Jeremy Paden

Six Poems in Translation of the Poet Mario Meléndez Muñoz

Waiting for Perec / Esperando a Perec

I saw Whitman enter
the prairies of language
on the back of a wounded ox
________________________________________________________________________________________
Vi a Whitman entrar
en las praderas del lenguaje
a lomo de buey herido

17

Oh that we had something of Rimbaud
even if just a leg

I saw death enter a mirrorless hotel
saw the concierge close a door to infinity
saw God spring from Rimbaud’s arm
saw death board the trolley
In the lobby I saw: Closed for mourning
I saw the police arrive, saw photographers
saw an old ambulance take away a corpse
In the ambulance I saw the naked concierge
I saw his slashed neck, saw blood
saw his eyes, those of an ox off to the slaughterhouse
saw his name written on God’s forehead
His name was Verlaine
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

17

Ojalá tuviéramos algo de Rimbaud
aunque sea una pierna menos

Vi a la muerte entrar a un hotel sin espejos
Vi al conserje cerrar una puerta al infinito
Vi a Dios salir del brazo de Rimbaud
Vi a la muerte abordar el tranvía
Vi en el lobby: Cerrado por duelo
Vi llegar la policía, vi fotógrafos
Vi una vieja ambulancia llevarse un cadáver
Vi al conserje desnudo en esa ambulancia
Vi su cuello tajeado, vi sangre
Vi sus ojos de buey camino al matadero
Vi su nombre escrito en la frente de Dios
Se llamaba Verlaine

I saw the Little Prince on the flight deck
of an aircraft carrier
he seemed to be the oldest pilot
& his mission was a forewarning
of past lives
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Vi al Principito en la cubierta
de un portaviones
parecía el más viejo de los pilotos
y su misión era un anuncio
de vidas pasadas

23

I saw Cortázar chasing a Cronopio
Down the Champs-Elysees
I saw him biting another in Trevi Fountain
You act like a Fama, they screamed at him
you are an obstinate Fama
& Julio would go crazy
Then he would play the trumpet under the rain
& count dead sheep to fall asleep
At night he would look at himself in the mirror
& imitate the gestures of Charlie Parker
Raise Famas & they’ll gouge your eyes out
Raise Cronopios & they’ll follow you to the great beyond
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

23

Vi a Cortázar persiguiendo un Cronopio
por los Campos Elíseos
lo vi mordiendo a otro en la Fontana di Trevi
Tienes complejo de Fama, le gritaban
eres un Fama recalcitrante
Y Julio se ponía como loco
Entonces tocaba la trompeta bajo la lluvia
y contaba ovejas muertas para dormir
De noche se miraba al espejo
e imitaba los gestos de Charlie Parker
Cría Famas y te sacarán los ojos, se decía
Cría Cronopios y te seguirán hasta el más allá

24

I saw Picasso riding a green horse
wearing a straightjacket & an African mask
His women followed him (on foot) through a salt desert
carrying his paintings on their backs & an umbrella
belonging to Matisse
The horse flaunted a strange wig
its orthopedic hooves opened on every side
frustrating Picasso who hit it with a stick
made of ash
Bored he dismounted the horse
& began to trace formless shapes on the ground
lines stolen from an impossible alphabet
Here I’ll dig God’s grave, he told himself
the worms won’t ever forgive me
& he commanded his women to slit their veins
while he painted his horse the color of eternity
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

24

Vi a Picasso montado en un caballo verde
llevaba camisa de fuerza y una máscara africana
Sus mujeres lo seguían (a pie) por un desierto de sal
cargaban sus cuadros al hombro y un paraguas
de Matisse
El caballo lucía una extraña peluca
sus patas ortopédicas se abrían hacia todos lados
desesperando a Picasso que lo golpeaba con un palo
de ceniza
Aburrido bajó del caballo
y comenzó a trazar en el suelo figuras amorfas
líneas arrancadas de un alfabeto imposible
Aquí cavaré la tumba de Dios, se dijo
los gusanos jamás me perdonarán
Y ordenó a sus mujeres cortarse las venas
mientras él pintaba su caballo de eternidad

27

I saw God’s hamster
dig hole to the beyond
& run the marathon of his life
Strange beings cheered him
on along the way
The implausible dog cheered
tossing about holy water
death followed at a distance
on a wooden tricycle
Where are you going so quickly
yelled the wandering souls
To the Promised Land, he responded
measuring its pace
with an hourglass
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

27

Vi al hámster de Dios
abrir un hueco al más allá
y correr el maratón de su vida
Extraños seres lo ovacionaban
en el camino
El perro inexplicable le daba ánimos
lanzando agua bendita
la muerte lo seguía a distancia
en un triciclo de palo
A dónde vas tan de prisa
le gritaban las ánimas errantes
Hacia la Tierra Prometida, respondía
cronometrando su tiempo
en un reloj de arena




Mario Meléndez Muñoz is the editor of Revista Altazor, the on-line poetry journal associated with the Vicente Huidobro Foundation. Both he and the foundation are Chilean, yet he and the journal are global. Born in 1971 in Linares, Chile, he has lived in Chile, Mexico, and Italy. He is the author of six collections of poems and has edited several anthologies of Latin American poetry in Mexico, Italy, and Chile. In 2013 he received the medal of the President of the Italian Republic, awarded by the Don Luigi di Liegro International Foundation.

Jeremy Paden is a professor of Spanish and Latin American literature at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky. He writes poems in both English and Spanish and translates into and out of both. His bilingual, illustrated children's book Under the Ocelot Sun (Shadelandhouse Modern Press, 2020) won a Campoy-Ada prize for Spanish language children's literature. His most recent collections of poems are world as sacred burning heart (3: A Taos Press, 2021) and Self-Portrait as an Iguana (Valparaiso USA, 2021).

Jesse Lee Kercheval and Jeannine Marie Pitas

Two Translations of the Poet Silvia Guerra

Atropos

Neither mine.
Nor anyone's. Nothing.
Kindling, needles. Wind of dry leaves.
In the blue morning, the white breeze and perverse yearning.
To go on wanting, the head the eczema-covered face, into the wind.
She descends along those sharp, precise rapids
in profile, in the atrocious fear of the figure.
Water in the gaze that meets hers and it's a face with no soul
that escapes to fill that other face of silence
to fill it with a thread anointed with dreams, in the mist.
Shadow with nothing behind it, without a body to reflect, just pure shadow.
Pure shadow that injured itself stretches out, grabs on
to the floor, to cover the heroic rough surface
Toward the desert drinking like a song like a long sound,
a cavity enfolding itself in the copper center, sweetest
metal, which enshrouds it.
And outside among the houses, scattered far off
Sets of habits, Tablecloth, small looms set ablaze
with gardenias. And far away outside, the dusk that bends
the first stars. Forever?

Átropo

Ni mía.
Ni de nadie. Nada.
Yescas, hojillas. Viento de hoja seca.
En la mañana azul, la blanca brisa y el perverso anhelo
El ir queriendo, la cabeza la cara con eczemas, al viento.
Baja por esa correntada nítida y precisa
en el perfil, en el miedo atroz de la figura.
El agua en la mirada que se enfrenta y es un rostro sin alma
que se escapa para llenar ese otro rostro de silencio
para llenarlo con el hilo libado de los sueños, en la niebla.
La sombra sin atrás, sin cuerpo que refleje, la pura sombra.
La sombra pura que maltrecha de sí logra extenderse, asirse
sobre el suelo, cubrir la heroica superficie agreste
Beber hacia el desierto como un canto como un sonido largo,
una oquedad nimbándose desde el cobre central, dulcísimo
metal, que envuelva.
Y afuera entre las casas, dispersamente lejos
conjuntos de hábitos, manteles, pequeños telares enardecidos
de gardenias. Y afuera lejos, la tarde que se curva
las primeras estrellas. ¿Para siempre?

Ánima Mundi

Like a border, to embroider this pattern. Every day
a little more drizzle, another shoot emerges from the branch. Nest
tangles over the thread extending not suturing.
But no, it comes from outside. From inside comes complex
Weave. We must understand that it floods strikes the walls
resists. We must understand that it moans tears at itself
how heroic it is to make of the soul a brocade that grows
and leave the rest aside Like Oblivion
Like distance, between the possible and the essential.

Ánima mundi

Como borde, bordar este tramado. Todos los días
un poco, un poco más gotea arma la rama, Nido
entrama sobre el hilado que se extiende no sutura.
Pero no, viene de fuera. De dentro viene enrevesando
Trama. Hay que entender que inunda que golpea las paredes
que resiste. Hay que entender que gime que se rompe
que heroico es hacer del ánima brocado que se expanda
y lo demás dejarlo Como Olvido
Como distancia, entre lo posible y lo inherente.




Silvia Guerra (1961, Maldonado, Uruguay) is an Uruguayan poet, critic and editor whose books include Un mar en madrugado (2018); Pulso (2011), and Estampas de un tapiz (2006); Nada de nadie, (2001); La sombra de la azucena, (2000); Replicantes Astrales (1993), Idea de la aventura (1990); De la arena nace el agua (1986) and Fuera del relato (2007), a fictionalized biography of Lautréamont. She is a member of the executive boards of both the Mario Benedetti Foundation and the Nancy Bacelo Foundation. In 2012 she was awarded the Morosoli Prize in Poetry for her career.

Jesse Lee Kercheval is the author of 16 books of poetry, fiction, and memoir as well as a translator, specializing in Uruguayan poetry. Her translations include The Invisible Bridge/ El puente invisible: Selection Poems of Circe Maia for which she was awarded an NEA Fellowship in Translation and Poemas de amor/ Love Poems by Idea Vilariño both from the University of Pittsburgh Press. She was an 2016 NEA Fellow in Translation and the 2019 Carlson Fellow at the, Banff International Literary Translation Centre. She is the Zona Gale Professor of Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Jeannine Marie Pitas translations include We Do Not Live In Vain (Veliz Books, 2020) by Uruguayan poet Selva Casal. Her co-translation, with Jesse Lee Kercheval, of Sea at Dawn by the Uruguayan poet Silvia Guerra is forthcoming from Eulalia Books.

Lauren Schenkman and Ulises Alaniz

Translation of the Poet Marcia Ondina

I. Of other losses

Over the loudspeakers
they announced the loss of a dog:
they described its features
the love of its owner
a reward was offered.
In another part of town
was Marina, inconsolable
She had lost her son
There were no announcements
there were no rewards.
The mother
exposed her loss to curious neighbors
they ran out of questions
She gave no answers.
There was no sign of the child.
There is a crucifix on the wall.
Juanita
had a bigger one on her breast the day she died.
That afternoon nobody bought bread, it was pouring.
The child was forgotten before yesterday.
The dog walks with its owner along the pavement
Marina has been sleeping for days.

I. De otras pérdidas

Anunció la barata la pérdida de un perro:
se dieron las señas
se habló del cariño de su dueño
se ofreció una recompensa.
En otro sitio
estaba Marina inconsolable
perdió a su hijo
no hubo barata
no hubo recompensa.
La madre
exponía su pérdida a vecinos curiosos
agotaron sus preguntas
no dio respuestas.
No hubo seña del niño.
Hay un crucifijo en la pared.
Juanita
tenía uno más grande en su pecho el día de su muerte.
Aquella tarde no se compró pan, llovía mucho.
Se olvidó el niño, antes de ayer.
El perro pasea con su dueño por la acera
Marina duerme hace días.




Marcia Ondina Mantilla was born in León in 1966. A practicing lawyer, she is a member of the Nicaraguan Association of Writers. She was a co-founder of the literary group SPJO, with whom she published an anthology in 1997. Her poems have also appeared in the anthology Mujeres de Sol y Luna, published by the Nicaraguan Center for Writers. This poem comes from Episodios, a book of linked poems published by La Promotora Cultural Leonesa that reflect the current political situation via memories of the Somoza dictatorship and subsequent Sandinista uprising of the 1970s and 1980s. Ondina has suffered persecution under President Daniel Ortega's regime for her political stance, and this has caused her to lose her teaching position at the University of León.

These translations are a collaboration between Ulises Alaniz and Lauren Schenkman. Alaniz is a Nicaraguan poet from León, Nicaragua. He has participated in poetry recitals organized by La Promotora Cultural Leonesa and the International Poetry Festival of Granada. He is currently a master's student at the University of Southern Illinois. Lauren Schenkman is a Nicaraguan-American journalist and fiction writer. Other translations by Alaniz and Schenkman, including poems by Ondina and Alaniz, have been published in Tin House and decomp.

Emma Ferguson

Two Translations of the Poet Esther Ramon

Swallows gather,

meeting in the bones
of the sick beech tree.
The rock hears us,
holding together what we almost
inhabit.
They rest on branches
of delicate fingers,
their weight sings
stronger and stronger
over the sap that no longer flows.
To start again,
in silence,
the sun mounts the back
of the tree,
opens multiple flights,
touches the sleeping forehead
of the rock,
and it wakes me.

Acuden golondrinas,

reunión en los huesos
del haya enferma.
La roca nos escucha,
sostiene lo que casi
habitamos,
ellas se posan
sobre las ramas
de dedos frágiles,
su peso canta
cada vez más fuerte
sobre la savia sin flujo.
Para recomenzar,
silencio,
el sol se monta
en la espalda del árbol,
abre el vuelo múltiple,
palpa la frente dormida
de la roca,
me despierta.

Only this rock

breathes
underwater,
what’s motionless
is the shell
of flow.
Next to the trough
there are small figs
for other teeth,
grapes too high up,
roosters that sing
in the dark, again
and again,
weathered rabbits
crouching,
a hair comb stuck
in the walnut tree,
untangling
the threads of confinement,
a flicker of bread
or of wood,
against the evaporated wall,
a letter that burns
or is forgotten
in the emerging.

Sólo esta piedra

respira
bajo el agua,
lo inmóvil es la
cáscara
de lo que fluye,
junto al abrevadero
hay higos diminutos
para otros dientes,
uvas demasiado arriba,
gallos que cantan
sin luz, una vez
y otra,
conejos del tiempo,
agazapados,
un peine prendido
en el nogal,
que desenreda los
hilos del encierro,
una llama de pan
o de madera,
el muro evaporado,
una letra que arde
o se olvida
en la apertura.



Esther Ramón is a poet, critic, and professor from Madrid, Spain. She has published nine volumes of poetry and earned the Premio Ojo Crítico in 2008. Several poems of hers have been translated into various languages and she appears in the US anthology Panic Cure: Poetry from Spain for the 21st Century (Otis Books, 2014). She has been coordinating editor for the journal Minerva, director of a radio poetry program for Radio Círculo, and is currently a professor of creative writing and literary criticism at Universidad Carlos III in Madrid.

Emma Ferguson is a poet, translator, and educator in Seattle. She believes in education and language as forces of self-actualization and liberation. She teaches Spanish as well as a translation seminar to high schoolers, and her translations have appeared in journals such as the Offing, Columbia Journal, The Common, and others. Her poems have appeared in Passengers, Rock & Sling, River Heron Review, and others.

Nancy Naomi Carlson

Translation of Louis-Philippe Dalembert

traveling

when I was young
I used to dream of living
in paris new york rome
jerusalem dakar or santiago
now that I’ve lived
in paris in roma and in yerushalayim
now that I know new york dakar and santiago
I dream of the absent lights
of my hometown

when I was young
I used to dream of living
elsewhere everywhere
somewhere in the world
so I straddled a branch of a tree
or one of the numerous stars
from caribbean nights
immense and dark
that only childhood can invent
and I took off
vegetarian werewolf without a care
far from my neighborhood
far from my city
before the out-of-tune notes of a rooster
betrayed by his nightmares
would come to drag me away
from the warming winks
of the sun’s first rays

when I was young
I used to dream of traveling
life
I’d set off for a world
without hunger or end
where the lights borrowed
their brightness from our childhood dreams
from the silvery reflections of sea in sunlight
from ravine waters
that hosted our clandestine capers
the day after rainy days
from planes whose morning take-offs
got confused with the hurricane season
now that I know the world
and the beauty of its women
the laughing eyes of its children
the arrogant powerlessness of its men
now that I’ve lived
all over I dream of living
back home

now that I’ve traveled
that I travel
until my head spins
now that my footsteps
have borrowed their rhythm
from endlessly beating hummingbird wings
I sometimes feel like
getting off the merry-go-round
and going back home
to retrieve childhood under the old mahogany tree
for a game of marbles
or a tussle filled with pride

now that I’ve traveled
that I travel life
sometimes I feel like
stopping
just as when children our wandering soles
led us back to the house
in hopes of swapping
sweat dust and hunger
for a welcome shower
clothes with less grime
and a hypothetical meal

I want to stop everything
and go back to the country
of childhood
but I’ve lost
the way back
some lazy-eyed gluttonous bird of prey
will have gulped down the pebbles
I forgot to leave behind

Voyage

quand j’étais jeune
je rêvais de vivre
à paris new york rome
jérusalem dakar ou santiago
maintenant que j’ai vécu
à paris à roma et à yerushalayim
que je connais new york dakar et santiago
je rêve des lumières absentes
de la ville natale

quand j’étais jeune
je rêvais de vivre
ailleurs partout
quelque part dans le monde
j’enfourchais alors une branche d’arbre
ou l’une des nombreuses étoiles
de la nuit caraïbe
vaste et profonde
comme seule en invente l’enfance
et je m’envolais
loup-garou insouciant et végétarien
loin de mon quartier
loin de ma ville
avant que les notes fausses d’un coq
trahi par ses cauchemars
ne viennent m’arracher
aux tièdes clins d’œil
des premiers rayons du soleil

quand j’étais jeune
je rêvais de voyager
la vie
je partirais vers un monde
sans faim
où les lumières auraient emprunté
leur éclat à nos rêves d’enfant
aux reflets argentés de la mer au soleil
à l’eau de la ravine
qui accueillait nos ébats clandestins
le lendemain des jours de pluie
aux avions dont l’envol matinal
se confondait avec la saison des cyclones

maintenant que je connais le monde
et la beauté de ses femmes
les yeux rieurs de ses enfants
l’arrogante impuissance de ses hommes
maintenant que j’ai vécu
partout je rêve de vivre
chez moi

maintenant que j’ai voyagé
que je voyage
jusqu’à en avoir le tournis
maintenant que mes pas
ont emprunté leur rythme
au battement d’ailes sans fin du colibri
l’envie me prend parfois
de descendre en cours de route
et de rentrer chez moi
de retrouver l’enfance sous le vieil acajou
pour une partie de billes
ou un corps à corps gorgé d’orgueil

maintenant que j’ai voyagé
que je voyage la vie
j’ai envie par moments
de m’arrêter
comme lorsque enfant nos semelles vagabondes
nous ramenaient à la maison
dans l’espoir de troquer
la sueur la poussière et la faim
contre une bonne douche
des vêtements moins crasseux
et un hypothétique repas

j’ai envie de tout arrêter
et de rentrer au pays
de l’enfance
mais j’ai perdu
le chemin du retour
quelque rapace amblyope et gourmand
aura gobé les cailloux
que j’avais oublié de semer



Louis-Philippe Dalembert is a Haitian poet and novelist. He writes in both French and Haitian creole. His works have been translated into several languages. He now divides his home between Paris and Port-au-Prince.

Nancy Naomi Carlson’s translation of Khal Torabully’s Cargo Hold of Stars: Coolitude (Seagull Books, 2021) won the 2022 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize. A poet and essayist, she has authored twelve titles (eight translated), including An Infusion of Violets (Seagull Books, 2019), which was named “New & Noteworthy” by The New York Times. A recipient of two NEA translation grants and decorated by the French government with the Academic Palms, her work has appeared in APR, Colorado Review, Paris Review, and the Academy of American Poets' Poem-a-Day. She’s the Translations Editor for On the Seawall.

Guillermo Rebollo Gil

Two Translations of the Poet Beatriz Llenín Figueroa

my country is somewhere else

a dragonfly or a jellyfish
—for example—
see it clearly

mi país está en otra parte

una libélula o una medusa
—por ejemplo—
lo ven con claridad

If I believed in Pulpits

I would miss out on miracles

for example:

the eyes of our sick ancient dog
his ears drooping lovingly when I look at him

the street cat’s return with her tail at half mast
no longer meowing as timidly as before

our rescued cat turning and tumbling
another failed attempt to get the dog to correspond

the true pedagogy of cows
the almost stillness of seashells

si creyera en púlpitos

me perdería los milagros

por ejemplo:

los ojos de nuestro perro anciano y enfermo
sus orejas cayendo de amor cuando lo miro

el retorno de la gata callejera con rabo a medias
sus ya no tan tímidos maullidos

las volteretas de nuestra gata rescatada
su intento –otra vez sin éxito– de que el perro le corresponda

la pedagogía cierta de las vacas
la casi quietud de los caracoles




Beatriz Llenín-Figueroa is an independent writer, scholar, editor, translator, companion, and never-ending apprentice who stands for Puerto Rican and Caribbean emancipations.

Guillermo Rebollo Gil (San Juan, 1979) is a writer, sociology professor, translator, and attorney. Book-length translations include I’ll Trade you this Island (2018) by Cindy Jiménez-Vera and Recetas Naturales para el Mundo Fenomenal (2017) by Sommer Browning. He is the author of Writing Puerto Rico: Our Decolonial Moment (2018) and the forthcoming Whiteness in Puerto Rico: Translation at a Loss. He belongs to/with Lucas Imar and Ariadna Michelle. Happily so.

Apurva Narain

Four Translations of the Poet Kunwar Narain

New-Found Books

They look at me
from a distance first
coyly

Then unabashedly
stretch out and sit on my desk
before me

The first acquaintance... the first touch
thrilling like a handshake
a new beginning

Page by page then, they open up slowly,
a closer intimacy
— friendship, with some
a deeper affection, some touch my heart
or become my thoughts,
some part of the family —
most mean something to me

Yet
in this vast world of books
I continue to search
for a life-companion
for myself,
a carefree, blithe, lively
book of my own

before whom I too could open up
leaf and page
like a book

and she would also then read me
with rapt attention, lovingly

नई किताबें

नई नई किताबें पहले तो
दूर से देखती हैं मुझे
शरमाती हुईं

फिर संकोच छोड़ कर
बैठ जाती हैं फैल कर
मेरे सामने मेरी पढ़ने की मेज़ पर

उनसे पहला परिचय ... स्पर्श
हाथ मिलाने जैसी रोमांचक
एक शुरुआत

धीरे धीरे खुलती हैं वे
पृष्ट दर पृष्ट
घनिष्ठतर निकटता
कुछ से मित्रता
कुछ से गहरी मित्रता
कुछ अनायास ही छू लेतीं मेरे मन को
कुछ मेरे चिंतन का अंग बन जातीं
कुछ पूरे परिवार की पसंद
ज़्यादातर ऐसी जिनसे कुछ न कुछ मिल जाता

फिर भी
अपने लिए हमेशा खोजता रहता हूँ
किताबों की इतनी बड़ी दुनिया में
एक जीवन-संगिनी
थोड़ी अल्हड़-चुलबुली-सुंदर
आत्मीय किताब

जिसके सामने मैं भी खुल सकूँ
एक किताब की तरह पन्ना पन्ना
और वह मुझे भी
प्यार से मन लगा कर पढ़े

Untitled Diptych

(1)

Night like the night of some jungle
Two flaming eyes — the flare of a lamp,
Someone walks past, mantled in a cloak — the mist...

In the morning, a clamour —
The nighttide caught fire...

(2)

Scattering myself
in every mote and minim
I search
a tiny corner for myself

Somewhere near, over there,
in that corner,
you are there, no?

(1)

रात जैसे किसी जंगल की रात
दो दहकती हुई आँखें — चिराग़
पास से कोई गुज़रता है लबादा ओढ़े — कुहासा
सुबह एक शोर है —
अँधेरे में लगी आग

(2)

अपने को कण-कण में बिखेर कर
ढूँढ रहा हूँ
अपने लिए एक कोना

तुम वहाँ उधर
उस कोने में
कहीं हो न...

Stairways

Crushing the earth
with the full might of feet,
Clutching the air
with the tight grip of hands,
When someone steps up the stairs
very fast, hoisted
like a flag of victory

I behold the flight of stairs,
stepping down one by one
against his feet, silently

सीढ़ियाँ

पाँवों की पूरी ताक़त से
ज़मीन को दबाए,
हाथों की पूरी ताक़त से
हवा को पकड़े,
विजय-पताका की तरह फहराता
जब कोई बहुत तेज़ी से सीढ़ियाँ चढ़ता
मैं देखता सीढ़ियों को
चुपचाप उसके पाँवों के ख़िलाफ़
एक एक कर नीचे उतरते

The Pandemic of Numbers

He once began to vomit out numbers
uncontrollably, counting,
when the toll began to cross millions
he slipped into a coma,

Woke up in a hospital where blood
was being transfused, oxygen being given...
that he screamed out —

Doctor, I’m bursting out with laughter,
maybe this is laughing gas, not life-saving gas,
you can’t compel me to laugh
in this country, all have a birthright
to live in remorse, else what’s the meaning
of our freedom, democracy, republic...

Don’t talk, said the nurse, you’re weak,
it was a feat to control your blood pressure
the doctor explained—this virus of numbers
spreads like wildfire, day by day,
it affects the brain straightaway,
you’re fortunate to have been saved,
anything could’ve happened to you —

Delirium, and you would’ve gone on talking,
or paralysis, and you could’ve ceased
talking forever,
any vein in your head could’ve ruptured
under pressure from such a titanic count:
we’re passing through friable times,
excitement over data can be fatal,
no medicine works on numbers —
stay calm,
if you’re saved, you’d be one in a million...

At once he felt
the doctor’s face transformed
into a red alert, warning
against some imminent danger
and he, cut out of numbers,
went on screaming —
we’re our selves, not numbers

आँकड़ों की बीमारी

एक बार मुझे आँकड़ों की उल्टियाँ होने लगीं
गिनते गिनते जब संख्या
करोड़ों को पार करने लगी
मैं बेहोश हो गया

होश आया तो मैं अस्पताल में था
ख़ून चढ़ाया जा रहा था
ऑक्सीजन दी जा रही थी
कि मैं चिल्लाया

डॉक्टर मुझे बुरी तरह हँसी आ रही
यह हँसानेवाली गैस है शायद
प्राण बचानेवाली नहीं
तुम मुझे हँसने पर मजबूर नहीं कर सकते
इस देश में हर एक को अफ़सोस के साथ जीने का
पैदाइशी हक़ है वरना
कोई माने नहीं रखते हमारी आज़ादी और प्रजातंत्र

बोलिए नहीं – नर्स ने कहा – बेहद कमज़ोर हैं आप
बड़ी मुश्किल से क़ाबू में आया है रक्तचाप
डॉक्टर ने समझाया – आँकड़ों का वाइरस
बुरी तरह फैल रहा आजकल
सीधे दिमाग़ पर असर करता
भाग्यवान हैं आप कि बच गए
कुछ भी हो सकता था आपको –

सन्निपात कि आप बोलते ही चले जाते
या पक्षाघात कि हमेशा कि लिए बंद हो जाता
आपका बोलना
मस्तिष्क की कोई भी नस फट सकती थी
इतनी बड़ी संख्या के दबाव से

हम सब एक नाज़ुक दौर से गुज़र रहे
तादाद के मामले में उत्तेजना घातक हो सकती है
आँकड़ों पर कोई दवा काम नहीं करती
शांति से काम लें
अगर बच गए आप तो करोड़ों में एक होंगे ...

अचानक मुझे लगा
ख़तरों से सावधान कराते किसी संकेत-चिह्न में
बदल गई थी डॉक्टर की सूरत
और मैं आँकड़ों का काटा
चीख़ता चला जा रहा था
कि हम आँकड़े नहीं आदमी हैं



Kunwar Narain (19 September 1927 – 15 November 2017) was a poet in Indian literature in Hindi. He read and traveled widely and wrote for six decades. He was linked to the New Poetry movement.

Apurva Narain is Kunwar Narain's son and translator. His books include a translated poetry collection, No Other World, and a co-translated story collection, The Play of Dolls. Another poetry translation book is due soon. His work has appeared in journals such as Asymptote, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry International, Asia Literary Review, Scroll, etc. Educated in India and the University of Cambridge, he has interests in ecology, public health and ethics; and writes in English.

Jacob Rogers

Three Translations of the Poet Antón Lopo

Unt.

Not all words can adhere
to what you’re contemplating
and nor would your lips know how to say them.
But within [in you], quivers the word
you need. You know
you should utter it
and your body opens so that it may grow.

That’s where it happens.

*

We always hear each other too late,
like thunder in a storm
that’s still far off
or already on its way out.
Sooner or later, that distance will come bind you
to your body.

You’ll say:
so that’s what it was!

*

I tell myself that they’re my
more biological moments,
as if on previous occasions
they were the result of other matter.
The orography, however, is identical:

my lips still parted.

*





S.T. [original]

Todas as palabras non se poden adherir
ao que contemplas
e os teus labios tampouco saberían dicilas.
Pero dentro [en ti] axítase a palabra
que necesitas. Sabes
que debes pronunciala
e o teu corpo ábrese para que creza.

Aí ocorre.

*
Sempre nos sentimos a destempo,
como estrondo dunha tormenta
que aínda está lonxe
ou que xa se afasta.
Tarde ou cedo virá unirte a distancia
ao teu organismo.

Dirás:
así que era isto!

*

Dígome que son momentos
máis biolóxicos,
como se os movementos previos
viñesen doutra materia.
A orografía, porén, é idéntica:

os meus labios aínda abertos.




Antón Lopo, born in Monforte de Lemos in 1961, is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in Galician literature and is also recognized for his contributions as a journalist and critic. His work spans genres, from fiction, poetry, and biography to performance and audiovisual work.

Jacob Rogers is a translator of Galician and Spanish poetry and prose. He has received grants from the National Endowment of the Arts and the PEN/Heim Translation Fund, as well as winning the Poetry in Translation Prize from Words Without Borders and the Academy of American Poets. He has helped coordinate two features of Galician-language writing, in Words Without Borders and Asymptote. His translation of Manuel Rivas' novel The Last Days of Terranova is forthcoming from Archipelago Books in October 2022.

Brian Henry

Two translations of the Slovenian poet Tomaž Šalamun

Cooing Knocks Down Palm Trees

I imagine my mouth stretched out
for the last time on this mountain.

Flower driver—joy in a helmet.
Flower driver—a man on

handlebars. An old man drives
up the stairs, the hill

strives for the street.
Chains are

spread by sparrowhawks,
Schopenhauer’s

lake. I’m going to sleep now.
I’m going into the earth

now. O, cherries! The universe
is fond of you.

Gruljenje Podira Palme

Umišljam si usta stegovíto,
zadnjič na tej planini.

Šofer rož—veselje v čeladi.
Šofer rož—mož na

balanci. Po stopnicah
vozi starček, za

ulico se peha hrib.
Verige so

namazane s skobci,
Shopenhauerjevo

jezero. Zdaj grem spat.
Zdaj grem v

zemljo. O, češnjevci! Vesolje
vam je naklonjeno.

Phoenix

The secret is to be apart, outside.
This is the only secret of blue stones,
history, weight and the sips of an animal.
To buy shoes and throw them under the waterfall.
To camp: lapis lazuli.
I say goodbye to your coverage.
I imagine that I am seventy selves
divided into thirty-five piles
with my feet a meter apart, together with my head.
I am a museum of weapons, a museum of halberds.
They tie me around the neck with raffia.
So that I don’t freeze, a guard guards me.
The scream is thrust into the rubbish and
burns the parquet with oil.
When birds take off, they kill them with their fists.
It’s all on their side: the ceiling, the spectators.
Blood is eternal.

Feniks

Skrivnost je biti narazen, ven.
To je edina skrivnost modrih kamnov,
zgodovine, teže in požirkov živali.
Kupiti čevlje in jih vreči pod slap.
Taboriti: lapis lazuli.
Poslavljam se od tvojega kritja.
Predstavljam si, da sem jaz sedemdeset jazov,
razdeljenih na petintrideset kopic,
z nogami meter narazen, z glavo skupaj.
Jaz sem muzej orožja, muzej helebard.
Z rafijo me vežejo okrog vratu.
Da ne zamrznem, me čuva čuvaj.
Vreščé se zarinejo v ropotijo in
požigajo parket z oljem.
Ko vzletavajo ptiči, jih pobijajo s pestjo.
Vse je na njihovi strani: strop, gledalci.
Kri je večna.

Tomaž Šalamun (1941-2014) published more than 50 books of poetry in Slovenia. Translated into over 25 languages, his poetry received numerous awards, including the Jenko Prize, the Prešeren Prize, the European Prize for Poetry, and the Mladost Prize. In the 1990s, he served for several years as the Cultural Attaché for the Slovenian Embassy in New York, and later held visiting professorships at various universities in the U.S.

Brian Henry is the author of eleven books of poetry, most recently Permanent State (Threadsuns, 2020), and the prose book Things Are Completely Simple: Poetry and Translation (Parlor, 2022). He has translated Tomaž Šalamun’s Woods and Chalices (Harcourt, 2008), Aleš Debeljak’s Smugglers (BOA Editions, 2015), and five books by Aleš Šteger. His work has received numerous honors, including two NEA fellowships, the Alice Fay di Castagnola Award, a Howard Foundation fellowship, and the Best Translated Book Award.

Ximena Gomez and George Franklin

Two Translations of the Poet Ximena Gomez

THE PASTORAL SYMPHONY

In the dim light
From an opening in the curtains,
She dozes in her bed,
Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony
Playing quietly
On her radio.

From the next room,
He hears the music
Through the wall,
Reminding him
Of the wooden stereo,
The house with long hallways.

Once,
He brought home
This same symphony
On a black
Long-playing record.
She listened to it
For years.

Now they lie back,
Each one in their own bed,
Separated by a wall,
And he overhears
From her radio
The music
He gave her then.

LA SINFONÍA PASTORAL

Bajo la luz escasa
De una abertura en las cortinas
Ella dormita en su cama,
La Sinfonía pastoral de Beethoven
Suena muy quedo
En su radio.

Desde la habitación de al lado
Él alcanza a oír la música
A través de la pared
Y recuerda
El estéreo de madera,
La casa de largos corredores.

Una vez
Él trajo a casa
La misma sinfonía
En un disco negro
De larga duración.
Ella por muchos años
La escuchó.

Ahora ellos reposan
Cada uno en su cama,
Separados por una pared
Y desde el radio de ella
Él recibe la música,
Que un día le dio a ella.

A SHORT STORY

The orchid stalk
Turned yellowish
Shed all its flowers
On the pine table.
I bend to pick them up,
There is a very short story
In those few petals:
Someone left, abandoned,
On the wooden floor
Light-colored dresses,
Wrinkled, unwashed,
Fallen from a coat rack.

CUENTO BREVE

El tallo de orquídeas
Se volvió amarillento,
Echó todas las flores
En la mesa de pino.
Me inclino a recogerlas,
En esos pocos pétalos
Hay un cuento brevísimo:
Alguien se fue y dejó
Sobre el piso de tablas
Vestidos color claro,
Ajados, sin lavar,
Caídos de una percha.




Ximena Gomez is a Colombian poet, psychologist, and translator, who now lives in Miami. Her poems have appeared in Nagari, Conexos, Círculo de Poesía, Carátula, Raíz Invertida, La Libélula Vaga, and bilingually in Sheila-Na-Gig, Nashville Review, Cigar City, The Laurel Review, Gulf Stream, The Wild Word and Cagibi. She was finalist for the Best of the Net award for 2018 with her poem Last Day and the runner-Up, for Gulfstream Contest 2019. A collection of her poems, Habitación con moscas, was published by Editorial Torremozas (Madrid 2016), and a bilingual collection of her poetry, Último día/Last Day, was published by Katacama Editores (2019). She is the translator of the George Franklin’s bilingual collection of poems, Among the Ruins / Entre las ruinas (Katakana Editores 2018). She is a Contributor translator to 32 Poems/32 Poemas of Hyam Plutzik, the first collection of Plutzik’s work translated into Spanish, edited by Edward Moran in 2020.

George Franklin practices law in Miami and teaches writing workshops in Florida state prisons. His poems have been most recently published in Sheila-Na-Gig online, Salamander, The Wild Word, B O D Y, Matter, Scalawag, Gulf Stream, The Ghazal Page, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Vending Machine Press, Rascal, and Twyckenham Notes. Additional poems are forthcoming in The Threepenny Review and in The Amsterdam Quarterly.

Pamela Proietti, Donna Mancusi-Ungaro Hart and Eric Berry

Three Translations of the Poet Pamela Proietti

Winter Ash

I

Giving you the missed day, the imperfections
of the case the symmetries the disorder the fusion
the minutes grown by feeding on them, blackberries
and red berries.

Holding you, the warm spot, a cover
for tired eyes and shrinking in
the closed corner waiting
timid, behind a timid smile.

Winter is a magic spell against this screen
chilled on the hand the silence
of the hours I would like the voice, instead
my head is resting on the left side

of your fantasies.

II

The season remains sealed
proud asphalt fields
sacrificed carelessness
to the ashes of the hours.

She moves awkwardly, she
disregards the age of days --
the slow animal burdened
in feverish substance lives.

Winter reveals itself, the peel
is the white light of snow:
she seeks him seeks him seeks him
If she falls

she pierces herself with his gaze.

Cenere d'Inverno

I

Donarti la giornata mancata, le imperfezioni
del caso le simmetrie il disordine l’amalgama
i minuti cresciuti imboccandoli, more
e bacche rosse.

Tenerti, il posto caldo, una coperta
per gli occhi stanchi e stringere
l’angolo chiuso aspettare
timida, dietro un timido sorriso.

L’inverno è malia in questo vetro
freddo sulla mano il silenzio
delle ore vorrei la voce, invece
ho la testa poggiata sul lato sinistro

delle tue fantasie.

II

Resta stretta la stagione
fieri campi d’asfalto
la noncuranza sacrificata
alla cenere delle ore.

Si muove storta, lei
disconosce l’età dei giorni —
l’animale lento che grava
nella febbrile sostanza vive.

L’inverno si pone, la buccia
è lume bianco di neve:
lo cerca lo cerca lo cerca!
Se cade

si trafigge col suo sguardo.

Shapes of Memory

And then you / are alive and conquer
the unsteady field of time chosen,

earthly hand – if it guides, it is yours
the algebra of names works.

Loving hand that preserves breaths –
indecipherable. Still. I don’t know how to cry.

Fear is an abyss of blooming poppies.
I can’t make ends meet. My hands –

and then I moved the sweetest shapes
from memory. The farewell – in the gaze

that day every event seemed unripe –
falls flat: I didn’t know how to read.

Forme di memoria

E dunque tu / sei viva e domini
l’infermo campo di tempo scelto,

mano terrena – se guida è la tua
l’algebra dei nomi che funziona.

Premurosa mano che preserva respiri –
indecifrabili. Ancora. Non so piangere.

Paura è una gola di papaveri in fiore.
Il lunario che non sbarco. Le mie mani –

e dunque muovevo forme dolcissime
di memoria. L’addio, nello sguardo

quel giorno ogni evento sembrava acerbo
malamente insorge: non sapevo leggere.

Lockdown

Now that the house belongs to you like
the desires that you most nurtured now it opens

a new truth takes anchor:
white walls, friendly voices, even

secure love, there is no doubt.
And outside the poetry of a crazy person is nothing more

than misunderstanding, a malfunctioning
of the ecosystem.

Now that the commercials teach us
how to stay connected, we are learning

verbs in docile letters to submit to
as they occur, if you want, as needed

we dream of each other.

Lockdown

Adesso che la casa ti appartiene come
i desideri che più coltivi ecco aprirsi

una nuova verità alla fonda:
i muri bianchi, le voci amiche, anche

l’amore certo, non v’è dubbio alcuno.
E fuori la poesia di un pazzo non è altro

che il fraintendimento, un malfunzionamento
dell’ecosistema.

Adesso che gli spot ci istruiscono su
come restare uniti, impariamo

i verbi in docili lettere da sottomettere
all’occorrenza, se vuoi al bisogno,

ci sogniamo.




Pamela Proietti's first book of poetry Il nome bianco was published by Gattomerlino Edizioni (Rome, Italy) in 2021. Her work has appeared in Asymptote, Columbia Journal, Belas Infíeis (Brazil), the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, in La nuova carne poetica, Vol.1 - della femmina intelligenza, in Il mare è poesia, and on the Lieto Colle and Grazia magazine websites. She has served as an editorial director at Metropolis Zero magazine where she oversaw the "Letters to the Director" section and wrote on the "Mind the Gap" page. Ms. Proietti collaborates with NiedernGasse magazine and the cultural association "House of Ink." She lives in Rome, Italy.

Donna Mancusi-Ungaro Hart is a graduate of Vassar College and received her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from Harvard University. Her field of interest is Italian Studies, specifically Dante and Italian cinema. She was awarded the “Dante Prize” of the Dante Society of America and subsequently published Dante and the Empire (American University Studies, 1987). She taught Italian for several years at Rutgers University before managing public relations for a number of European companies in the U.S. Since 2005, she has been an instructor and translator of Italian for the University of Michigan. Her translations have recently appeared in Columbia Journal and Belas Infíeis (Brazil). She lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan (USA).

Stephen Eric Berry is a writer, filmmaker, composer, and a recipient of a Jule and Avery Hopwood Award at the University of Michigan. His poems and translations have appeared or are forthcoming in: Puerto del Sol, Tampa Review, Columbia Journal, Asymptote, The Mailer Review, and the Brazilian publications Belas Infíeis and Voz da Literatura. In 2017, he received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to be a visiting scholar at Amherst College. In 2020, he was a presenter in the MLA 2020 Roundtable sponsored by the Emily Dickinson International Society “Is Translation a Loaded Gun?" He lives in Chelsea, Michigan (USA).

The author wishes to thank Gattomerlino / Superstripes edizioni (Rome, Italy), the publisher of her first book Il nome bianco (2021), for graciously allowing the Italian versions of these poems to make an appearance here.

Hyeshin Lim

Two Translations of the Poet Hyeshin Lim

Reading

Nora lives alone on the fifth floor.
She comes down with a cane
to take a sunbath on a bench next to the clubhouse.
Before Covid-19, we used to talk for a while
whenever we met—but these days,
just a hand wave from afar.
I try to get sunlight for 30 mins
she stammers,
the round, reserved face looks like
an old library that closed a long ago.
On the flattening rooftop of the library,
the sun stays for 30 mins per day.
No one will peruse the bookshelves inside
full of fiction, nonfiction,
poetry, magazines, reference books.
Imagination stops somewhere in-between,
as if it already knows.
The house of alphabets is peaceful,
books in tempered conversation among themselves.
They are returning to the earth.

독서

5층 사는 할머니는
날 좋은 시간이면 지팡이를 짚고 나와
관리실 앞 벤치에서 햇살을 쬔다
코비드 19 이전에는 더러 이야기도 나누었지만
지금은 멀리서 손 인사만 한다.
‘30
분씩 햇살을 쬐려고 해’
더듬거리는
그녀의 동그란 얼굴은 낡은 도서관을
닮았다, 꽤 오래전 문을 닫은 낮은 지붕 위로
하루에 30 분 빛이 머물다 간다
책장 빼곡히 놓인
픽션 ,난픽션,시, 잡지, 도감들,
더이상 읽히지 않을 것들로 가득한 어디쯤에서
상상은 멈춘다
열어보지 않아도 다 안다는 듯
저들만의 대화 속에 온화해지는
문자들의 방,
책들이 대지로 돌아가고 있다.

A Village Cafe

reminds me of a revolution. A man with big hands and a low voice and a woman holding
a cigarette between her fingers are planning: African dreams, jeeps and birds running
through dusty roads, the exquisite anxiety of anarchy whispering into the ears of
cheetahs and sandstorms, stars shining through their own destruction, reconstructing a
horoscope of hyenas and lions under the crimson lamp. It's sweeter this way, the true
logic of a love affair, together in loneliness and poverty, bending toward one another,
waiting for the coldest, serene night to escape. A pinky promise as small as a coffee
spoon under the night sky spreads like a giant dinner table. As if the age of revolution is
not over, the age of romance is not over on a sofa whose center sags in golden, medieval
melancholy: two outcasts born to rebel and die, who never existed.

시골 다방은

혁명을 닮았다, 손은 크고 목소리는 낮은 남자와 손가락에 담배를 문 여자가 꿈꾸는
아프리카
먼지를 일으키며 달리는 지프와 새, 치타와 모래바람의 귓속을 속삭이는 무정부의 불안,
멸하는 중이라는 걸 알면서도 빛나는 별들처럼 뜨거워지는 크림슨빛 램프 아래 쓸쓸하고
빈곤해서 써내려가기 좋은 하이에나와 사자의의 천궁도, 서로를 향해 몸을 굽힌 채 가장
춥고 고요한 탈출의 밤을 기다리며 혁명의 시대는 지나지 않았다고 낭만의 시대는 지나지
않았다고 거대한 식탁처럼 너른 밤하늘 아래 조그만 커피 스푼같이 빛나는 새끼 손가락을
걸어주는 불륜의 논리, 황금빛 중세의 우울인양 중심이 내려앉은 소파 깊숙이 혁명을
위해 왔다 혁명을 위해 가는 페인들처럼, 원래는 없었던 그 남자와 여자를,




Hyeshin Lim is a Korean American poet, essayist, and translator whose publications include Forest of Illusions and 25 Contemporary American Poets, a collection of critical essays in Korean. Lim is the recipient of the Korean American Poets award and the Korean Expatriate Poet award. They reside in Jacksonville, Florida.

Michael Favala Goldman

Two Translations of the Poet Tove Ditlevsen

Death 1

Death for the elderly is
unplanned and by chance
they know it’s there
but don’t dare ask how
to slip into it
modestly and unnoticed
like life was
beside trolley stops.

Death for the rich is
haughty
grand and slow
is welcome to spread out
across the private room
is welcome to make noise in
the hospital hall
may be completely personal
and purchased for the occasion.

Relatives come
from far away and with
composure watch this
long-awaited death
eat
will inherit
are treated
deferentially by all
wearing the face suitable
for the situation.

The elderly poor brood
throughout long nights
have no one to ask
the hearse
comes often
takes away one
for whom it finally
happened
quickly and out of
the nurses ’sight.

It gives them hope
a humble
and uncertain joy
they speak softly about him
in the dayroom
the family came too late
the visitors have
startled eyes
they send
the children home.

The elderly are obedient
they have always done
what was expected
their health insurance cards
are always ready
under their pillows
all they have left is to die
the right way.

Døden 1

De gamles død er
uforberedt og tilfældig
de ved at den er der
men tør ikke spørge hvordan
man ifører sig den
beskedent og ubemærket
som livet blev det
langs sporvognens stoppesteder.

De riges død er
hovmodig
stor og langsom
må gerne række ud
over enestuen
må gerne støje i
sanatoriets sale
må være helt personlig
og købt til dagen.

Slægtninge kommer
langvejsfra og betragter
med roligt blik denne
længe ventede død
spiser
skal arve
behandles
ærbødigt af alle
bærer det ansigt der passer
til lejligheden.

De fattige gamle grubler
i lange nætter
har ingen at spørge
ligvognen
kommer tit
og henter en
for hvem det til slut
lod sig gøre
hastigt og afsides
uden at plejerne så det.

Det gir dem et håb
en ydmyg
og usikker glæde
de taler sagte om ham
i dagligstuen
familien kom for sent
de besøgende har
forbløffede øjne
de sender
børnene hjem.

De gamle har lydige sind
de har altid gjort
hvad man forventede
sygekassebogen
ligger altid parat
under hovedpuden
de har kun tilbage at dø
på den rigtige måde.

A Person

A person has
two arms two
legs and two
convictions.

One is
right
The other
wrong.
You must be able to shift
Between them.
Few remember
What was said
Five years ago.

Cross-eyed from
cunning
you orient
yourself
and have
one opinion for
good times
another for
bad times
in our time a third
does not exist.

Mennesket

Mennesket har
to arme to
ben og to
overbevisninger.

Den ene er
rigtig
den anden
forkert.

Man må kunne skifte
mellem dem.
Kun få husker
hvad man sagde
for fem år siden.

Skeløjet af
snedighed
orienterer
man sig
og har
en mening til
medgang
en anden til
modgang
i hvor tid findes
en tredie ikke.




Tove Ditlevsen (1917-1976) was one of the most notable Danish literary personalities of the twentieth century. She enjoyed great popularity as a writer of both poetry and prose. She used her poor upbringing, her fragile psyche, and her long-standing problems with relationships and narcotics as sources of inspiration for her writing. The result was a long list of unique, honest, uncompromising works with which countless readers have identified. Ditlevsen wrote more than 30 books, including the three memoirs of The Copenhagen Trilogy, recently published in translation by Penguin Classics and FSG.

Danish translator Michael Favala Goldman (b. 1966) is also a poet, educator, and jazz clarinetist. Among his sixteen translated books are Dependency and The Trouble with Happiness by Tove Ditlevsen. Goldman’s five books of original poetry include Small Sovereign (2021), which won first prize at the Los Angeles Book Festival.. His work has appeared in numerous literary outlets including the New York Times and The Harvard Review. He lives in Northampton, MA, where he has been running poetry critique groups since 2018. www.michaelfavalagoldman.com

Cynthia Graae’s fiction, nonfiction, and translation have been published in the Westview News, Kinder Link, The Washington Review, Paragraph, The Bridge, Canadian Women Studies: les cahiers de la femme, the Hill Rag, Humans in the Wild (a Swallow Press anthology about gun violence), and online on the HuffPost, Barren Magazine, and Maine Public websites. She is currently working on a collection of stories. She lives in New York City and Hiram, Maine.

Dick Cluster

Translation of the Poet Paula Abramo

RUDOLF JOSIP LAUFF, MAGYAR, IMPRISONED IN POLAND BY THE RED ARMY AND WON OVER TO BOLSHEVISM

no but the cloud look
how big the cloud is
wandering by
weigh it in your hand and you won’t think
about magnesium burning inside
a blue sphere
breaking slowly into pieces something very sharp runs through you
you’re nothing but wires down the middle
nothing but tiny plentiful fingernails
absurd, minimal, ridiculous
faint-hearted
you’re such a tiny crumb that the cloud
— better look at the cloud and think about it

because right now it’s obvious
patent, confirmed, certain
that a spark
the royal evanescent flame of a match
you can’t
you’re not worthy
of lighting it

But if everything were reduced
to zero
if the voltage dropped to zero,
if the cables registered
zero,
if the trains
carried nothing, and the papers
reported nothing
and zero
boxes of matches
and zero the output
of the seamstresses,
if the steel cogs fell silent
in an instant
and no walls or roofs were raised

not even a puff of factory smoke
suddenly
then, beyond the shadow of a doubt,
you’d understand.
That’s what they told you, Rudolf,
or maybe not;
maybe the people’s commissar
talked about the war
or not that either,
but surely you looked at the fists
covered in eloquent welts
from the cold
and you didn’t feel hunger
that day,
you were full of the days to come,
when you took up the war and the journey
and dressed in leather
leather all black.

Everyone in black leather,
on that endless train,
carrying so much weight,
making so many shoes
and a newspaper too
all en route.
Five times around the world.
Five times and a half,
the distance
traveled through snow and muck and storms,
and all of you, you too Rudolf,
all of you went,
all made one, in a feverish unstoppable
stampede,
armored comrades
converting
slime and fear
into anthem and flame.

Rudolf Josip Lauff, magiar, apresado en Polonia por el
Ejército Rojo y ganado al bolchevismo

no pero la nube mira
qué gorda va la nube
pasa
pésala con tu mano y ya no pienses
si adentro magnesio ardiente
una esfera azul
rompiendo despacito algo muy duro te recorre
que estás toda de alambres en el centro
toda de uñas minúsculas copiosa
absurda mínima ridícula
encogida
y eres tan una migaja que la nube
–mejor mira la nube y piensa en ella

porque por el momento es obvio
patente confirmado una certeza
que una chispa
la llamita real y evanescente de un cerillo
no puedes
ni eres digna de encenderla

Pero si todo a cero
se redujera,
si a cero el voltaje, si lo dicho
por los cables
a cero
llegara
si nada
llevaran los trenes, y a cero
ascendieran los diarios y a cero
las cajas de fósforos
y nada engendraran
las costureras
si callara el acero
de los engranes todos
en un instante
y no crecieran los muros ni los techos
ni en humo en el buche de la industria
de golpe,
entonces, ya sin duda, entenderías.
Eso te dijeron, Rudolf,
o quizá no;
hablaría
el comisario del pueblo de la guerra
o tampoco,
pero seguro que te contemplaste los puños
florecidos de elocuentes sabañones
y no sentiste hambre
ese día,
lleno ya de días siguientes,
en que asumiste la guerra y el trayecto
y te vestiste de cuero,
todo negro.

Todo negro era el cuero,
y los vagones tantos,
y el peso tanto, y tantos los zapatos,
y el diario hecho en la ruta.
Cinco vueltas al mundo.
Cinco vueltas y media,
la distancia
rodada entre la nieve, el lodo, las tormentas
y todos, y tú, Rudolf, iban todos
hechos ya uno, febriles de estampida
ininterrupta,
camaradas blindados,
convirtiendo
la lama y el pavor
en himno y llama.



Paula Abramo lives in Mexico City. This poem comes her from book FIAT LUX, a cycle of poems about her ancestors, many of them political refugees—including her grandmother who worked in a factory in Brazil making matches for the brand “Fiat Lux.” Hence all of the poems revolve around the image of striking a match.

Dick Cluster lives in Oakland, California. His translation of Abramo’s book FIAT LUX was published in a bilingual edition by FlowerSong Press in July 2022. Another recent translation is Gabriela Alemán’s story collection FAMILY ALBUM, from City Lights Books.

Kiran Bhat

Translation of the Poet Antonio Guzman Gomez

The black of my pen
is much darker than the night

yet in its colour
a lunar roundness forms the
lips of a poem’s first kiss.

Te ijk’al ts’ibojibale,
ijk ’suk’suk ’jich bit’il ajk’ubal,
yich’ojbe sbonil
sepel u
bit’il nichimal k’op ya sbujts’iwan.

Mi pluma negra,
como profunda noche,
lleva en su tinta
a la redonda luna
como un poema que besa.



Antonio Guzman Gomez is a poet of the Maya Tseltal community. As the contemporary literature of Maya Tseltal develops, Antonio has chosen to write in the haiku form because he would like other traditions outside of the West to be a part of his mother tongue's literary formation. Guzman Gomez’s translator, Kiran Bhat, believes that his poetry and its cross-pollination between these four linguistic cultures (Japanese, Maya Tseltal, Spanish and English) has created works of art deserving of international attention.

Kiran Bhat is a global citizen formed in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, to parents from Southern Karnataka, in India. He has currently traveled to over 135 countries, lived in 18 different places, and speaks 12 languages. He is primarily known as the author of we of the forsaken world... (Iguana Books, 2020), but he has authored books in four foreign languages, and has had his writing published in The Kenyon Review, The Brooklyn Rail, The Colorado Review, Eclectica, 3:AM Magazine, The Radical Art Review, The Chakkar, Mascara Literary Review, and several other journals. His list of homes is vast, but his heart and spirit always remains in Mumbai, somehow. He is currently bumming around Mexico

Harper Campbell and Christoffer Dharma

Three Translations of the Poet Chairil Anwar

My Friend and I
Kawanku Dan Aku

To L.K. Bohang

We walk late together
Piercing the fog
Rain drenching bodies
Close-packed boats in the harbour

My blood’s thick-clotting. I’m filling up solid

Who has words?
My friend’s just a skeleton
Because his power has been flayed

He asks, What’s the time?

It’s gotten so late
All nuances are drowned
And movements have no meaning

Kawanku Dan Aku

kepada L.K. Bohang

Kami jalan sama. Sudah larut
Menembus kabut
Hujan mengucur badan

Berkakuan kapal-kapal di pelabuhan.

Darahku mengental-pekat. Aku tumpat-pedat.

Siapa berkata?

Kawanku hanya rangka saja
Karena dera mengelucak tenaga.

Dia bertanya jam berapa!

Sudah larut sekali
Hingga hilang segala makna
Dan gerak tak punya arti

5 Juni 1943




Affandi’s “Girl”
“Betina”-nya Affandi

Girl, if in the west later
it gets dark
joining to drown completely
as those that lurk,
in your face there still plays Life and Death.

Your eyes oppose--wait a minute!
You are not intimidated, you touch life, you kiss it,
now the dusk is burnt, only ashes...
In your slender body still playing catch-up
Women and Men

“Betina”-nya Affandi

Betina, jika di barat nanti
menjadi gelap
turut tenggelam sama sekali
juga yang mengendap,
di mukamu tinggal bermain Hidup dan Mati.

Matamu menentang – sebentar dulu! –
Kau tidak gamang, hidup kau sintuh, kau cumbu,
sekarang senja gosong, tinggal abu...
Dalam tubuhmu ramping masih berkejaran
Perempuan dan Laki

1946

Poem for Basuki Resobowo
Sajak buat Basuki Resobowo

Will this be a long journey?
There’s only a bit of time to spare! -- If only we had more!
Then how?
Into the falling leaves I ask myself,
And the same song softens, turning into melody

What remains as a keepsake?
Look at her no longer glancing up
nor dull-eyed; the stars have vanished!

How long have we been walking?
it might have been a century... oh, or just a flicker!
What is the trip for?
Ask the mute house of origins!
My descendants are frozen there!

Are there any who will take?
Are there any who are lost?
Ah! I answer myself -- I am always homeless

Sajak Buat Basuki Resobowo

Adakah jauh perjalanan ini?
Cuma selenggang!—Coba kalau bisa lebih!
Lantas bagaimana?
Pada daun gugur Tanya sendiri,
Dan sama lagu melembut jadi melodi!

Apa tinggal jadi tanda mata?
Lihat pada betina tidak lagi menengadah
Atau bayu sayu, bintang menghilang!

Lagi jalan ini berapa lama?
Boleh seabad...aduh sekerdip saja!
Perjalanan karna apa?
Tanya rumah asal yang bisu!
Keturunanku yang beku di situ!

Ada yang menggamit?
Ada yang kehilangan?
Ah! jawab sendiri—Aku terus gelandangan...

28 Februari 1947



Chairil Anwar (1922-1949) has been called “Indonesia’s greatest literary figure.” Born in Medan, North Sumatra, he moved to Jakarta at the age of 19 where he mixed with the literary circles that would come to be known as the “Generation of ‘45.” From 1942 until his death in 1949 he wrote seventy-odd poems, along with some prose pieces, radio scripts, and translations. The anniversary of his death is celebrated in Indonesia as National Literature Day.

Harper Campbell lives in Vancouver. His writings have appeared in Salish Seas: An Anthology of Text + Image (2011), The Salt Chuck City Review (2019), Atlas and Alice (2022), and the British Columbia Review (2020-2022). He was recently a finalist in the Vancouver City Poem Contest. He has a degree in philosophy and Asian studies from the University of British Columbia.

Christoffer Dharma, born and raised in Jakarta, Indonesia, is a PhD student at the University of Toronto. He has published nearly 20 scientific articles in the field of epidemiology; his current research interests are in social isolation, sexuality, and mental health. Over the years, he has published a few Indonesian-language poems on his experiences growing up in Indonesia as well as some translations of Chairil Anwar in the Columbia Journal (2021) and Lunch Ticket (2021).