The Assignment
“the poem gripped me and would not let go until I’d turned it into English” | Chana Block on her first translation.
Dispatches
Ukrainian Feature: Words for War
“For many of the poets, the war is not some distant event one hears about in the papers. It is part of their personal history”| poems from Ukraine, edited by Oksana Maksymchuk and Max Rosochinsky
In Praise of Adam Zagajewski (1945-2021)
“For years now, as my plane begins its descent toward the airport outside of Kraków, the city where I was born and raised but left years ago, I recite them quietly” | by Piotr Florczyk
Yulya Tsimafeyeva’s Poetry of One-Legged Wonder
“Between these poets of cultural affirmation and the poets of silence… comes a voice of a woman—and a woman in a patriarchal world is always somewhat of an immigrant” | by Valzhyna Mort
Poetry and Plastics
“But how can poetry tackle such an urgent and growing global problem?” | Claire Cox reports on her time with The Clean Seas Odyssey
The Perpetual Ideal
Memories of a master class with Derek Walcott. “I wonder, though, if we ever astonished Derek, even just a little.” | by Patrick James Errington
An Image Writes the Poem
“I see the photo of a hole in the bombed ceiling of the Ghazanchetsots Cathedral in Shushi” | Poet Alan Semerdjian on “The Hole in the Church of My Heart”
Winners of the #DignityNotDetention Poetry Prizes 2019
Poetry@Tech, Detainee Allies, and Poetry International are delighted to share the results of the Dignity Not Detention Prize. When we began this project, we had no idea how widely it would reach into the world: poets from three continents sent work for consideration. The winners, runners-up, and finalists include a broad range of poets: some …
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LETTER FROM PARIS in March, 2019 from MARGO BERDESHEVSKY
LETTER FROM PARIS in March, 2019 from MARGO BERDESHEVSKY Untitled The man is quickened to memory a star risen to where none may touch but his poems and this iota of the last time I visited amid the dim corners the bend of fronds his ever caretakers the surround of palms and on a crowded …
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Ecopoetics: Katie Farris on Michael Radich
Ecopoetics: a Column First, consider this poem: Surprise by Michael Radich That plastic bug, thrust close, gave our little girl a startled fright! A busker ends his drumming; a burst of applauding wings flaps the pigeons to the sky. A butterfly, red leather gored by a lepidopterizing chopstick, lights upon her black twist hair. That …
Images from Gaza: Nasser Rabah
Nasser Rabah is a Palestinian poet born in Gaza. He has published several books of poetry in Arabic. In the United States his work has appeared in journals such as Two Lines (Center for the Art of Translation) and elsewhere. Writing about him in LA Review of Books, Joanna Chen, a poet who lives in …
On the Vulnerability of a Strong Poet: Translating Akhmatova’s Female Love – An Essay by Olga Livshin
On the Vulnerability of a Strong Poet: Translating Akhmatova’s Female Love In the West, Anna Akhmatova is broadly known as one of the most powerful voices for poetry of witness. If you are a non-Russian-speaking reader and have read any Akhmatova, you probably read her long, epic, narrative poem Requiem, which captures the collective sorrows …
Translation As Activism: Francisco Aragón
Translation as activism: an updated version of Rubén Darío Raised by an immigrant parent from Nicaragua, my siblings and I spoke Spanish with our mother while growing up. Amongst ourselves we spoke English. Ours, then, was a bilingual home in San Francisco, CA, where we were born. Although my mother’s education did not exceed …
Translating in Aleppo: an Essay by Scott Minar
It is 3:30 in the morning here, and the email chime on my phone rings. In Syria, it’s 10:30 a.m. Saleh Razzouk writes, “I am happy you are not on the verge of insanity, the edge of the thing like me. Yesterday I was about to lose my flat because an act of terror hit …
Letter from Beijing 4: Poets from the Yangtze River
Letter from Beijing 4: Poets from the Yangtze River 北京来信：来自长江/ 汉水的湖北诗人 by Ming Di This week in Beijing’s packed with events. After the final reading yesterday (October 12, 2017), Tracy K. Smith returned to the states. Kevin Young and John Yau along with the Mexican poet Mario Bojórquez went to Wuhan for a 3 day …
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Letter from the Caribbean: Life and Times — On John Robert Lee’s Collected Poems 1975-2015
Life and Times — On John Robert Lee’s Collected Poems 1975-2015 By Vladimir Lucien About a month ago, I saw Robert Lee having lunch with a few of his mates. “Old boys”, I thought to myself (which is what his alma mater —also mine— calls their alumni). Something about the collegial, somewhat mischievous laughter, and …
Letter from Beijing 3: How would Li Bai Write Today? 北京来信3：李白活在今天会怎样写诗？
LETTER FROM BEIJING 3: HOW WOULD LI BAI WRITE TODAY? 北京来信3：李白活在今天会怎样写诗？ LIGHT UP By Chen Dongdong 陈东东 Light up an oil lamp in the rocks so they can see the sea. Let them see the sea and the antique fish. See the light too, a lamp held high on the hill. Light …
Letter from Beijing 3: How would Li Bai Write Today? 北京来信3：李白活在今天会怎样写诗？ Read More »
Essay: In the River
In the River by Carmen Radley Last May, on a warm Friday evening, I stood on the north bank of the Rio Grande. I gazed south and noted that the landscape—from the dust the color of linen that puffed at each footfall to the writhing ridge of mountains blue with distance—was sublime but desiccated, …
LETTER FROM PARIS APRIL 2017 from Margo Berdeshevsky
Letter from Paris April 2017 from Margo Berdeshevsky DARK DAWN THOUGHTS WITH POETRY FOR SUSTENANCE STILL APRIL A grackle fallen on hard sand. One eye on a hunger, singing off-key in the dark times. Sun, fallen asleep behind its soul, again. No longer the first century of world wars. It is our 21st. Mourners’ tatters …
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In the Belly of Words: A piece by Durs Grünbein on Aleš Steger
In the Belly of Words By Durs Grünbein An Essay in Honor of Aleš Steger A few days ago, I was surprised by a news report. In the article, I read that there is now a »World Stroke Day« (it’s on October 29th). It is observed just like the »World Toilet Day«, just like …
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