CHEWING BETEL NUT by Mark Dorado trans. Eric Abalajon and Mark Dorado

/ / ISSUE 26, Poetry, Translation

This mouth 
grows in it a forest
born from the spit
of the gods
of my land;
chews a wildfire
that blackens the stumps of my teeth;
hums the serenade
of our greatest hunters. 
This mouth can utter to life
the many names of our ancestors
the conquerors could never
wrap their tongues around,
the ones they spat with regret
as their teeth disintegrated,
choking on the sharp
inflections of the names
of our oceans,
mountains,
warriors.
Oh, to speak
of love and freedom 
is cruelty
to a colonizer’s tongue. 

 

Eric Abalajon is currently a lecturer at the UP Visayas, Iloilo. His works have appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, The Tiger Moth Review, ANMLY, Modern Poetry in Translation, Asymptote, and Footprints: An Anthology of New Ecopoetry (Broken Sleep Books, 2022). He lives near Iloilo City.

ISSUE 26

POETRY

TWO POEMS by Sasha Burshteyn
LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT UNSONNET by Dante Di Stefano
TWO POEMS by emet ezell
TWO POEMS by Sebastian Merrill
SO MANY by Robin LaMer Rahija
WHY HAVE CHILDREN WHEN THE WORLD IS ENDING by Julia Kolchinsky Dasbach
TWO POEMS by Tana Jean Welch
ELEPHANT by Julien Strong
WHEN BILLIE HOLIDAY SANG by Grace Kwan
FABLE IN WHICH YOU ARE A BARN ANIMAL AND I AM A CARNIVORE by Hannah Marshall
JUNCTURE LOSS by Liane Tyrell
TWO POEMS by Julia Thacker


FICTION

WET OR DRY by Naomi Silverman
BLOODY AVENUE by Isabella Jetten


TRANSLATION

ANCIENT MOSQUE by Xiao Shui trans. Judith Huang
THREE POEMS by Sandra Moussempès trans. Carrie Chappell and Amanda Murphy
THROUGH THE LAKE, THROUGH THE WATER by Johannes Anyuru trans. Brad Harmon
THREE POEMS by Álvaro Fausto Taruma trans. Grant Schutzman
THE GARDEN IS THIS GARDEN by Hélène Cixous trans. Beverley Bie Brahic
CHEWING BETEL NUT by Mark Dorado trans. Eric Abalajon and Mark Dorado
THREE POEMS by Anne Vegter trans. Astrid Alben


INTERVIEW

with Carrie Chappell and Amanda Murphy


ART

by Omneia Naguib

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