Poetry

  • March 2016

    Bronze statue in Baku’s Fountain Square of a young woman in contemporary attire talking on a mobile phone, erected in 2014.
       By Aysel (Nino) Novruz
    Bronze statue in Baku’s Fountain Square of a young woman in contemporary attire talking on a mobile phone, erected in 2014. Photo: Alison Mandaville I have broken a cup There is an ache in every corn...

  • March 2016

    Bird Tracks
       By Rabiqe Nazim qizi
    Photo: Stefan Schweihofer I Scatter Bread Crumbs to the Sparrows From my palms spills the joy of sparrows.I call them to the crumbs, Come quickly! and Who will be first?Their frozen bills wa...

  • January 2016

    Archipelago. Photo: Kris Williams
       By Conceição Lima
    Photo: Kris Williams/Flickr Archipelago The enigma is some other thing – no gods live here Just men and the sea, immovable inheritance.   Undeniable By dowry I received you at birth and I recognize...

  • January 2016

    Photo: Vincent Brassinne (Flickr.com/vainsang)
       By Kim Hyesoon
    Photo: Vincent Brassinne (Flickr.com/vainsang) Sand Woman A woman was lifted from the sand. She was perfectly intact, not even a split hair. When he left they say she didn’t eat or sleep. She didn’...

  • 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...

  • January 2016

    Wildflowers
       By Iossif Ventura
    Photo: Public Domain/Pixabay Untitled The wildflowers don’t bloom on command nor can their seeds be sown rebellious winds whirl at dawn winnowing seeds toward the ossuaries of the fields...

  • January 2016

    Crates. Photo by Fiona Baxter/Flickr
       By Stephanie McKenzie
    Photo by Fiona Baxter/Flickr i He once sold a portion of himself to a fish packing plant, slipped in the crates of the headless and dressed when all eyes were blu...

  • November 2015

    Jeremy Miranda, Salt Marsh, 2014, acrylic on panel. Courtesy of the artist.
       By Hedy Habra
    Jeremy Miranda, Salt Marsh, 2014, acrylic on panel. Courtesy of the artist. How Much of Yourself Remains Within the Walls of a Home? after Jeremy Miranda’s Salt Marsh (2014)...

  • May 2015

    Photo by Ryan Godfrey
       By Mei-Tal Nadler
    Photo by Ryan Godfrey X Days After the Amnesia Epidemic We set out on this road knowing we would discover nothing amazing. We didn’t expect to find a new route to Mercury, we didn’t imagine we woul...

  • November 2015

    Antoni Tàpies, Porta metàl·lica i violí, 1956, 200 x 150 x 13 cm.
       By Andrés Sánchez Robayna
    Antoni Tàpies, Porta metàl·lica i violí, 1956, 200 x 150 x 13 cm. Back then I learned that the painter’sgesture contains both the movement of the planetand the blade of grass on the mountain...

  • September 2015

    Portrait of Wally Neuzil
       By Zsuzsa Takács
    Egon Schiele, Portrait of Wally Neuzil, 1912, oil on wood (32 x 39.8 cm). © 2015 Leopold Museum, Wien, Austria. www.leopoldmuseum.org/en/leopoldcollection/masterpieces/33 On Vision Wally...

  • September 2015

    Gun illustration. Photo by Andrew Toskin.
       By Joshua Bennett
    Photo by Andrew Toskin    Still Life with Toy Gun for Tamir Rice and John Crawford III after the after-party empties both of its fists the seven of us gather like a murderof crows to loose...

  • September 2015

    Adam and Eve, by Gail Caulfield, Villa Montalvo (Italy)
       By Frank Paino
    Adam and Eve,by Gail Caulfield, Villa Montalvo (Italy) Genesis 2: 18–22 After a while, the glitter began to fade, the way a bright star, regarded full-o...

  • May 2015

    Tahel Frosh. Photo by Alon Porat
       By Tahel Frosh
    Tahel Frosh. Photo by Alon Porat הרי ספרד אֲנִי כּוֹתֶבֶת אֶת מַה שֶּׁלֹּא יִתָּכֵן כִּי יֵשׁ מִי שֶׁמְּדַבְּרִים עַל כֶּסֶף בְּאִינְטִימִיוּת מִי שֶׁמַּעֲבִירִים בִּזְרָמִים חוּשָׁנִיִּים כֶּסֶף שֶׁ...

  • 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

    Standing on Earth
       By Mohsen Emadi
    Photo by ~dgies/Flickr Bilingual recordings by the author and Lyn Coffin 9 Death is when the heart does not beat and the clock beats. Love is when the heart beats and the...

  • 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...

  • January 2015

    Misrak Terefe and friends
       By Misrak Terefe
    Misrak Terefe (far right) with fellow Ethiopian performance poets. This says the meaning of country is sitting in the balance.In order to say, to be able to see,the balance, the leader must...

  • January 2015

    Samsung Square
       By Eric Ellingsen
    For a group of art performances in July 2013 called Wax and Gold organized by the Netsa Art Village, visual artist Mulugeta Gebrekidan presented “Invading Samsung Square” to protest the corp...

  • January 2015

    Niyi Afolabi
       By Niyi Afolabi
                                   for Mia Couto Dream,     Dream,          Dream.Never cease to dream       Dream on, MiaYour beginning A tale of yesterdays     Your today     A tale of future...

  • 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: Kristina Sheppard (flickr.com/summerspot)
       By Ana Blandiana
    Photo: Kristina Sheppard/Flickr A Young Horse  I’ve never figured out what world I live in.I rode on a horse as young and as happy as I.When he galloped I could feel his heartbeatAgainst my thighsAnd...

  • 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...

  • November 2014

    Fence Line. Photo by Todd Stewart
       By Lawson Fusao Inada
    Todd Stewart, “Fence Line, Tule Lake Relocation Center, 2001,” from Placing Memory: A Photographic Exploration of Japanese American Internment (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008). Eating No...

  • 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...
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