AND WHAT HAPPENS IF I WANT TO NAME EVERYTHING?, ASKS THE FEMALE DISCIPLE by Mayra Santos-Febres trans. Seth Michelson (from SPANISH)

/ / ISSUE 25, Translation

what happens if i want to speak children
say beloved
embrace this solitude?

the signs will kill you, warn far-sighted voices,
the parallel paths of the law will kill you

many women have tried and failed
their names are the names of names

they come from everywhere
are written in every tongue
sing from every tribe of the species 

the voices say the only answer is giving up

the utopian solitude of the amazons
alone in a room

the perpetual battle of the wise woman turned to witch
and ash
or the scribe alone defending her parchment from the fire

old women sing the secret litany of their daughters

Sei Shōnagon
Murakami
Scheherezade, who obtained the prize of silence and love
by defeating predation with her song
Hypatia
Rosalinda
abbess von Bingen
the heretic monk Juana,
Teresa, Alfonsina, Pizarnik,
the strange Gabriela del Rocío,
María Luisa Bombal, Julia, Ángela

the list is long

giving-up, ever so small, the giving-up,

or you choose love, the tiny homeland of the house

or you choose the broad land of words.

 

TRANSLATOR BIO:

Seth Michelson is a poet, translator, and professor of poetry at Washington and Lee University, where he founded and directs the Center for Poetic Research. He has published 18 books of original poetry in English and in Spanish, poetry in translation, and the anthology Dreaming America: Voices of Undocumented Youth in Maximum-Security Detention. His many honors include fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mellon Foundation, and the Lenfest Foundation, as well as prizes from Split This Rock, the International Book Awards, the Paterson Poetry Prize, and the American Studies Association

ISSUE 25
POEMS

EN ROUTE by Suphil Lee Park

TWO POEMS by Alexandra Teague

GHAZAL NO. 2 by M. Cynthia Cheung

[MY GRANDFATHER WALKED IN THE SNOW] by Cleo Qian

IN THE END, THE ALEFS CURL by Iqra Khan

THREE POEMS by Mónica Gomery

GEOMETRY by Karen Kevorkian

from PSALMS OF LAMENT FOR DIVINE IMPERATIVES by Jennifer Metsker

TWO POEMS by Jimin Seo

THE PLEASURE IS IN THE WORK by Stella Hayes

WHAT ELSE COULD I HAVE DONE by Mikael de Lara Co

FICTION

MY DINNER THEATRE WITH ANDRÉ by Christopher Hebert

KHOSHBAKHTAM by Kent Kosack

TRANSLATION

from RED MELANCHOLIA by Helena Boberg trans. Johannes Goransson (from Swedish)

AND WHAT HAPPENS IF I WANT TO NAME EVERYTHING?, ASKS THE FEMALE DISCIPLE by Mayra Santos-Febres trans. Seth Michelson (from Spanish) 

THREE POEMS by Bronka Nowicka trans. Katarzyna Szuster (from Polish)

[A POEM] by Beatriz Miralles de Imperial trans. Layla Benitez-James (from Spanish)

[UNTITLED 1] by Vladislav Hristov trans. Katarina Stoykova (from Bulgarian) 

FROM NORTH by Baek Sok trans. Jack Jung (from Korean)

WHEN OTHER PEOPLE ARE WRITING POEMS by Oh Kyu-won trans. Jack Jung (from Korean)

TWO POEMS by Ashraf Zhagal trans. Ghada Mourad

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