Poetry

I Brushed the Dust off an Intoxicated Poet

By Jóanes Nielsen

March 2018
Jóanes Nielsen

photo : randi ward The first time I saw Aleksandur Kristiansen in personWas at the dance hall in the Tórshavn TheatreAt the time I was convinced that poets were some sort of demigodsThat maybe they t...
Four Poems

By Haydar Ergülen

March 2018
Haydar Ergülen

photo: nathalie jolie/unsplash Two Small Pomegranates If you want a garden to grow lookinside a pomegranate look long look deepat the core there’s a school and a blue girlthey’re a g...
The Aunt

By Hannah Lowe

March 2018
Hannah Lowe

photo: hayley madden The Aunt vanished one autumn. Left the house,the children, the Uncle with his twitching beard.If I wanted her, I searched in photographs:the Aunt, sublime in a Pucci wedding dre...
Two Poems

By Kim Stafford

March 2018
Kim Stafford

photo: pixabay Dastgah A wandering musician from afararrives on foot, dusty with the journey,and quietly performs while strollingthe strange city, steps lightly alonethrough crowded...
Two Poems

By Liu Xia

January 2018
Liu Xia

above Liu Xia prepared her goodbye for her husband, Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo (1955–2017), in a poem and a series of photographs titled The Lonely Planets (courtesy of the author). For m...
Three Poems

By Martín Gambarotta

January 2018
Martín Gambarotta

[untitled] Vacations in the ice, the London Manifestotransformed into a heap of stupiditiesan ultimatum for the scum, the day moon. Inertia: from theclean shoreto the dirty...
Nausis

By Eleni Kefala

January 2018
Eleni Kefala

Photo by Eleni Kefala for G. D. It was much easier to tell why it was called the golden grotto than to get into it. . . . It appears to have been used as a cemetery, for rows of tombs have be...
Two Poems

By Fady Joudah, Golan Haji

January 2018
Fady Joudah, Golan Haji

Author note: These poems are part of a longer sequence that Golan and I collaborated on for my new collection, Footnotes in the Order of Disappearance. All the poems are ba...
God Is Burning

By Li-Young Lee

January 2018
Li-Young Lee

God Is Burning Through an open wound in God’s left side,springtime enters into the world,sticky, green, with a taste of iron.That’s not the wound I hurt from. There’s a dull pain...
Three Poems

By Anna Maria Carpi

January 2018
Anna Maria Carpi

[untitled] Dear Lombard fog maternal densesix in the morning, winter,espresso machines are steamingin the first bars to open in the square.The city of gravestones is quiet, each has a name:under the...
Three Poems in Mapuzungun, Spanish, and English

By Liliana Ancalao

January 2018
Liliana Ancalao

[1] feichi lali mülen ñi nontual katrütuleufün feichi lali mülen ñi nontual katrütuleufünchem trewa ngiyulaenew, nielan trewatrongli trewa nümüalu...
The Square

By Iossif Ventura

January 2018
Iossif Ventura

Who are these people marching at noontide?Why do we hear these beating drums?What are the pigeons looking for on fluttering banners?What are the scattered words that stain the air? Sweat soaks the sq...
Three Poems

By Elisa Biagini

November 2017
Elisa Biagini

Photo: Daniel Simon [1] this ours that it be a unionof scissors: cutthe hair, the hems, the cord thatfeeds me worry withevery bite, my secret familyline. Cut itas i...
Shhh

By Lee van Laer

November 2017
Lee van Laer

From Yousef Khanfar’s project Humanity at Large, in cooperation with the United Nations. Khanfar writes, “These photos are impressionistic images that show human beings as islands within the...
The Village

By J. V. Foix

November 2017
J. V. Foix

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978), Mystery and Melancholy of a Street, 1914, oil on canvas, 69 x 85 cm, private collection My village sits on a circular platform. The gate of every house faces...
After the Funeral

By Robert Bly

November 2017
Robert Bly

There’ll be no more mother. We’ll have to live nowWith the looks on the faces of our friends,And half-open windows, and lamps that go onBy themselves, and an egg standing on a plate. Last night I dr...
Barefoot

By Kevin Hart

November 2017
Kevin Hart

Sam Roxas-Chua 姚, Pilgrim, 27 x 51 in., sumi-e and squid ink. www.samroxaschua.com Still of our world, dear father, in your graveOr at my winter window, looking hardInto a life you never kne...
Two Poems

By Nicholas Samaras

November 2017
Nicholas Samaras

The 200,000 lights in the Mémorial des Martyrs de la Déportation in Paris represent the number of deportees sent from France to Nazi concentration camps. Photo by Zak / Flickr Martyrs of the Deport...
Two Ghazals

By Rumi

November 2017
Rumi

Photo by C.P. Ewing / Flickr "The sky has never seen such a moon” The sky has never seen such a moon, not even in its dreams,No water could ever extinguish the fire of its light, Look at my body,...
Two Poems from Korea

By Yoo An-Jin, Kim Seung Hee

November 2017
Yoo An-Jin, Kim Seung Hee

Valery's "cemetery by the sea," Sète, France / Photo by Mathieu / Flickr An Encouragement by Yoo An-Jin “The wind is rising!We must try to live!”So said Paul Valéry.How shall I adopt that Frenchman’s...
Two Poems

By Ted Kooser

November 2017
Ted Kooser

For more, read Daniel Simon’s interview with Ted Kooser, “Starving for Order.” The Constellation I was on my way home from a party,ten-thirty, a dark winter night, no stars,a few snowflakes drifting...
Pianist

By Admiel Kosman

November 2017
Admiel Kosman

Photo: Ath-Har Saeed / Flickr I play on the water. It’s not completely necessary or required, but things flow under the treeslike a gentle melody. Day unto dayuttereth more lo...
Three Poems from the Alphabet of Empire

By Mona Nicole Sfeir

November 2017
Mona Nicole Sfeir

Mona Nicole Sfeir, The Maps of Our Making (detail), 2015, acrylic, chalk, collage on canvas. Political maps are human constructs that have continuously changed since the first maps were scratched ont...
Two Poems

By Eli Eliahu

September 2017
Eli Eliahu

Photo: Daniel Ebneter/Flickr Crossroads All winter I didn’t write a poem, and I didn’t remembereven one dream that I dreamt. I left a houseand a wife, rented an apartment, and everything I neededI fo...
Two Poems

By Sasenarine Persaud

September 2017
Sasenarine Persaud

Photo: Daniel Simon Egret The bird was just searchingfor food not metaphors –or taking rest from a day’s flight It was dusk after all and its ancestorswho might have crossed the MiddlePassage, crosse...