Poetry
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May 14, 2019 |
Humpback whale / Photo by Wade Tregaskis / Flickr 7. For about a minute you spin and the world shifts galaxies. What germinates in your flesh is the viper’s dream. You slither through the underbr... -
May 9, 2019 |
Ahmad Shamlou (left) | Photo by Hadi Shafaieh. Niloufar Talebi (right) | Photo by Devlin Shand In Self-Portrait in Bloom, Niloufar Talebi (www.niloufartalebi.com) tells her story of gro... -
April 25, 2019 |
Photo by Dennis Jarvis / Flickr Bema In Greek it means step. In church it separates me from the nave, where the quiet sit and wait. Behind the screen the altar boys, age twelve, a... -
April 11, 2019 |
Denisse Leon / Unsplash The Beginning Mother gave birth during an earthquake. She screamed, Mera bucha – my child. Inhaling, exhaling, withdrawing – Mera bucha mere pa... -
April 9, 2019 |
Richard Smith, “Piano Shadow” / Flickr A day without news. Left behind, last night’s lead story – a friend’s untimely death, his son surviving the head-on two miles from home. This evening, my n... -
April 1, 2019 |
To kick off National Poetry Month, I’d like to share with you five favorite poets/poems that have appeared in the magazine’s pages over the past five years. Zsuzsa Takács (Hungary), “On Vision” and “... -
March 26, 2019 |
Ellenm1, ice formations, Barton Dam, Michigan / Flickr Dismissed from some other duty the drawbridge attendant questions the stability of days. As in: how long until what we’ve been holding on to... -
March 7, 2019 |
Photo by Kevin Bessat / Unsplash In this fictive dialogue of Johanna Schopenhauer with her son, Arthur, family appears as a philosophical playing field: mother-root and son’s wants. Of dreams an... -
March 5, 2019 |
Iain Broadfoot, “Epic abstract art” (coffee dregs) / Flickr The Storyteller by Ruxandra Cesereanu Just like that, we used to talk together in the café, not sitting down... -
February 28, 2019 |
Marilène Phipps, Roots, 13 x 18 in., oil on linen canvas / Courtesy of the artist Whether she is a writer who paints or a painter who writes, Marilène Phipps combines the two gifts with a rare brill... -
February 26, 2019 |
Photo by Daniel García Peris / Flickr The Pounding of Hoes The pounding of hoes — don’t you hear them? Behind high stone walls, unceasing, yet slow, beyond the folds of time. T... -
February 21, 2019 |
Mercè Cañadell, The Young Minotaur and Ariadne / Photo by William Murphy Night Shift at the Globe I am the Master Leafblower, a.k.a. Tornado in Rags: Sopped, half dizzy, ears plug... -
February 19, 2019 |
Ty Nigh, “Atomic Liquor – Fine cocktails,” Las Vegas Desert View Overlook the chipmunk’s prayer hands & hunched tremble munch & swipe at whiskers bat-like in front of bik... -
February 4, 2019 |
Natalia Rifai, “Floating Carpet,” Srinagar, Kashmir, 1990 on Agha Shahid Ali’s 70th birth anniversary February 4, 2019 I In the post office, moored to the ghat, Secret g... -
January 29, 2019 |
Mike Schaffner, “Angel of Grief,” Glenwood Cemetery, Houston, Texas / Flickr In Which I Try to Imagine Justice without a thought to efficiency, without a thought to deadlines, wi... -
January 24, 2019 |
Humberto Ak’abal in 2013 / Courtesy of LiteraturhausSalzburg For nearly a decade I ran a visiting writers series at a liberal arts university in Indiana. The series was very well endowed, which mean... -
January 22, 2019 |
The bruise of ink on white paper. The words that line transcription and record. I know I am more than this thin sheaf. The written name of my village can’t say anything about the openness of its... -
January 17, 2019 |
Greg Jordan, “Moth, Glass, Hand,” Sept. 2009 / Flickr Before there is sausage and bread And blood-red wine Like the light Over the great lake Are you a ship Or a sequin Something so tiny It c... -
January 15, 2019 |
Loretta Collins Klobah / Courtesy of Peepal Tree Loretta Collins Klobah’s Ricantations (Peepal Tree, 2018) is her second collection of poetry. The book has been selected as a Poetry Book So... -
January 10, 2019 |
Enrapture Captivating Media / Unsplash What becomes a legend most? Great talent, suffering, and mystery . . . three ingredients that French poet Arthur Rimbaud possessed in spades. General readers w... -
December 7, 2018 |
Elephants in Etosha National Park, Namibia / Photo by Richard Jacobs on Unsplash for Reinaldo Arenas I have seen a land of regal elephants, you wrote some years ago, not many really, back w... -
March 14, 2018 |
photo : yvo luna Naomi Foyle (naomifoyle.com/wp), editor of A Blade of Grass: New Palestinian Poetry, discusses curating the project,... -
January 17, 2018 |
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” and our aim is to reach the unattainable, the unknown through the “viewless wings of Poesy.” “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” thinks the... -
January 10, 2018 |
Misuzu Kaneko (1903–1930) is a poet who holds a special place in the hearts of many Japanese as a voice of compassion in a difficult time for the country. The recently published Are You an Echo? T... -
December 20, 2017 |
Jonas Zdanys is a master lyricist. The bilingual poet (English and Lithuanian) displays his versatile ability with a variety of poetic styles in several recent collections. In Red Stones (201...
Recent Posts
Photo of Tétouan by Jean-Louis Potier / Flickr
An early novel, L’Écrivain public (The public scribe) is a surrealistic, semi-...
Humpback whale / Photo by Wade Tregaskis / Flickr
7.
For about a minute you spin
and the world shifts galaxies.
What germinates in your flesh is...
Ahmad Shamlou (left) | Photo by Hadi Shafaieh. Niloufar Talebi (right) | Photo by Devlin Shand
In Self-Portrait in Bloom, Niloufar...
Photo by Eric Ward on Unsplash
May 8, 2019
to Daniel Simon, Editor in Chief, World Literature Today
Dear Daniel,
It is with great...
Tour guide at the Queen Mine in Bisbee / Photo by Scott Durgan / Flickr
Last summer, I spent July and part of August in a straw-bale house in...
