In the raw, moist forest, with a freezing measure, an impoverished light-beam sows the light-world. I am lingering—like the gray bird in my heart—incurring sorrow. What do I do with this wounded bird? The dying firmament fell silent— from its clouded tower, someone had taken the bell— and there height stands, mute and orphaned, like […]
Tony Brinkley
TONY BRINKLEY teaches in the English Department at the University of Maine. His poetry has appeared in Another Chicago Magazine, Beloit Poetry Journal, The New Review of Literature, Cerise Press, Drunken Boat, Otoliths, and Poetry Salzburg Review. His translations (with Raina Kostova, Leonore Hildebrandt, and Fiona Sze-Lorrain) of Russian, French, and German poetry have appeared in Shofar, Beloit Poetry Journal, The New Review of Literature, Cerise Press, Otoliths, World Literature Today, and Hungarian Review. He is a member of the Flat Bay Collective, the author of Stalin’s Eyes (Puckerbrush Press), and the co-editor with Keith Hanley of Romantic Revisions (Cambridge University Press).
BLACK EARTH by Osip Mandelshtam (translated from the Russian by Tony Brinkley and Raina Kostova)
Every mound—cultivated, black— every furrow combed with air— ground crumbled, figured as a chorus, the damp ground is my soil and freedom . . . Spring mornings, tilled—black to blue—unarmed, peaceful labor— a thousand ploughed-up rumors— in its radius unbounded. And, nevertheless, the ground—mistaken thunder—unmoved if you plead, even pounding the ground metrics—a decaying flute […]
THE BIRTH OF A SMILE by Osip Mandelshtam (translated from Russian by Tony Brinkley and Raina Kostova)
A child’s first smile, its mountain- bitterness and sweetness, its ends— not easily—extend and nurse the ocean’s anarchy. He is well—invincibly—his soothed lips toy with names and stitch a rainbow suture, his unlimited awareness of appearances. Stirred, the subsoil paws— the snail mouth flows and hastens— tuning lightly in amazement, in my eyes this Atlas […]
Contributor Bios for Issue 3 Fall 2010
Issue 3 Fall 2010 JOY AL-SOFI currently teaches English in Hong Kong. She has worked in the high-tech industry and before that practiced law in both Oregon and Texas. Her work includes poetry, fiction and non-fiction and she has been published in the USA and Hong Kong. She has done theater reviews for community radio […]
MAYDAY Magazine: Issue 3 Fall 2010
FEATURED ARTIST Robert MacCready UNTITLED STATEMENT BY THE ARTIST notes on life and work TRANSLATIONS epigrams by Catullus, translated from the Latin by David Macey 1 : : 85 fiction by Ólafur Gunnarsson, translated from the Icelandic by Ólafur Gunnarsson and Steven Meyers THE THAW poetry by Jan Kochanowski and Adam Mickiewicz, translated from […]
