URGENT: NEWS OF THE DEATH OF HIBA ABU NADA by João Melo, trans. G. Holleran
Excuse my urgency, oh right-thinking beings
especially you translucent
and self-referential poets,
but one of our sisters,
the Palestinian poet Hiba Abu Nada,
has just died in Gaza under the shrapnel of a benevolent bomb,
sent by another God,
different from the one she spoke with
every day.
I hesitated to convey this fateful news
so hastily. Perhaps I should wait
for the leaden grey smoke from the bomb that killed her to dissipate,
while she, surely,
scrutinized the sky for a sliver of light and
maybe even
the last birds.
Or, more convenient yet
it’d be better to say nothing,
until today’s hegemonic oracles,
like all oracles,
circulate an official statement
denying it as usual
without any doubts
or uncomfortable questions.
But when I read
the last words of Hiba Abu Nada before she died,
I was moved to spread this news,
before her banner could be censored
by those who defend selective liberty:
“If we die, know that we are content and steadfast,
and convey on our behalf that we are people of truth!”
Grace Holleran translates literature from Portuguese to English. A PhD candidate in Luso-Afro-Brazilian Studies & Theory at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, Grace holds a Distinguished Doctoral Fellowship with the Center for Portuguese Studies & Culture and Tagus Press. Grace’s research, which has been supported by a FLAD Portuguese Archives Grant, deals with translation and activism in the early Portuguese lesbian press. An editor of Barricade: A Journal of Antifascism & Translation, Grace’s translations of Brazilian, Portuguese, and Angolan authors have been published in Brittle Paper, Gávea-Brown, The Shoutflower, and others.
- Published in Featured Poetry, Poetry, Translation
FOUR POEMS by Olivia Elias, trans. Jérémy Victor Robert
Day 21, Words Are Too Poor, October 28, 2023
words are too poor but I have only them
my only wealth
empty my hands & so great the sufferings
here again I press my arms around my chest
here again I get into this old habit of covering the page with little
squares filled with black ink
the little squares of our erasure
/
I write what I see said Etel Adnan* who knew a lot about
mountains’ strength as well as Catastrophe
I also know the power of this Mount facing the sea
Carmel of my very early days Mount Fuji of absence
& denial around which I gravitate above it the
black crows of desolation
as I know all about our Apocalypse which keeps on repeating
repeating the earth turning on its axis the sun that veils its face
/
here’s what I see
the madness of the overarmed Occupying State
crushing bodies & souls live on screens at least until
night falls a night of the end of the world only
pierced by ballistic flashes
in Sabra & Shatila the spotlights
. illuminated the massacre’s scene
today in this Mediterranean Strip of sand
. total darkness shields Horror
the sky explodes in a thousand pieces amongst
monstrous mushrooms of black smoke the time to
count one two three towers collapse one
after the other like bowling pins their inhabitants
inside then get into action the steel monsters
flattening the landscape they call it
(translation: converting this ghetto sealed off on all sides
into a 21st-century Ground Zero)
everyone wondering When will my time come?
& parents writing their children’s name on their small wrists
for identification (just in case)
/
no water no food no fuel & electricity & no medicine
decided the Annexationist Government’s Chief
let’s finish this once & for all & forever they shout
relying on the unconditional support of
their powerful Allies the ones primarily responsible
for our fate by writing it off on the bloody chessboard
of their best interests
as if their contribution to our erasure redeemed their crimes
Hear Ye Hear Ye
proclaims America’s great Chief, waving his veto-rattle
Absolute safety for the Conquerors
Hear Ye Hear Ye
chorus the mighty Allies
/
Gaza / 400 square kilometers/not a single safe place /2.3 million people /half of them children / hungry /thirsty/injured /desperately searching for missing family members dying under the rubble
& Death the big winner
/
they should know that souls cannot
be imprisoned no matter how tight the rope
around the neck & how strong
the acid rains & firestorms
One day, however, one day will come the color of orange/
/a day like a bird on the highest branch**
where we will sit
in the place left empty
in our name
in the great human House
————
*Etel Adnan, “I write what I see,” in Journey to Mount Tamalpais (Sausalito: Post-Apollo Press, 1986; Brooklyn: Litmus Press, 2021).
**“One Day, However, One Day,” from Louis Aragon’s homage in Le Fou d’Elsa (1963) to Federico García Lorca, who was murdered, in August 1936, by Franco’s militias.
DAY 74, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE POETS, December 20, 2023
instability a general rule
it seems a new ocean’s on the verge
of emerging in
Africa
& floating between
here
&
there
could affect not only people or land
but also the seasons I experienced it
of fall I didn’t see a single thing
this year the acacia’s
color even changed without
my noticing
one morning looking through
the window I realized
it was there
naked
at its feet a carpet of yellow
leaves littered the ground
nothing to keep it warm
exposed
to the cold icy rain missiles
& here I was & still I am
glued to the screen
startled by every explosion
of the red-little-ball
clinging to the glittering
garlands
as soon as one of the
flesh-eating-red-balls hits
the ground a sheaf of fire
bursts followed
by a huge black smoke
cloud
then
screams
cries
panic
agony
day & night (even
more so at night) keeps on
going the hypnotic
ballet
today
Day 74
74 days of this
will spring come back
or only a long winter
of ignominy cold hunger
history will remember
there will always be poets
to tell the martyrdom
of the Ghetto People
NOTE: An earlier version of this translation appeared on 128 Lit website, December 28, 2023.
HEAR YE, HEAR YE!
At regular intervals shaking his rattle carved with the word veto the Grand Chief of America takes the floor for an urbi et orbi statement
With the utmost firmness
broadcast on a loop
in newspapers on screens
around the world
withwithwithwithwithwithwith
thethethethethethethe
utmostutmostutmostutmostutmost
utmostutmost
FIR/MNESS
like
FER/OCITY
growing
exponentially
utmostutmostutmostutmosT
exceptionallyFirm
FIR/MNESS
FIRE/MESS
Iron balls blazing
in the sky
black & read whirls
it’s raining
black ashes
east bank not west
with the utmost
firmness
We support the Conquerors’
Right to Security
COLIN POWELL. GUERNICA. SCULPTURE
1
The devil is in the detail. Colin Powell–former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Secretary of State to the 43rd President of the United States, George W. Bush, between 2001 and 2005–was said to have placed great importance on this. Unfortunately for him and the legacy he leaves to history, he broke that rule on one memorable occasion
It was on February 5, 2003, when he called for a military crusade against Iraq on the podium of the United Nations, based on false evidence of weapons of mass destruction. His effort resulted in the very thing it was supposed to prevent–the deaths of hundreds/hundreds of thousands of Iraqis–& plunged the country into widespread chaos, which is still unfolding today
That day, UN officials covered with a blue veil a tapestry hanging at the entrance of the Security Council representing Guernica, the monumental work painted by Picasso at the request of the Republican government during the Spanish Civil War. Twenty-seven square meters commemorating the stormy & total destruction of the small town of the same name by the German & Italian air force, on April 26, 1937
2
In March 2021, the tapestry was returned to the Rockefeller family who had loaned it for 35 years & wanted it back. Has it been replaced? With what work? I don’t know, but I’ve got an idea. Let’s offer a cubist sculpture/assemblage of 550 stones extracted from our lands on which Settlers, protected by militias/soldiers & courts, are having a great time
Upon each of these stones
that capture the light so
beautifully
is an inscription: the name of
a village
from yesterday and today
that was
razed/ablaze
May a blue veil cover it when the Guardians of the ghetto & the bantustans take the floor
JÉRÉMY VICTOR ROBERT is a translator between English and French who works and lives in his native Réunion Island. He published French translations of Sarah Riggs’s Murmurations (APIC, 2021, with Marie Borel), Donna Stonecipher’s Model City (joca seria, 2020), and Etel Adnan’s Sea & Fog (L’Attente, 2015). He recently translated Bhion Achimba’s poem, “a sonnet: a slaughter field,” which was published on Poezibao’s website, and Michael Palmer’s Little Elegies for Sister Satan, excerpts of which were posted online by Revue Catastrophes. Together with Sarah Riggs, he translated Olivia Elias’ Your Name, Palestine (World Poetry Books, 2023).
- Published in Poetry, Translation
SLUMROYAL by Yahya Hassan, trans. Jordan Barger
INFECTIOUS INSANITY AMONG TODAY’S MEN AND WOMEN
WORRYFREE FARMERS ENTWINE THEMSELVES
WITH DIRT CATTLE AND COUNTRY WIVES
NEPOTISM AND INBREEDING GO HAND IN HAND
NOT JUST WITH THE ROYAL POLICE BUT ALSO
RECRUITING OFFICERS AND MARINE MINISTERS AND CORVETTE CAPTAINS
AND FIELD MARSHALS AND FIELD MISTRESSES
REQUISITIONED FROM THE RESERVES
MISERABLE SOULS DIG THEIR OWN GRAVES
ALL FOR A GUN SALUTE AND LULLABY
SLEEP AND HUNGER PREVAIL
THE MONARCH LOSES TRACK OF TIME
AND IS OVERRUN BY HIS OWN COURT
MANSIONS AND PALACES ARE PERFORATED
THE VATICAN VACILLATES
CHINESE ROYAL DAUGHTERS SMUGGLE THEIR VIRGINITY
OUT OF THEIR ROYAL LANDS
ACCOMPANIED BY SILK BUTTERFLIES
THE STRONGEST TREES BREAK FREE FROM THE UNDERGROWTH
SWELLS OF CLOUDS BILLOW SKYWARD
THE SEA SWALLOWS THE CONTINENTS
WHILE BIRDS DRAG THE HORIZON ALONG
SKIFFS ARE OVERTAKEN IN A STORM
FORCING THEM OFF THEIR SMUGGLING ROUTES
QUARTERDECKS ARE CLEARED OF SAILORS
AND LOADED WITH PIGS AND FAIR MAIDENS
THE CHILDREN OF THE NATIVES ARE CAST OUT
AND SKINNED ON THE STERN WITH THE BIRDS AND FISH
THEIR FATHERS GET THEIR HEADS CAVED IN
IF THEY ARE TOO STUPID OR TOO CLEVER
A BLOODBATH SOUNDS BEST AT SEA
HER MAJESTY COULD SHARPEN A KNIFE
AND JOIN THE BRAWL
SPEWING POISON AND HACKING AWAY
THE MOATS ARE OVERFLOWING
WITH COLD SWEAT
PESSIMISM REIGNS FROM THE STALLS
ALL THE WAY TO THE BALLS
MECHANICAL WARFARE SHOOK ENEMIES AND ALLIES ALIKE
NOW ANYONE COULD GO TO WAR ON A WILD HORSE
AND DEFEAT A WHOLE REGIMENT
ALL TO BE STABBED IN THE BACK BY A CHAPLAIN
ANYONE CAN TAKE UP THE CROSS
EVEN JESUS STUCK HIMSELF UP THERE
THEN SKIPPED AWAY
ACROSS THE ATMOSPHERE
THE TITANIC WAS PACKED WITH REFUGEES
THE ARISTOCRATS’ CHILDREN FLOATED TOPSIDE
BUT THEIR FORTUNES SANK
THE WEARIEST WIDOWS FOUND ROOM IN THE LIFEBOATS
LAND DEEDS AND TRAVELLERS’ CHEQUES STICKING OUT OF THEIR TITS
PROUD FRIGATES LAY SIDEWAYS ON THE WAVES
LEAVE ME A CESSPOOL IN DENMARK
IF THAT’S WHERE I BELONG
THE QUEEN HAS YET TO LEAVE HER OWN HEIR
SO MUCH AS A BARREL OF SAND
MERCENARIES AND DAY LABORERS CROSS THE CHANNEL
FEELINGS OF SOLIDARITY AND SUB-ZERO TEMPERATURES
MASQUERADES AND TIRADES
ALL THE TRAITORS TEARS
ON THE ROYAL STAGE
THIS TIME WE’LL SPAR WITH BEAUTY AND WIT
OR RAW POWER AND PERVERSITY
I SHALL OUTDO ALL MY KIND
AND FORCE THEM TO LIVE A HUMBLE AND RELIGIOUS LIFE
I’M CAUGHT BETWEEN TWO MEN WITH BAD BREATH
THERE IS A DEVILISH AURA AROUND ME
WHIRRING AND BAROQUE IN THE BACKGROUND
WE DRANK WINE WITH THE SAME URGENCY
THAT SOBER PEOPLE DRINK WATER
AND I FELT PURSUED BY MY OWN WAYS
IT WON’T BE THE COMMON MAN’S CENTURY ANYWAY
SO GET OUT OF THE WAY
AND DON’T RUN INTO THE FIELDS
RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF HARVEST
Jordan Barger is a translator of Norwegian and Danish, with an MFA in Literary Translation from The University of Iowa. Translations have appeared in Poetry Magazine, Poetry Review UK, FENCE and Sleepingfish XX. Their translation of Sigbjørn Obstfelder’s The Red Drops appeared onstage in Philadelphia thanks to Sewer Rats Productions.
- Published in Poetry, Translation
JUNE MONTHLY: In Solidarity with the Palestinian Poeple
Nearly a year after the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack and Israel’s subsequent escalation of a decades-long project of state-sponsored genocide of the Palestinian people, Gaza continues to face deadly bombings and attacks from Israel. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, the death toll of Palestinians is in the tens of thousands, with no sign of Israel relenting.
In response to the death and destruction in Palestine, Barricade and Four Way Review joined together to raise the voices of Palestinian poets and others from around the world standing in solidarity with them. While we stand fervently against Anti-Semitism, we also resist its false equation to anti-Zionism; we equally condemn Islamophobia, anti-Arab racism and xenophobia, and imperialism, all of which function together to murder and oppress the poor and working classes and to legitimize expropriation and forced displacement.
The poems you will read here have been previously published in Barricade and represent a desire to use our platforms to uplift and disseminate translations from and in solidarity with Palestinians. Barricade shares contributions on its forum Ramparts, a makeshift oppositional online space founded on the basis of urgency and necessity; Four Way Review has compiled a selection of Ramparts posts here, with the aim of expanding the reach of these writings and giving them a more permanent home.
Four Poems, Olivia Elias (trans. Jérémy Victor Robert)
SLUMROYAL, Yahya Hassan (trans. Jordan Barger)
Urgent: News of the Death of Hiba Abu Nada, João Melo (trans. G. Holleran)
- Published in Monthly, Poetry, Translation
INTERVIEW with ROBIN LAMER RAHIJA
Robin LaMer Rahija‘s first full length collection, Inside Out Egg, was released in April. Ada Limón writes that “each poem contains the whole unbound strangeness of the human experience–the offhand remark, the blur of being in a body– all of this is written with a humility and understated wit that both growls and sings….” We were thrilled to interview Rahija about her process in crafting Inside Out Egg, as well as the development of this collection’s voice and the nature of the absurd– both in poetry and in the world around us.
FWR: Your poems conduct us into a theater of the absurd where you satirize our fears, our peculiar tendencies and our most ridiculous but touching attitudes. Your voice rings with audacity, and performance, as well as rebellion. When you say, “Something just feels wrong”— about our culture, our lives today, our attempts to find each other, the reader believes you. But, the tender, humorous way your poems express both the wrong and the small touches of “right” give us, your readers, both pleasure and hope in finding community.
I’m fascinated by the short poems that you’ve interspersed in your text that raise mind-boggling questions like “who’s to blame for this bad dream” and comment on the many uses of the preposition “for.” Did you conceive of them as breaks or respites, or did you have other thoughts about their place and placement in your book?
RR: Do you mean the Breaking News poems? The Breaking News poems I thought of as interruptions, like when we’re having a meaningful interaction with someone and the news app on the phone pings with something insignificant, or significant and horrifying, or stressful, and then the moment is gone. I wanted them heavy in the beginning and then to fade away as the book sort of settles into itself and the voice becomes more focused.
FWR: I think many writers and readers, including me, are interested in questions of process. Would you tell us a bit about your process—how a poem begins for you, if there are recognizable triggers; how you develop that initial impulse; how you revise, and so on.
RR: I think about this a lot. It might be different for every poet. It seems like magic every time it happens. Often it’s phonic. I’ll hear a phrase that sounds cool, and it will get stuck in my head like a song lyric. A friend of my told me a story about seeing a fox on the tarmac as they got on a plane, and I’ve been trying to work the phrase “tarmac fox” into a poem ever since. Other times it’s more about just noticing language doing something weird. I was watching the Derby the other day and a list of the horse names came up, which are always ridiculous: Mystik Dan, Catching Freedom, Domestic Product, Society Man. So now I’m thinking about a list poem of fake horse names, or what they’d name themselves, or what they’d name their humans if they raced humans for fun. The trick is training yourself to notice those moments, and also to note them down and not just ignore them.
FWR: Also, to my ear, you have a very strong, confident, even outspoken voice in your poems. One example that caught my ear is your title, “I Can Never Put a Bird in a Poem Because My Name is Robin” and “That Is Not Fair That” voice, to my ear, is quite brave, as well as funny. How did you develop that voice, or was it always natural to you?
RR: No, it’s definitely not my nature. I had to write my way into this voice. I started out writing language poetry that was just pretty sounds with no meaning. I was avoiding writing (and thinking about) the hard things. Writing for me has been a lot of chipping away at my own walls. Each poem too I think has to work on becoming that confident through revision. I don’t want my poems to be complaints. I want them to reveal something, but it can be a fine line. I’m a jangly bag of anxiety most of the time, and I think my poems reflect that. Writing is an attempt to make the jangles into more of a coherent song.
The humor is mostly accidental, I think. Or maybe it comes from an inability to take myself seriously. I do want to get the full range of human emotions out of poetry, and humor is a big part of how we get through the day.
FWR: Who are you reading now? And are the poets you read representative of anything you would describe as “contemporary”? Is there such a thing now? I’m thinking of Stephanie Burt’s essay describing recent poetry as “elliptical,“ meaning the poems depend on “[f]ragmentation, jumpiness, audacity; performance, grammatical oddity; rebellion, voice, some measure of closure.” Does any of this ring bells for you?
RR: I haven’t read that but it feels true for my work. I’m reading Indeterminate Inflorescence by Lee Seong-bok from Sublunary Editions right now. It’s a great collection of small snippets, like poetry aphorisms, that his students collected from his classes. I don’t know how I’d describe contemporary poetry, except it feels brutally personal and outwardly social at the same time.
FOUR POEMS by Ryoichi Wago, trans. Judy Halebsky & Ayako Takahashi
Wago, Ryoichi. Since Fukushima. Trans. Judy Halebsky & Ayako Takahashi. Vagabond Press, 2023. Print.
Purchase the book here.
Screening Time
November 26th, 2011
—exiting the restricted area, a 20 km radius of the power station
screening palms
screening the back of my hands
screening with my hands up
screening with my hands down
screening over my head
screening the back of my head
screening the sole of my left shoe
screening the sole of my right shoe
screening my entire body
screening what is outer space
screening what is a hometown
screening what is life
screening what is radiation
to us
what is most precious
what cannot be measured
You
(no date)
precious
you
what are you
doing now
you are me
I am you
from the obsidian depths of night
it’s you I am thinking about
and for me
from me
you
I won’t give up on
for you
I won’t give up
JANUARY 7th, 2021
I swooned
reeled
reeling.
it was spring, one year after the disaster.
I boarded a helicopter and traveled into the restricted zone,
the 20 km surrounding the nuclear power station,
high above, looking over the land below.
from a perfectly kept beach,
we crossed into the forbidden sky,
as though we were trespassing.
the land left just as it was that day.
huge, concrete wave-breaks strewn on the beach.
houses, cars, and boats hit by the tsunami, scattered everywhere.
mud and stones spread across roads and fields, electric poles keeled over.
dogs chained at front doors and left behind….
time stopped.
no.
time doesn’t exist.
I remembered that.
dizzy. still now.
could be. the aftershocks.
which continue even now, I think.
the other day, I heard a story
from a dairy farmer living within 20 km of the power station.
“the cows were so hungry
there were teeth marks all through the barn and along the fences.
until the end, trying to find something to eat.
they wasted to skin and bones then fell over…”
*
“tomorrow, what will you be doing? tomorrow, like today, getting by. an aftershock.
tomorrow, what will you be doing? tomorrow, like today, standing here. an aftershock.
a local broadcaster says, now everyone has heard of Fukushima. if we can recover, it’s an opportunity for us, he says. we’re known all over the world. an aftershock.
we clung to hope. tried to be grateful. is there a reward? maybe. but.
our families and our roots are here. famous around the world? I’ll burn the map.
an aftershock.
it’s calm. the night air, radiation. an aftershock.”
(March 22, 2011)
PEBBLES OF POETRY
Part 1: March 16th, 2011, 4:23 am —March 17th, 2011, 12:24 am
Such a huge catastrophe. I was staying at an evacuation center but I’ve now pulled myself together and returned home to work. Thank you for worrying about me and encouraging me, everyone.
March 16th, 2011. 4:23 a.m.
Today, it is six days since the earthquake. My way of thinking has completely changed.
March 16th, 2011. 4:29 a.m.
I finally got to a place where all I could do was cry. My plan now is to write poetry in a wild frenzy.
March 16th, 2011. 4:30 a.m.
Radiation is falling. It is a quiet night.
March 16th, 2011. 4:30 a.m.
This catastrophe is so painful, and for what?
March 16th, 2011. 4:31 a.m.
Whatever meaning we can find in all this might come out in the aftermath. If so, what is the meaning of aftermath? Does this mean anything at all?
March 16th, 2011. 4:33 a.m.
What does this catastrophe want to teach us? If there’s nothing to learn from this, what should I believe in?
March 16th, 2011. 4:34 a.m.
Radiation is falling. A quiet quiet night.
March 16th, 2011. 4:35 a.m.
I was taught, “wash your hands before coming in the house.” But there isn’t any water for us to use.
March 16th, 2011. 4:37 a.m.
Relief supplies haven’t arrived in Minamisôma. I’ve heard that the delivery people don’t want to enter the town. Please save Minamisôma.
March 16th, 2011. 4:40 a.m.
For you, where do you call home? I’ll never abandon this place. It’s everything to me.
March 16th, 2011. 4:44 a.m.
I’m worried about my family’s health. They say that this amount of radiation won’t affect us very soon. Is “not very soon” the opposite of “soon”?
March 16th, 2011. 4:53 a.m.
Well, yes, there’s clearly a border between fact and meaning. Some say that they are opposites.
March 16th, 2011. 5:32 a.m.
On a hot summer day, I like to go to a beach on the Minami-sanriku coast. On that exact spot, the day before yesterday, a hundred thousand bodies washed ashore.
March 16th, 2011. 5:34 a.m.
In a quiet moment, when I try to understand the meaning of this catastrophe, when I try to see it clearly there’s nothing, it’s meaningless, something close to darkness, that’s all.
March 16th, 2011. 10:43 p.m.
Just now, while writing, I heard a rumbling underground. Felt the tremors. I held my breath, kneeled down, and scowled at everything swinging. My life or this tragedy. In the radiation, in the rain, no one but me.
March 16th, 2011. 10:46 p.m.
Do you love someone? If it’s possible that everything we have can be lost in an instant, then all we need to do is to find some other way not to be robbed by the world.
March 16th, 2011. 10:52 p.m.
The world has repeated both its birth and death, sustained by some celestial spirit which defies all meaning.
March 16th, 2011. 10:54 p.m.
My favorite high school gym is being used as a morgue for unidentified bodies. The high school nearby, too.
March 16th, 2011. 10:56 p.m.
I asked my mother and father to evacuate but they couldn’t stand to leave their home. “You should go,” they said to me. I choose them.
March 16th, 2011. 11:10 p.m.
My wife and son have already evacuated. My son calls me. As a father, do I have to decide?
March 16th, 2011. 11:11 p.m.
More and more people are evacuating from this town. I know it’s hard to leave. You can do it.
March 16th, 2011. 11:39 p.m.
Having evacuated to a safe place, the young man, twenty-something, is looking at the monitor and crying, “Don’t give up on our dear Minamisôma,” he says. What’s the sense of things in your hometown? Our hometown now, overcome with suffering, faces distorted by tears.
March 16th, 2011. 11:48 p.m.
Again, big tremors. The aftershocks we were expecting finally came. I was wondering if I should shelter under the stairs or just open the front door. Outside, in the rain, radiation is falling.
March 16th, 2011. 11:50 p.m.
The gas is on empty. Out of water, out of food, out of my mind. Alone in this apartment.
March 16th, 2011. 11:53 p.m.
A long rolling tremor. Let’s place our bets, do you win or do I win? This time I lost but next time, I’ll come out fighting.
March 16th, 2011. 11:54 p.m.
Until now, we carried on the daily lives of generation after generation, we searched for happiness, sincerity, I think.
March 16th, 2011. 11:56 p.m.
My elderly neighbor gave me a box full of onions. He grew them himself. Sadly, I’m not much for onions. The box sits in the entryway, I stare at it silently. A few days ago, I was living my ordinary life.
March 16th, 2011. 11:59 p.m.
12 am. Six days since the disaster. A sick joke! Six days since and for five days, I’ve wanted this all to be fixed.
March 17th, 2011. 12:03 a.m.
In the kitchen. Cleaning up scattered, broken dishes. Aching as I put them one by one into the garbage. Me and the kitchen and the world.
March 17th, 2011. 12:05 a.m.
No night no dawn.
March 17th, 2011. 12:24 a.m.
Ryoichi WAGO (1968–) is a poet and high school Japanese literature teacher from Fukushima City, Japan. In 2017, the French translation of his book, Pebbles of Poetry, won the Nunc Magazine award for best foreign-language poetry collection. Since March 2011, his writing has focused on the ecological devastation of the areas affected by the Tôhoku earthquake, tsunami, and the nuclear meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi power station. Choirs across Japan sing his poem Abandoned Fukushima as a prayer for hope and renewal.
Ayako Takahashi and Judy Halebsky work collaboratively to translate poetry between English and Japanese.
Ayako TAKAHASHI is a scholar and translator teaching at University of Hyogo in Japan. Her recent scholarship includes the books Ambience: Ecopoetics in the Anthropocene (Shichosha, 2022) and Reading Gary Snyder (Shichosha 2018). She has published translations of many American poets such as Jane Hirshfield, Anne Waldman, and Joanne Kyger, among others (Anthology of Contemporary American Women Poets, Shichosha 2012).
Judy HALEBSKY is a poet. She is the author of Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged) (University of Arkansas Press, 2020) Tree Line (New Issues 2014) and Sky=Empty, winner of the New Issue Prize (New Issues, 2010). She has also published articles on cultural translation and noh theatre. She is a professor of Literature and Language and the director of the MFA program at Dominican University of California. Ayako and Judy have been working together for several years and have previously published articles in ecopoetry and English language haiku.
- Published in Featured Poetry, Monthly, Poetry, Translation
THREE POEMS by Rumiko Kora, trans. Judy Halebsky & Ayako Takahashi
Alive, the wind
lifts seeds
and carries them away
spider eggs hatch and depart on the wind
over years the wind breaks down plants into soil
we are of the wind and all of our senses
the wind breathing
through us
Within the Trees, A Universe
-Sacred Forest of Kinabatangan, Malaysia
people listen to the trees speak
the trees heard the people
there is light in the woods there was darkness
both life and death
there are voices and so there was silence
within the woods a universe
within the trees a human becomes human
A Mother Speaks
After seeing the noh play, A Killing Stone, Sesshôseki
the play starts in Nasuno province
on the stage there’s a thick purple silk cloth
covering a stone that was dropped
over a field like a cracked rotten egg
a bird flies over the stone and drops
dead to the ground, any living thing, person
or animal that touches that stone dies
a village woman tells the story of this terrifying stone
it starts with her failed attempt to take the emperor’s life
which left her spirit captured within the stone
that now casts spells on the living
when the stone splits open
the village woman appears as a ghost
and the dead return hatching through the stone
pulsing with energy stronger than even the living
the woman’s blaring red rage steadies
and fades to a pale color
the stone again becomes an egg
the defeated become the victors
the lost become found the dead revive
she speaks, the years steal from us
we are robbed of our eggs and escape to the wilderness
we give birth to stone children
hold them in our arms warming the stone
abreast of the thieves who stole our eggs
her ghostly feet glide stamp the ground
a voice within the mask scolds us
echoing from another world
will you be ruled by this bearing always
Rumiko KORA (1932-2021) was a poet, translator, and critic born and raised in Tokyo. Her book The Voice of a Mask won the Contemporary Poetry Prize in 1988. She also wrote essays and novels and co-translated an anthology of poetry from Asia and Africa. She devoted herself to promoting women’s work and was instrumental in establishing the Award for Women Writers. Much of her writing focuses on identifying the struggles and contradictions of a female gender identity.
Ayako Takahashi and Judy Halebsky work collaboratively to translate poetry between English and Japanese.
Ayako TAKAHASHI is a scholar and translator teaching at University of Hyogo in Japan. Her recent scholarship includes the books Ambience: Ecopoetics in the Anthropocene (Shichosha, 2022) and Reading Gary Snyder (Shichosha 2018). She has published translations of many American poets such as Jane Hirshfield, Anne Waldman, and Joanne Kyger, among others (Anthology of Contemporary American Women Poets, Shichosha 2012).
Judy HALEBSKY is a poet. She is the author of Spring and a Thousand Years (Unabridged) (University of Arkansas Press, 2020) Tree Line (New Issues 2014) and Sky=Empty, winner of the New Issue Prize (New Issues, 2010). She has also published articles on cultural translation and noh theatre. She is a professor of Literature and Language and the director of the MFA program at Dominican University of California. Ayako and Judy have been working together for several years and have previously published articles in ecopoetry and English language haiku.
- Published in Featured Poetry, Monthly, Poetry, Translation
FOUR POEMS by Alexander Duringer
The Poet
Where the poet is, everything
glows: red-capped forehead,
peppered beard. He holds a torch
to frozen streets that truss his lines,
writes temptations of the pool
glazed by a boy, bright & soft.
He traces new constellations
into moles on the backs of men
asleep upon his stomach. In one
of his failures he drank
blood from the fountain of a god’s
absent head, wrote of its stooped father,
starved with worry, feral-mouthed
as he scraped into the son’s muscled back,
the way one undresses an orange.
Here, concealed, a question mark–
the curved neck of a blue heron
I’ve observed unfold its canopy above
a pond, stilt legs still, in the water.
The shade it made lulled ducklings
onto its spear that pierces me,
too, & may swallow me whole.
The night breeze is so clear &
I could not hear my father
through the trees. He liked to fly
kites with me–Labatt
in one hand, string in the other.
He held the cool can to my lips
when I tripped. Blood mottled
in my mother’s hands & I can hear
a child scream. I am glad
he is alive. I have said
goodnight to many moons
& will become a squirrel with its nut
& bury this one, too, lose
its scent & starve. Now the wind has
quieted, the child’s tears are dirty
streaks as parentheses of bodies
cleave together, legs tangled
like crashed kites. Those rainbow
calamities. Jesus christ, so many lines.
The Queer’s Epithalamium
There I am, in the broken swan’s neck
of a pocket square & bridesmaids’ navy
blue at the ends of all
the photographs. I walked the couple’s pug
down the aisle. A little joke
that made aunts on both sides say, Aw. It wheezes
with me in one photo with confetti
& champagne. My boyfriend wasn’t invited.
You don’t mind, right? Who would he talk to?
& it’s a hundred a head. I try to resist
the word, faggot, in poems. How trite,
but that’s what the groom called me, cock in hand,
spraying piss at the urinal, eyes on my lips.
The Prostate
I sat on everything
when I learned how men came together:
yellow squash from the fridge,
plunger handles, my
fingers buried inside to push
& rub, slick
with the medicine cabinet’s vaseline
in search of that tender
walnut, its nerves & lobes,
shucked snake fruit. Subtle
universe, expansive
button toughened
with age. It’s a rude
subway passenger who spreads legs
& clogs pipes; little pleasure,
little tyrant, Caligula
at war with the Tyrrhenian Sea
atop his senator horse.
A doctor once examined me
with latex gloves. His left
hand’s index finger jabbed
so hard that I bleated clear,
involuntary, ejaculate. The bruised
bit pulsed later like a larval sac. Too bad
my brother might never see his
as more than the lisping shadow
in a noir who reaches
his effete fist toward
a pistol on the nightstand.
Within me, you
explored its puppet-mastery
over my body’s parts. Mouths & tongues
formed new vowels.
Toes curled as you made
its strings move my palm along
your cheek; pressed against that uncut
diamond hidden so deep
some might assume it was ashamed.
- Published in Featured Poetry, Poetry
TWO POEMS by Zuleyha Ozturk Lasky
Severn, Maryland
pink mouths of crepe myrtle mouthing words like çay demle kızım and a sloped garden in the back and a creaking deck and a bookshelf full of religious texts and my bedroom in robin blue and hairbands always lost under couch cushions and prayer rug facing the direction it’s supposed to face and me facing the opposite way and prayer rugs quartered and stacked in a pile inside the tv console and prayer beads hanging from lamps and Keurig machine and milk frother and two teapots (one electric, one traditional) and windows facing trees and grape leaves brined in jars and fig jams lined on the shelf and sink full of dishes and when washing dishes a window facing the neighbors pool and my father asleep and overworked on the couch and a bowl of seasonal fruit and my mother asleep and overworked on the couch and my sisters whisper laughing and pantry full of turkish sweets and sunflower seeds and gallon of olive oil and lentils and dried mint and fridge that always hums past midnight and tv tuned to politics or a movie and fly always buzzing and a trail of ants that will never leave
Hyattsville, Maryland
a teapot recently bought from turkish market and sunlight slipping through slats like ballet dancers and three lemon sprouts and a balcony to count the balcony dogs and the sunflowers painted on a ceramic plant pot and next door neighbors with their balcony door open and my first ramadan away from family and our neighbors wake up with us during a salted night and ezan waltzing out their door and dust on our bookshelves and your phone in pool and our studio with high ceilings and built-in granite desk which is technically a bar corner and Beatles poster with fox-gloves that become jellyfish when dropping acid and so much time to graze on your lips and quarantine thanksgiving and quarantine work and quarantine writing and quarantine walks and masks forgotten in pockets clung to dryer sheets and sick three days after vaccine and sick three days after wedding and impromptu Ocean City trip where we ran under kites shaped like our laughter and so many matchbox apartments with high ceilings in gentrified neighborhood and mid-day walks to Vigilante to order americano and latte and somedays there were two or three walks just because and no one on the streets and walks near the railroad tracks and the apartment our home now with our fortune read in coffee grinds shaped like fish and look how they feel swimming under our feet
- Published in ISSUE 27, Poetry, Uncategorized
THE POINT OF ARTICULATION by Car Simione
To prepare for the apocalypse, I practice looking
in the mirror. I kiss myself on the mouth. I practice
hopping on one foot, but the eventual sight of you
nosing among the lilacs nearly topples me,
so I excavate the marketplace and poll
the dignified masses in their plaid coats. They ask
for more time. Despite my ministrations, the flowers
keep dying. Despite my ministrations, the certainty
of uncertainty continues. Romantic, tossed, I bet
on your five good molars. I forget to cheat.
In the fashion of a man, I perform the proper rites.
I stow the long boxes in the graves. I shimmer
in the bat cave. I croak and insects gather
along my pink tongue. A few words swell.
TWO POEMS by Sophia Terazawa
Residual
These syllables strike our lower
register [branching: fog]. Who whispers
like a friend, “Bêche-de-mer,”
I wring out towels and pillow cases.
Sunday afternoon. Check on
your sister, you sign. She won’t speak
anymore. Glass trees.
Soapstone box. You package her father’s
old shirt there in Queens
[arms crossed at the chest] posing
unpalatably. I imitate you
imitating him like a tourist on the tenth
night of spring in a country bent
to numb what could hurt but doesn’t.
San Simeon
Dionysus, get up. Your friend is here. Smoke
on the portico, leafless, head to toe in gold.
Angus cattle roam past tomorrow,
startle into place; this home, measured by this
low thrumming. Get up. Wash your face.
Honeycomb patterns a handkerchief
rave, though he’s not my guest.
I won’t let him in. Hurry, mind the blue
marble. Sweet smoked hickory is a sarcophagus
between rooms cracking. This year
love will find me ready for it
helping ma with taxes. 24 adorned faces
will make a sentence, the old kind.
Suppose I wait longer than I should. Eve,
Oshōgatsu: oh, interminable want.
TWO POEMS by Kuhu Joshi
Saraswati on a Sunday morning
All this living alone. This mug
With my initials on it, scrubbed
And put to dry
On the kitchen slab. It waits for me.
Looks happiest when filled up.
I’m a bit sick of Maria – my
Areca palm
There by the bookshelf. She
Dances. When it gets like this I
Don’t know what to do with myself.
Fridge then bed then a book.
Laundry helps. I end up feeling useful.
Now when Brahma comes
I let him. More new books?
He always picks one off the shelf.
On good days
He reads the blurb and
Sits down. Otherwise it’s the bed straight.
Highlights of a cricket match
On his cell phone. Come
Let’s listen to a song.
I want to sleep.
Evening
How can I describe what I’m unable to praise?
The birds are chirping in the low berry bush.
I don’t know who they are, they don’t know my name. An ambulance,
a siren, the emergency ward I’ve have identified just in case,
sitting at a marbled coffee table, marigolds in a vase. Green, leafy,
dying. God – I like to pretend you’re watching.
In this case, you are a man. It makes sense – I’m lonely.
The earth is not speaking back. The baby cries
in its pram. The mother rocks the pram, hushing,
making her teeth large and shiny. The father smiles at me.
On the bridge, people are carried
in the body of a train, nodding like peonies.