we hear the song
of fracture and desire
body like the tide going out
pale boat
lost in its night
Featured Translation
Two poems from Mes forêts (My Forests) by Hélène Dorion
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—
From Decarceration by Charline Lambert
Translated from the French by John Taylor
Before grasping, taking
the pulse,
consider the litigation
Montale and Martins
Translated by Richard Price
Haul your paper ships up the scorched shore
and then sleep, little-boy captain –
may you never hear the evil spirits
sailing now in flocks.
Extract from X by Valentina Mira
translated from the Italian by Sean McDonagh
When it’s my turn to sleep, I dream of a wolf. It follows me around the rooms of the house. I have no idea what it wants with me, nor who is hiding beneath that fur. I wake up with my heart beating in its ribcage; it’s weird, it seems almost like it intends to take flight as if it were a hummingbird. And unfortunately, it’s a heart instead.
Three Ai Poems
by Chandra Livia Candiani
Translated from the Italian by Elisabetta Taboga and Roy Duffield
Look mum it’s Ai
the number that escaped
the last of your sums, the figure
that doesn’t add up.
