He was as calm as his family wanted,
managing a laugh each day of his life
and washing the traces away
with soap and water
Featured Translation
Standing at the Empty Mouth
Mr. Z by Grzegorz Wróblewski
Translated from the Polish by Peter Burzyński
Mr. Z opened the door to a preacher of the One Truth: the man in a hat looked around the room.
Wichita
by Nadia Villafuerte, translated from the Spanish
by Pennell Somsen
A family is an accident. I know because I live far from mine and sometimes I catch myself repeating their patterns from miles away, at other times they’re a band of strangers, like I would encounter at a bus stop, if we rub elbows.
Six Poems by Anna Matysiak
from Inbred Machines: (The Difference and the Repetition), translated from the Polish by Peter Burzyński
the queen wasp / opens her first pair of arms. / she convulses in the right chamber like / how nails sanctify a board.
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
