
translated from the French by Susanna Lang
we hear the song
of fracture and desire
body like the tide going out
pale boat
lost in its night
Winter by Jasna Dimitrijević
translated from the Serbian by John K. Cox
Since I moved away to a bigger city, I seldom come back home. Only for holidays and the anniversaries of a few people’s deaths.
The Street of Dolphins by Mujib Mehrdad
translated from the Dari by Sholeh Wolpé
How I wish the sea would come
visit the streets of Kabul and bring
all its fish, no matter what their color.
Islands by Elena Varvello,
translated from the Italian by Jennifer Panek
On dark days, days when she thought there was really nothing important to be done, she had the impression that for women like herself, the world might just keep shrinking down until it was small enough to fit into a shopping list. And then everything would seem to contract, to the point where she couldn’t breathe any more, as if the walls and the ceiling were closing in on her…
Three Poems by Argyris Stavropoulos
translated from the Greek by Gigi Papoulias
“At last moving day has arrived.
From today, another house, indeed more spacious and airy
drenched in nonnegotiable sunlight, will accommodate me
and all the things the movers are struggling to carry…”
Answer Yes Or No by Khairi Hamdan
translated from the Bulgarian by Katerina Stoykova
Answer the call of the flute—
the lost impulse of the absent poets,
the incomplete painting, the unrained cloud,
the prophecy of an upcoming confession—
