Poetry

  • July 2012

       By Fred Dings
    Illustration by Ciaran Duffy/Flickr   The Blue Whale Our five-year-old daughter bubbles with laughteras she bounces on her bed, pure joy flashingin her eyes like the glint of fingerlings in sunlit wav...

  • 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...

  • May 2012

       By Shizue Ogawa
      Following is a selection of four bilingual audio readings from Shizue Ogawa’s A Soul at Play, a collection of verse reviewed in the May 2012 issue of WLT. Donna Tamaki provides the...

  • May 2012

       By Geoffrey Philp
    Audio versions read by the author Editorial note: Geoffrey Philp’s interview with Erika J. Waters appears in the May 2012 issue of WLT on pages 24–29.     A Prayer for My...
  •    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...
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