Audio

  • September 2017

    Satiro della Valle, Capitoline Museums, Rome
       By Maxim Amelin
    Satiro della Valle, Capitoline Museums, Rome Эти бездонные ночи в июле Эти бездонные ночи в июле,            О!Ты вопрошаешь: — Меня обманули?            — Да, — отвечаю, — но как! Лучше не спрашива...

  • March 2017

    Gaza City. Photo: Getty / AFP photo / Mahmud Hams
       By Rachel Tzvia Back
    Gaza City. Photo: Getty / AFP photo / Mahmud Hams   History moves darkly and we are small, soft things.                                                                          –...

  • September 2016

    A woman walking over rocks with bare feet.
       By Feliciano Sánchez Chan
    Photo by Jordan Whitt/Unsplash U k’a’ajsaj a tuukul Kin k’áatiktuntimbáe’Bix a máan a ta’ak a wichtu bo’oy táanxel t’aanilKa’ a wa’al ma’atan a na’atik u t’aan Yum Iik’.  A yuume’tu yu’ubaj a tsikba...

  • March 2016

    A simurgh (a monstrous mythical bird with the power of reasoning and speech). From Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing, by al-Qazwīnī (d. 1283/682). Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine, Islamic Medical Manuscripts collection.
       By Rabiqe Nazim qizi
    A simurgh (a monstrous mythical bird with the power of reasoning and speech). From Marvels of Things Created and Miraculous Aspects of Things Existing, by al-Qazwīnī (d. 1283/682). Courtesy...

  • January 2016

    Photo: Flickr.com/limxd
       By Walle Sayer
    Editorial note: The Swabian versions of the following poems are read by the author. The English versions are read by Tegan White-Nesbitt. Abwesenheitsnotiz Aushäusig dahei...

  • March 2015

    Sapling
       By Forugh Farrokhzad
    Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography All my being is a dark verse that repeats you to the dawn of unfading flowering and growth. I conjured you in my poem with a sigh and grafted you to water, fire...

  • March 2015

       By Forugh Farrokhzad
    [Click here to read the lyrics in Farsi.]   The whole of my being is a dark verse of Scripture which in its repeated recitations will take you away to the dawn of eternal buddings and bloomings. I...

  • November 2014

    Red Canyon
       By Luljeta Lleshanaku
    Photo by Brent Pearson/Flickr Negative Space I I was born on a Tuesday in April.I didn’t cry. Not because I was stunned. I wasn’t even mad.I was the lucky egg, trained for gratitudeinside the belly f...

  • November 2014

    Photo by Alberto Varela
       By Julia Fiedorczuk
    Photo by Alberto Varela Bio   How unlike a dead fish a live fish is                 – Maxine Hong Kingston Kiedy byłam rybąKosmos jak zawsze okrągłyMiał przytulne ściany Śniłam o boskich pł...

  • September 2014

    Amarsana Ulzytuev. Photo © Anna Dikareva.
       By Amarsana Ulzytuev
      The author reading at the Gogol House Museum in Moscow, February 2014. Photo © Anna Dikareva. Listen to videotaped recordings of both Russian originals in the following clip (4:00-10:05).   Shenhe...

  • September 2014

    Swallows. Photo by Kenneth Cole Schneider/Flickr
       By G. Mend-Ooyo
    Swallows. Photo by Kenneth Cole Schneider/Flickr The Swallows G. Mend-Ooyo  Returning from afar, swallows in flocksEmbrace the tales of the gentle, tranquil steppe.The waters of eter...

  • September 2014

    Photo by Katerina Cheiladaki
       By Yorgos Soukoulis
    Photo by Katerina Cheiladaki Translator’s note: Arvanitika, or Arberishte as it is called in the Corinthian mountain vill...

  • September 2014

    Jesus Never Understood My Grandmother's Prayers
       By Mikeas Sánchez
    Photo by Marjan Lazarevski     Jesucristo’is Ja’ Ñäjktyäj’ya Äj’ Tzumama’is Kyionuksku’y Äj’ tzumama’is ja’ myuspäkä’ kastiya’orenatzu’ jyambä’ä ngyomis’kyionukskutyamnatzu’ xaä’ tumä nabdzu’jyambäu...

  • May-August 2014

    The Stream
       By Michael Cope
      How tenderly the stream flowsamong the numberless blossomswhose heads dip and weavein the tepid east wind, how warmthe insect tune, and multitudethe ripe green grasses, rank on rankthrough which i...

  • March 2014

    Photo by Gwaga
       By Ketty Nivyabandi
    Photo by Gwaga Little Men  Animals no longer speakDrums refuse to beatTanganyika slowly retreats From her shoresBloodied by the nightmare of menWhose pettiness piercesThe deep slumber of the ancient...

  • January 2014

       By Naomi Shihab Nye
    Photo by Pieter Stockmans “Syrian refugees go about their business in a refugee camp in Mafraq, Jordan . . .”  Ropes on poles, jeans & shirts fla...

  • January 2014

    Maize Flower
       By Juan Hernández Ramírez
    Translators’ Note Juan Hernández Ramírez describes both Nahuatl and Spanish as mirrors for his writing: “sirven de espejo, kewak se teskatl.” He does not write solely in one...

  • January 2014

       By Naomi Shihab Nye
    Photo by Kables/Flickr Their language rolls out, soft carpet in front of them.Strolling slowly beneath trees, men in white shirts, belts, baggy trousers,women in scarves,glinting cigarettes in the d...

  • September 2013

       By Samiya Bashir
      White Body Radiation Every day adjustments   before give upbefore make do   start where a clothespin clips a nose and breath is held until – What is a thing of beautyif it isn’t us? And if a body i...

  • July 2013

       By Mark Tredinnick
    Photo: Daniel Boud   This is my devotion, then: to walk sometimes                                             with the dog through the sclerophyll Cathedral of the morning. To let myself Off my lead...

  • July 2013

       By Jacques Roubaud
    Translator’s note: Roubaud wrote the first poem, “À cinq heures du soir” (itself a nod to Lorca’s famous “La cogida y la muerte”), about Warren Motte’s dog Lucy, who shared with her owner a g...

  • July 2013

       By Shakeel Badayuni
    Ghazal Shakeel Badayuni My heart longs to go beyond the obsession of love,and find joy in a new session of love.  Love drowned me in its tidesbut my heart hopes that was a mere dig...

  • May 2013

       By Zvonko Karanović
        Placing Everything on the Line Zvonko Karanović A car stops in the middle of the screena gentleman walks out dressed in black, wearing a hat,  grabs a frightened girl by the armblackmails her to...

  • January 2013

       By Mark Tredinnick
    Kookaburras in a tree. Photo by Jaraslavd/Flickr I thought it said on the girl’s red purseA kind of sad dance and all dayWondered what was being defined . . .The real love that followsEarly...

  • May 2012

       By Aicha Bassry
      On the Edges of Autumn I shall close death’s doors.I am the autumn’s last flower.– Edith Södergran   My body is like algaeExhausted by the night’s diving.Gather me up in...
more

World Literature Today
630 Parrington Oval, Suite 110
Norman, OK 73019-4037
405-325-4531

Updated by World Literature Today: [email protected]