TRANSLATIONS

5 Gabriela Mistral Translations

Gabriela Mistral is a central figure in 20th Century Latin American poetry. She was the first Latin American writer to win the Nobel Prize (in 1945), and to this day is the only Latin American woman to have won the …

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3 Lionel Ray Translations

The evening stretches towards the trees : the dead never left this country nor the lesser shadows of these hills. And you, you awake in the dust and flame of a simpler time. In the ripening brightness, this mouthful of …

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Long Poem Translation of Marilyne Bertoncini

Sand for my mother   be aware that comings and goings are like dreams, like reflections of the moon on water. –Yogi Milarépa I can’t remember the future, She says The sea is breathing is slow fickle expires and licks …

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3 Inger-Mari Aikio Translations

hundred what if all my men were to gather around me at the same time, the dead ones too, young in the morning, in the evening just as they are or would be if they lived what would they say …

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3 Hasan Alizadeh Translations

In Exile Far away too sorrow is domestic. A cloud—invisible— every evening in white letters— is caught by the eye for a moment through migrating shadows but it escapes from the eye. A stone —no!—a pebble which you roll & …

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6 Dimitris Troaditis Translations

With a Red Inclination This long march towards death must be stopped these purple deep-black marks of giddiness must change colour this unshakeable pain above the shelters of our hearts must mutate into explosive thought persistent and fiery fired on …

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5 Self-translations by Albena Todorova

Translations edited by Momchil Milanov you say don’t cry tears are a sign of weakness  saying you think only of yourself I reply I am not crying  it’s just that god inside me leans on the human it gets damp …

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6 Nora Iuga Translations

oh, how I cheat myself how I shuffle my lovers the living and the dead in this tavern named poetry I always relished being a coquette black stockings   bright red nails you know it’s very hard today to carry this shopping …

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4 Self-translations by Danijela Trajković

Passionfruit Honey I did not look for you on any road the roads grew tired of us so quickly anyway in the meadows where we ran there are no birds anymore I did not look for you at the village …

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4 Translated Kim Seung-hee Poems

A Heart Full of Fingernails In sin, sin knows no sin. In solitude, solitude knows no solitude. “A series of solitary deaths all over the country.” Though I am not a prisoner of conscience, what always troubles me is the …

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5 Translated Yosuke Tanaka Poems

Image courtesy of The High Window. For a Person Suffering from Air-Conditioning Syndrome Because Japan is located at the edge of Asia you can enjoy great soup noodles there Let’s start with that as an introduction When you enter a …

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A Buzz in the Retina: On Translating Luljeta Lleshanaku

So much of my process of translating Luljeta Lleshanaku’s poems is the story of my relationship to language and writing.

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Translated Extracts from Chantal Danjou

Rehabilitation of the Inferno If Yellow (Extracts) an odour of cut grass she who walks falters land of deceiving linearity like creases in a pillow black and white slumber one foot in a dream the other harried bust opening its …

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Translations from Old English

The poems included here date to between the 7th and 10th centuries. Their original authors remain unknown. “The Dream of the Rood” is preserved in the Vercelli Book, and narrates the events of the crucifixion from the Cross’s perspective, recasting …

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The Poets: Pejk Malinovski Self-translates

Image courtesy of The New York Times. The Poets (Extract) Poets who love.
 Poets who love Greece.
 Poets who want to be loved and when they are, immediately leave poetry, relieved. Poets who write their phone numbers into poems. Poets …

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3 Translated Xhevdet Bajraj Poems

Image courtesy of Alchetron Look at Me When you’re left alone and the black waters are foaming at the door of your life go outside, find a cantina and after the seventh or eighth drink the only thing you’ll feel …

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4 Translated Ángelo Néstore Poems

Image courtesy of Diputación de Málaga If My Father Tells Me If my father tells me: Be a man, I shrivel like a grub, stick my belly on the fishhook. Soft, like some mollusk without its shell, I feel dismantled, …

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4 Translated Vasile Baghiu Poems

The following four poems have been selected from two volumes of poetry: Rătăcirile Doamnei Bovary [Madame Bovary’s Wanderings] and Cât de departe am mers [How Far We’ve Gone], published in 1996 and 2008 respectively.

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2 Translated Marcos Konder Reis Poems

Image courtesy of Museu Histórico de Itajaí. Map To the north, the bright tower, the plaza, the eternal meeting, Forever the silent agreement with your face. To the east, ocean, green, waves, foam, That distant ghost, boat and fog, The …

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Shattered Writing: 4 Translated Valerie Mejer Caso Poems from Edinburgh Notebook

Early in my translation of Edinburgh Notebook, the fifth book by Mexican poet Valerie Mejer Caso, I find a key. It is the epigraph to the final section, a line by Edmond Jabès: ‘All shattered writing has the form of a key.’ Not only is Jabès – the 20th century Jewish Egyptian poet who was long exiled in France – a fascinating reference point for Mejer Caso, whose own migratory poetics extends from a family history of immigrations and disrupted ties to place.

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4 Translated Laia Llobera i Serra Poems

Image courtesy of Time Out Barcelona Untitled And everything that could portend clarity. Ceiba trees, twilights, winged stallions, cities, solstices, citadels … I tot el que pugui anunciar claredat. Ceibes, crepuscles, cavalls alats, ciutats, solsticis, serrals.

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5 Translated Eileen Chong Poems

Image courtesy of The Planthunter / Red Room Company. Mid-Autumn Mooncakes It’s nearly mid-autumn. I spy the tins at the Asian grocer—gaudy red peonies unchanged for forty years. Of course I buy the mooncakes with double yolks: here in Australia, …

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2 Translated Kim Yideum Poems

Image courtesy of Kim Yideum Wet Book I walk along the street that is filling up with water. The evening outruns me like a truck covered in a dark blue tarp. The dark and narrow alley – is this the …

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4 Translated Geng Xiang Poems

Image courtesy of Nichalos Walton-Healy. Translations from Master’s Return Journey: The Fields in Auvers — An Interpretation of 120 Paintings by Van Gogh Prologue For one who pulls someone’s Chestnuts out of the fire, he does not easily voice His …

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