the queen wasp / opens her first pair of arms. / she convulses in the right chamber like / how nails sanctify a board.
Featured Translation
Six Poems by Anna Matysiak
We Will Survive
by Rolla Barraq, translated from the Arabic by Muntather Alsawad and Jeffrey Clapp
Death was passing through the pores of waiting / like fresh messages from the sky
Four Poems
by Asma Jelassi, translated from the Arabic by Ali Znaidi
we’ve started to disassemble the land mines / and plant roses and poems instead.
I Cried Because You Told Me
by Abdulqader S. Al-Ghamdi, translated from the Arabic by Essam M. Al-Jassim
I recall the prickly pear shrub that never failed to pierce me as I tucked my skinny body behind it, trying to hide…
Two Poems
by toino dumas, translated from the French by Arielle Burgdorf
i want metaphors to taste as good / as bread soaked in milk
Record of Demolition
by Nianxi Chen, translated from the Chinese by L. B. Tsau
Morning headaches are set to blow up my brain / The extra gift of great machines
3 Poems
by Cho Ji Hoon, translated from the Korean by Sekyo Nam Haines
I am afraid / no one understands // the gentle mind of someone / living like a hermit
A Footprint in the Ashes of Time
by Dmitry Blizniuk, translated from the Russian by Sergey Gerasimov
If it wasn’t for our inborn optimism –
we drop coins into the sea, plant pear trees that are going to grow for centuries –
understanding of reality would burn us
like a match may burn poplar fluff
Three Prose Poems
by Dag T. Straumsvåg, translated from the Norwegian by Robert Hedin
Today the warden has come to visit. He hands me a napkin with a color print of “The Storming of the Bastille” on one side, an escape plan on the other.
A Bargain
by Bojan Babić, translated from the Serbian by John K. Cox
She’s bellowing to herself as she sits on the little portable stool. Vendors are charged an arm and a leg to get into the antiques fair.
