Wednesday, May 31, 2006

The Sick Man

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by Wallace Stevens Bands of black men seem to be drifting in the air, In the south, bands of thousands of black men, Playing mouth-organs in...
Sunday, May 28, 2006

Poem By Derek Walcott

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XXVI The sun has fired my face to terra-cotta. I wear this cast from his kiln all over the house. But I cherish its cracks like thos...
Saturday, May 27, 2006

W. S. Merwin

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Yesterday My friend says I was not a good son you understand I say yes I understand he says I did not go to see my parents very often you...
Friday, May 26, 2006

John Berryman TWO POEMS

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HENRY'S FATE All projects failed, in the August afternoon he lay & cursed himself & cursed his lot like Housman'...
Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Portrait of Anna Akhmatova

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Amedeo Modigliani

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By Anna Akhmatova, Translated by Djemma Bider I believe those who describe him didn't know him as I did, and here's why. First, I co...

W. H. Auden

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In Memory of W. B. Yeats I He disappeared in the dead of winter: The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, And snow disfigure...
Sunday, May 21, 2006

Constantine Cavafy

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PHILHELLENE Take care the engraving's artistically done. Expression grave and majestic. The diadem better rather narrow; I don't car...
2 comments:
Thursday, May 18, 2006

Anna Akhmatova (poem)

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THE GUEST Nothing is changed: against the dining-room windows hard grains of whirling snow still beat. I am what I was, but ...

Stanley Kunitz

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The Round Light splashed this morning on the shell-pink anemones swaying on their tall stems; down blue-spiked veronica light flowed in rivu...
Monday, May 15, 2006

Ezra Pound

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III The age demanded an image Of its accelerated grimace, Something for the modern stage, Not, at any rate, an Attic grace; Not, not certain...
Sunday, May 14, 2006

Portrait of Rilke

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by Paula Modersohn-Becker
2 comments:
Thursday, May 11, 2006

Giant Toad

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By Elizabeth Bishop I am too big, too big by far. Pity me. My eyes bulge and hurt. They are my one great beauty, even so. They see too much,...
Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Zbigniew Herbert: Our Fear

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Our fear does not wear a night shirt does not have owl’s eyes does not lift a casket lid does not extinguish a candle does not have a dead m...
Sunday, April 30, 2006

Anna Świrszczyńska : poem

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I’ve Been Waiting These Thirty Years That young beanpole was maybe six feet tall, that light-hearted worker from Powiśle who fought in the h...
Saturday, April 29, 2006

Jane Hirshfield : poem

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THIS WAS ONCE A LOVE POEM This was once a love poem, before its haunches thickened, its breath grew short, before it found itself sitting, p...

Stanislaw Baranczak (poem)

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THE THREE MAGI To Leo Dymarski A grim modern version of the visit of the Magi [during Communist rule in Poland] . –Helen Vendler They will p...
1 comment:
Friday, April 28, 2006

YORICK

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Uncovering the bones of a grandmother’s past . by TATYANA TOLSTAYA On the windowsill of my childhood stood a dust-colored round tin with bla...
Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Muriel Rukeyser

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BOY WITH HIS HAIR CUT SHORT Sunday shuts down on the twentieth-century evening. The El passes. Twilight and bulb define the brown room, the ...

Sharon Olds (3 poems)

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WEST The hair I pull, out of my comb, drifts off, from the rail of the porch. It is curled on itself, it folds, kneels, bows and buckles ove...
Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Ana Paula Inácio

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O QUE TENS PARA DIZER o que tens para dizer senão a tua presença imperfeita, o teu rosto de areia, atravessaste Séneca a pé? o que dizes est...
Monday, April 24, 2006

Julia Hartwig

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OLD FASHIONS I remember an old, meticulously executed print. Swallowed by a whale, a small man with a frock coat sits inside its belly at a ...
Thursday, April 20, 2006

The Parade Ends

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Paseos por las calles que revientan, pues las cañerías ya no dan más por entre edificios que hay que esquivar, pues se nos vienen encima, po...

Reinaldo Arenas [excerpt]

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"Esa tarde me fui para mi casa caminando, llegué al cuarto, y seguí escribiendo un poema. Era un poema largo que se titulaba "Mori...

TO A HAZEL TREE

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You do not recognize me, but it’s me all the same, The one who used to make my bows by cutting your brown branches, So straight and so swift...
Thursday, April 13, 2006

Tomas Venclova : poem

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THANKSGIVING DAY At the foot of the slope, the marsh stinks of metal. A horse nibbles the echinodermal blades. Eight women toil at tables at...

Frank O'Hara [ 2 extracts]

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IN MEMORY OF MY FEELINGS My quietness has a man in it, he is transparent and he carries me quietly, like a gondola, through the streets. He...
Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Virginia H. Adair

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ONE ORDINARY EVENING Lying entwined with you on the long sofa the hi-fi helping Isolde to her climax I was clipping the coarse hairs from yo...

Czeslaw Milosz : THIS

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LATE RIPENESS Not soon, as late as the approach of my ninetieth year, I felt a door opening in me and I entered the clarity of early morning...
Tuesday, April 11, 2006

Seamus Heaney : 2 poems

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CLEARANCES – 3 In Memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984 When all the others were away at Mass I was all hers as we peeled potatoes. They br...

Jorie Graham : poem

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TO A FRIEND GOING BLIND Today, because I couldn't find the shortcut through, I had to walk this town's entire inner perimeter ...

Tadeusz Ròzewicz : poem

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PIGTAIL When all the women in the transport had their heads shaved four workmen with brooms made of birch twigs swept up and gathered ...

Denise Levertov : poem

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LOOKING, WALKING, BEING "The World is not something to look at, it is something to be in." -Mark Rudman I look and look. Loo...
Monday, April 10, 2006

Anna Swirszczynska: 9 poems

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I DO NOT ACCEPT I renounce this fingernail already worn by my grandfather. This head occupied for two thousand years by the bloody body of J...
2 comments:

Ludwika Amber

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THE UNLOCKING OF BORDERS we were returning through the continents of tongues rituals altars colours and the music of gestures slowly we were...

Czeslaw Milosz: Provinces

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MUSIC Wailing of a flute, a little drum. A small wedding cortege accompanies a couple Going past clay houses on the street of a village. In...
2 comments:
Saturday, April 08, 2006

Wislawa Szymborska : poem

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CÁLCULO ELEGÍACO Cuántos de los que he conocido (si de verdad los he conocido) hombres, mujeres (si esta división sigue vigente) han atraves...
3 comments:
Friday, April 07, 2006

Wislawa Szymborska : Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech

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The Poet and the World [excerpt] This is why I value that little phrase "I don't know" so highly. It's small, but it flies...

Zbigniew Herbert: 4 poems

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I WOULD LIKE TO DESCRIBE I would like to describe the simplest emotion joy or sadness but not as others do reaching for shafts of rain or su...