G We don’t know how and under what circumstances they left from that place, whether they abandoned the city and at what time depth. Whether they left in stages, or they all left together, if they moved somewhere else, or if something happened to make them emigrate in a short span of time. We don’t […]
Translation
An Excerpt from Until The Victim Becomes Our Own
The Butterfly Cemetery by Franca Mancinelli translated from the Italian by John Taylor,
reviewed by Caroline Maldonado
Italian poet Franca Mancinelli has internalized the landscape she grew up in poetically to express some of her deepest emotions. Beginning from the tremors, earthquakes and mudslides of her life and landscape, the poet develops her riveting ars poetica. “I have often felt that I carry writing in my body,” she writes, “that I have been inscribed in the darkness. (…) We are the imprint of the time that has been, of the life that has passed through us. By writing we bring to light these signs that we contain, as they are, obscure and indecipherable to us. It is like leaning over a threshold that looks into the void. We are between the unknown and nothingness.”
Three Poems by Gerardo Arístides Rivodó
translated from the Spanish by David M. Brunson
me acostumbraré al presagio
de una casa vacía
al vuelo que dibujas
sobre cielos penitentes
a la rotura de un pájaro
Caterpillar by Dragana Mokan
translated from the Serbian by John K. Cox
Agnica was sitting in a pink room that smelled sweet. Mama had sent her to the neighbors to get a bouquet. She accepted a plate of cake from Miss Jovanka.
Two Poems by Luis Alberto de Cuenca
translated from the Spanish by Gustavo Pérez Firmat
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
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.
