Poetry

  • A photo of two voice actors sitting close to one another working on a radio production, juxtaposed with the cover to Flowers for Othello: On the Crimes That Came out of Jena
    April 17, 2018 | Esther Dischereit
    Mürtüz Yolcu (Enver) and Mansou Ciss (Otello) producing the radio play Blumen für Otello, April 9, 2014 / Photo by Sandro Most courtesy of Deutschlandradio   Author’s note: Flowers...
  • April 5, 2018 | Tom Paine
    Courtesy of Natalia_Kollegova/Pixabay   Ibis   The Ibis, in Egypt, was not a bird,he was Thoth, the god in the pyramidwith my heart in his scimitar beak.We are not j...
  • Close up of a stained glass New Year's ball
    January 8, 2018 | Beth Bachmann
    Photo by Inhabitat/ Flickr Happy New Year Everyone’s waiting for the ball to drop. The President’s son-in-law is going to jail. Or maybe not. Inform...
  • Mural in Cochabamba, Bolivia / Photo by proyecto mARTadero
    October 3, 2017 | Rita Valdivia
    Mural in Cochabamba, Bolivia / Photo by proyecto mARTadero For more on the poetry of Valdivia, read the companion essay by Margaret Randall.   Aullido poema octogonal En el graznido de mi...
  • Samoylov as a soldier in the Red Army in the 1940s
    September 26, 2017 | David Samoylov
    Samoylov as a soldier in the Red Army in the 1940s Translator’s note: In June 1944 David Samoylov (1920–1990), an important Russian-language poet who was then a soldier in the Red Army, was...
  • This view of Saturn’s rings from the “ringscape finale” series was among the last images Cassini sent back to Earth (September 13, 2017) / Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute
    September 20, 2017 | Lauren Camp
    This view of Saturn’s rings from the “ringscape finale” series was among the last images Cassini sent back to Earth (September 13, 2017) / Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institut...
  • Gillie Rhodes, “Log pile,” November 7, 2009
    September 13, 2017 | Fred Dings
    Gillie Rhodes, “Log pile,” November 7, 2009 Late Autumn  A butterfly searches our garden plants for blossoms  I don’t see. Flitting, almost lurching, it lands    at last on a barren branch as if exha...
  • Grave at the US/Mexico border taken at a cemetery near Anthony, New Mexico, July 19, 2015 / Photo by Lanie Elizabeth
    September 7, 2017 | Ilan Stavans
    Grave at the US/Mexico border taken at a cemetery near Anthony, New Mexico, July 19, 2015 / Photo by Lanie Elizabeth The following is an excerpt from part 2 of a four-part poem called “T...
  • Liu Xiaobo, 1991 / Courtesy of Wang Ya
    September 6, 2017 | Liu Xia
    Liu Xiaobo, 1991 / Courtesy of Wang Ya Translator’s note: This photo of Liu Xiaobo swimming surfaced on the Internet after the sea burial in Dalian, China. Those of us who were hear...
  • Photo print in a living room
    August 30, 2017 | Victoria McArtor
    Bury Me tell me            wet limestone            flinching coral reefs  what’s it like to alwaysbe night                                      tell me  what is it to be rooted in shadow           ...
  • John, “Fallen Angel,” August 29, 2010
    August 23, 2017 | Shamshad Abdullaev
    John, “Fallen Angel,” August 29, 2010   Here and Now Here he is sitting across from the balcony door;the wind will blow – a wound. The rustling lightblushes and fades in the rectangular mirror – th...
  • Lorenzo Gaudenzi, “Agria,” September 15, 2016
    August 15, 2017 | Phoebe Giannisi
    Lorenzo Gaudenzi, “Agria,” September 15, 2016 For more, read Brian Sneeden’s translator’s note on Giannisi’s work.   (Nostos I)                                                 f...
  • Tail light. Photo: Sarah-Rose/Flickr
    August 7, 2017 | Perrin Langda
    Tail light. Photo: Sarah-Rose/Flickr   Pistoning seas rise andmountains flow a river spreadsin the bed of an undulatingvalley forestswither and entire citiesblossom people copulate thereon certain nig...
  • coniferconifer, “water ablution pavilion,” November 30, 2013
    August 2, 2017 | B. B. P. Hosmillo
    coniferconifer, “water ablution pavilion,” November 30, 2013   Sparrows, Sparrows She is a man in her late forties and nobody knows when she was born or when she built a silvery house at the notorio...
  • Chañaral is a small coastal city in the Atacama region of Chile. Devastating flash floods in 2015 caused an estimated $1.5 billion in damage to the region. Photo by jipe7.
    July 31, 2017 | Laurence O’Dwyer
    Chañaral is a small coastal city in the Atacama region of Chile. Devastating flash floods in 2015 caused an estimated $1.5 billion in damage to the region. Photo by jipe7. Chañaral A desert town of...
  • Nadia Murad speaking with a group of Yazidi women / Courtesy of Nadia’s Initiative
    July 26, 2017 | Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee 
    Editorial note: This Sunday, July 30, marks the World Day against Trafficking in Persons, established in 2013 by the UN General Assembly. Nadia Murad—nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and c...
  • Mike Prince, “Black Drongo at Sunrise,” October 7, 2015
    July 24, 2017 | Kedarnath Singh
    Mike Prince, “Black Drongo at Sunrise,” October 7, 2015 Where Would I Go Where would I goI shall only stay here, like a handprinton a doorjust to be there, I’ll be hidden inthe smell of a suitcases...
  • Maryam Mirzakhani
    July 20, 2017 | Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee 
    Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani died of breast cancer on July 15 at the age of 40. A professor at Stanford University, Mirzakhani became the first woman to win the prestigious Fields Meda...
  • A H T, “Goreme – Pasabag,” December 5, 2014
    July 19, 2017 | A. G. Pettet
    A H T, “Goreme – Pasabag,” December 5, 2014 Göreme A ripple of flicking eyelids,a rooster’s cryand the call to prayerbreak through this dustyIslamic morning. I have been in this room before.The ten...
  • Gary Burke, “Remembering 9/11,” September 11, 2014
    July 4, 2017 | Puneet Dutt
    Gary Burke, “Remembering 9/11,” September 11, 2014 i’m from where the towers fell i’m from where the towers felljaws where we mourned Tupacarmpit of a state bruised byhad-it-too-hard dollar ferries...
  • Eros Bendato (Eros bound), bronze, 1999, by Igor Mitoraj, Kraków, Poland / Photo by Val Kerry
    June 19, 2017 | Nausheen Eusuf
    Eros Bendato (Eros bound), bronze, 1999, by Igor Mitoraj, Kraków, Poland / Photo by Val Kerry Not Elegy, But Eros             for Xulhaz Mannan, LGBT activist murdered i...
  • Rich, “On a Saturday Afternoon” (on the road from Royal, Nebraska, to the Ashfall Fossil Beds), May 25, 2013
    June 14, 2017 | Matt Mason
    Rich, “On a Saturday Afternoon” (on the road from Royal, Nebraska, to the Ashfall Fossil Beds), May 25, 2013 Creation Stories My favorite creation story right nowis the Babylonian one,where Apsu and...
  • Geoff Whalan, “Mistletoe Bird (Diaceum hirundinaceum),” Fogg Dam Conservation Reserve, Middle Point, Northern Territory, Australia, November 8, 2015
    May 24, 2017 | John Kinsella
    Geoff Whalan, “Mistletoe Bird (Diaceum hirundinaceum),” Fogg Dam Conservation Reserve, Middle Point, Northern Territory, Australia, November 8, 2015 Graphology Endgame 55: Adjustment We ha...
  • Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase (1912), oil on canvas, 147 × 89.2 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art / The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950
    May 22, 2017 | Óscar Hahn
    Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase (1912), oil on canvas, 147 × 89.2 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art / The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950 Desnudo bajando una escalera...
  • Giovanni Bellini, Pietà (1505), oil on wood, 65 x 90 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice
    May 15, 2017 | Joanna Pollakówna
    Giovanni Bellini, Pietà (1505), oil on wood, 65 x 90 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice For more on the poetry of Pollakówna, read “A Terrible Ecstasy,” a companion essay by Alice-Cathe...
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