Poetry

  •    By Li-Young Lee
    July 2006 WLT Father John,I have seven Marys.What am I to do?Ancient when I was born,each sings to me in three colors: Blue,wishing, and following the river.Growing younger while I die faster...
  •    By Paula Meehan
     January 2007 WLT I am fingering a length of yarnfrom the mill at Stornoway.It is green as a summer meadowthough when I untwine it widdershinsI see, spun into the yarn, fibres of blu...
  •    By Gabeba Baderoon
     July 2008 WLT I walk down Heerengracht, where pigeons dip their necks like question marks into the fountain. Then left at Long, while the sun slips   Toward the sea and the moon tak...
  •    By Nii Ayikwei Parkes
     March 2011 WLT Clouds gather under a blue moon, like trouble brewing as strange fruit continues to swing – keeping time – while Columbia turntables refuse to spin the song; is vinyl...
  •    By Pireeni Sundaralingam
     Nov. 2008 WLT It is Paris, Berlin, New York,   it is any one of countless cities, any one                   of endless lands in which we find ourselves,   our careless hurrying thro...

  • November 2010

       By Anamika
    Salt is earth’s sorrow and its taste.Earth’s three-fourths is brackish water,and men’s heart a salt mountain.Weak is salt’s heart,very quickly it melts,it sinks in shamewhen plates are flungdue to sa...

  • November 2010

       By Kazim Ali
    you became real to me fatherwhen I saw you fly over me from beneath the waves a bone-white door against the cloud-white ceilinglooking for me, flapping and furious I watched you in the dark as you sl...

  • November 2010

       By Daljit Nagra
    Ah the Raj! Our mother-incarnate Victoria Imperatrix rules the sceptred sphere overseeing legions of maidens’ “fishing fleets” that break the waves to net the love of a heaven Etonian!Fetes on lawns...

  • November 2010

       By J. P. Das
    My small worldlies suspended betweenthe four walls of your house.There is no entry sign,yet my life, leashed to it,keeps moving endless round and round. From wherever I startI reach your house, sure...

  • November 2010

       By Ashok Vajpeyi
      I spread out earth’s green bedI pull in sky’s blue veilI place sun and moon on two pillowsI remove grass’s attireI indulge in play with you. Translation from the Hindi By Sudeep Sen...

  • November 2010

       By Subodh Sarkar
    Here, every child is scared to playHere, every squirrel has a bullet-proof home Here, every old man wants to commit suicideThere is no difference between a soldier and a manNo difference between the...

  • November 2010

       By Neelanjana Banerjee
               How sweet the past is, no matter how wrong, or how sad.                                                            – Charles Wright I watch the icicles              unravel from t...

  • November 2010

       By Anita Nair
    Was it a Sunday eveningWhen you left a window carelessly openYou rang first that gong of betrayal? Was it one high noonWhen you thoughtlessly fed her bones of the lambYou sang first that litany of du...

  • January 2011

       By Esthela Calderón
    The Flower and the Hummingbird (En español)   The Flower and the Hummingbird            ¡Tengo un colibrí! dijo la flor. Me envuelve con su fino picoy su hi...

  • January 2011

       By Natalia Toledo
    Bidaani’ Ruyadxie’ lii sica ruyadxi guragu’ guibá’,ribaque chaahue’ lii ndaani’ guiña candanaxhi guiriziñaguidilade’ ruxhele guirá guie’ bizeecabe lu xpidaane’ guirá nguiiu ne biulú z...

  • March 2011

       By Virgil Mihaiu
    womanif you had nothing but jazzwhat would you choosefor the child in your wombto listen tobefore the spring of milk starts to flow? only bill evansplaying glass beadson a keyboardof ice crystals and...

  • March 2011

       By Virgil Mihaiu
    the bossa novasof the'60saccompanied bythe vaguely irregularvaguely neuroticrim shotsof the stickclicking horizontallyon the snare drumfrom the perspectiveof the 21st century –a sort of clockworktick-...

  • March 2011

       By Virgil Mihaiu
    Virgil Mihaiu/text & Alan Tomlinson/trombone   A historical document from the beginnings of the JAZZOGRAPHICS, here in their embryonic nucleus: Virgil Mihaiu/text & Alan Tomlinson/trombone....

  • March 2011

       By Virgil Mihaiu
    Dumitru Belinschi / keyboards & piano; Marius Gagiu / flute & percussion; Mario Florescu / drums & percussion; Virgil Mihaiu / poetry & percussion This audio sample is recorded fragm...

  • March 2011

       By Lauren Camp
    When I realized I could make mistakes . . . I decided I was really on to something. — Ornette Coleman                 You can tell by the rumble of tall incantationsthat he has secured sound into a m...

  • March 2011

       By Lauren Camp
      I met Monk      on a subway, coming through the tunnel.          His words fell out be-     tween thick beard hairs,          then lumbered toward me, paused and sighed.                    When the...

  • May 2011

       By Alessio Zanelli
    As a child he’d been feeding on sea stories, sea people, sea adventures. Benign and adverse sea, calm and rough, emeraldand leaden. Tale after tale, book after book, devoured byinsane desires, adrift...

  • March 2011

    同居 他们将在街头同人生的三个意向相遇： 老人烟斗的余火、儿童涂写在墙上的笔迹 和湿漉漉的雨中行走的女人的小腿...... 他们徘徊了一整夜 围绕小白房子寻找标记 太阳升起来了，归宿仍不能断决 错误就从这时发生 没有经过祈祷 他们就会睡到一张床上 并且毫不顾忌室外光线 在晚些时候的残酷照射 因而能够带着动人的笑容睡去 像故去一样 竟然连再温柔的事情 也懒得回忆 ...

  • January 2012

       By Irma Pineda, Natalia Toledo, Victor Terán
    Irma Pineda "You Will Not See Me Die"   Natalia Toledo "The Weaver"   "For T.S. Eliot"   Victor Terán "I Know Your Body"

  • January 2012

       By Feliciano Sánchez Chan
    Translator’s note: Feliciano Sánchez Chan is among a growing group of poets (including Briceida Cuevas Cob and Isaac Carrillo Can) writing modern verse in the ancient language of Mayan. The M...
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