Poetry
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January 6, 2020 |
Humayun's Tomb in New Delhi. Photo by VED on Unsplash On an evening stroll down my street, the azan echoes, stops my feet, reminds me it is time to pray, but I start musing on that day: Bhai, wha... -
December 17, 2019 |
Photo by T Foz / Unsplash Alphabets of My Heart Because I am from East and West a mother with two alphabets and I must not love one more than the other if they are to grow up and love each othe... -
December 11, 2019 |
Photo by Kea Mowat on Unsplash Dear WLT Readers, I am thrilled to offer the following translation of “Eagle Poem” from English to Arabic in honor of poet Joy Harjo who, this year, was named... -
November 21, 2019 |
Photo by Ervins Strauhmanis / Flickr 1 We maintain antiquity and elegance on paper; inside we are full of shame. We present heaven and hell on paper; our self-disgust results fro... -
November 7, 2019 |
Photo by James St. John / Flickr Fences I will never think of this in the same way, watching the woman in her daily brown skirt throw her own body against the fence and try to cl... -
October 28, 2019 |
Photo by Bryan Kuwada Aunty says She climbed a ninety-foot cliff in the dark Traced the scars of a long-forgotten waterfall Cried as she felt the green disappearing under her fingertips And I le... -
October 24, 2019 |
Photo collage courtesy of the author El Matador after Argentina’s World Cup Victory in 1978 La Patria comes dressed in multiple costumes, during the... -
October 22, 2019 |
Perfecto Santiago / Courtesy of the author Culebra, Puerto Rico, 2018 Let us sit in the open air where days I work, my hands shaping a small plane out of sticks. I tell you only what I l... -
October 8, 2019 |
after Ai Wei Wei, Michael Lujan Bevacqua, and various documents of protest by Indigenous dissidents1,2 -
September 25, 2019 |
Photo: AndyM / Flickr I imagine the crocuses also sometimes come down unexpectedly feverish, spreading their long green leaves through the wrong season. So it’s Oc... -
September 3, 2019 |
A boy riding his bike near the Chamishko IDP camp in Iraqi Kurdistan, near the Turkish border / Photo by David Shook Non-Broadcast News Today a fire broke out in two tents The fami... -
July 5, 2019 |
Chris Barnes, Egypt, December 2010 / Flickr To Hisham Harbi who said to me: “don’t stay in the shadows” but I didn’t listen Epigraph rushing as always, my shadow jumped but... -
June 20, 2019 |
The poet Phoebe Giannisi and WLT Translation Prize (Poetry) winner Brian Sneeden Leaves Inside these articulations the beginnings of language outside of yes and no insid... -
May 14, 2019 |
Humpback whale / Photo by Wade Tregaskis / Flickr 7. For about a minute you spin and the world shifts galaxies. What germinates in your flesh is the viper’s dream. You slither through the underbr... -
April 25, 2019 |
Photo by Dennis Jarvis / Flickr Bema In Greek it means step. In church it separates me from the nave, where the quiet sit and wait. Behind the screen the altar boys, age twelve, a... -
April 11, 2019 |
Denisse Leon / Unsplash The Beginning Mother gave birth during an earthquake. She screamed, Mera bucha – my child. Inhaling, exhaling, withdrawing – Mera bucha mere pa... -
April 9, 2019 |
Richard Smith, “Piano Shadow” / Flickr A day without news. Left behind, last night’s lead story – a friend’s untimely death, his son surviving the head-on two miles from home. This evening, my n... -
March 26, 2019 |
Ellenm1, ice formations, Barton Dam, Michigan / Flickr Dismissed from some other duty the drawbridge attendant questions the stability of days. As in: how long until what we’ve been holding on to... -
March 14, 2019 |
A detail from Francisco Goya, The Drowning Dog, ca. 1820–23 / Museo Nacional del Prado I wish that I could find myself asleep tonight in a house on the banks of the Manzanares, ... -
March 5, 2019 |
Iain Broadfoot, “Epic abstract art” (coffee dregs) / Flickr The Storyteller by Ruxandra Cesereanu Just like that, we used to talk together in the café, not sitting down... -
February 26, 2019 |
Photo by Daniel García Peris / Flickr The Pounding of Hoes The pounding of hoes — don’t you hear them? Behind high stone walls, unceasing, yet slow, beyond the folds of time. T... -
February 21, 2019 |
Mercè Cañadell, The Young Minotaur and Ariadne / Photo by William Murphy Night Shift at the Globe I am the Master Leafblower, a.k.a. Tornado in Rags: Sopped, half dizzy, ears plug... -
February 19, 2019 |
Ty Nigh, “Atomic Liquor – Fine cocktails,” Las Vegas Desert View Overlook the chipmunk’s prayer hands & hunched tremble munch & swipe at whiskers bat-like in front of bik... -
February 4, 2019 |
Natalia Rifai, “Floating Carpet,” Srinagar, Kashmir, 1990 on Agha Shahid Ali’s 70th birth anniversary February 4, 2019 I In the post office, moored to the ghat, Secret g... -
January 29, 2019 |
Mike Schaffner, “Angel of Grief,” Glenwood Cemetery, Houston, Texas / Flickr In Which I Try to Imagine Justice without a thought to efficiency, without a thought to deadlines, wi...
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