In this special Women in Translation issue edited by Hollynd Karapetkova, we feature work by
art by Maigi,
poetry by Gemma Gorga translated from Catalan by Sharon Dolin,
poetry by Sharron Hass translated from Hebrew by Marcela Sulak,
poetry by Rasha Omran translated from Arabic by Phoebe Bay Carter,
poetry by Inna Kabysh translated from Russian by Katherine E. Young,
poetry by Thilini N. Liyanaarachchi translated from Sinhalese by Chamini Kulathunga,
poetry by Suzanne Dracius translated from French by Nancy Naomi Carlson,
poetry by Li Cheng'en translated from Chinese by Ming Di, and
poetry by Zheng Min translated from Chinese by Ming Di
Hollynd Karapetkova
Introduction to the 2021 Women in Translation Issue
We Americans are notorious for our insular reading habits; only about 3% of all books published in the U.S. are works in translation, and if we look particularly at literary fiction and poetry the number shrinks to less than one percent. Furthermore, fewer than a third of the 3% are books by women. In an increasingly global society, our lack of access to (and demand for) literature from other languages leaves us unable to participate in the incredibly rich and essential international conversation about literature. It leaves us less culturally aware and closes off the kinds of creative exploration and innovation that cross-cultural reading can provide.
While there are many discussions about the lack of available translated literature, particularly by women, Women in Translation Month provides us with a practical solution: a chance to showcase some of the powerful work being written by women around the world and made available to us by translators and publishers who believe in the necessity of this work. This issue offers just a small glimpse into the kinds of rich and original poetry available in translation. If you like what you read in this issue of ArLiJo—and I hope you do!—please support these authors by seeking out more of their work and by spreading the word to other poetry lovers. Many of the poems featured here are from books that are currently available or forthcoming, and I encourage you to buy copies to support the writers, translators, and publishers who make this work available.
About the editor
Holly Karapetkova is the Poet Laureate of Arlington, Virginia. Her poetry, prose, and translations have appeared recently in Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, The Nashville Review, and many other places. She is the author of two books of poetry, Towline, winner of the Vern Rutsala Poetry Prize from Cloudbank Books, and Words We Might One Day Say, winner of the Washington Writers’ Publishing House Prize for Poetry. She teaches at Marymount University.
Maigi
Copyright by Maigi.
Gemma Gorga
Translated from Catalan by Sharon Dolin
The Meal
Death is emptying us out with the flat teaspoon
of minutes, bit by bit, without being excessively
voracious. Sometimes it opens the fridge and contemplates us
in the chilled, bluish light, like someone who gets up
at midnight, half-wanting something, without really knowing what.
In the street, someone is lowering the restaurant gate
with a useless gesture. Seated between empty tables and chairs,
Death reviews the menu for the umpteenth time,
repeats our names between its teeth,
unraveling them, as if scouring for
morsels of meat hidden in the cartilage
of this hopeless bird that we are.
Every morning we pack our bags
and take flight with the first swallows,
but the mouth that devours us
ends up being larger
than the parabola
of our flight.
L’àpat
La mort ens va buidant amb la cullereta
plana dels minuts, mos a mos, sense excessiva
voracitat. A voltes obre la nevera i ens contempla
a la llum blavosa del calfred, com qui es lleva
a mitjanit, a migdesig, sense saber ben bé què vol.
Al carrer, algú abaixa amb gest inútil la persiana
del restaurant. Asseguda entre taules i cadires
buides, Ella repassa la carta per enèsima vegada,
torna a dir els nostres noms entre les dents,
esfilagarsadament, com si escurés
les molletes de carn ocultes entre els cartílags
d’aquest ocell sense remissió que som.
Cada matí fem l’equipatge i fugim
amb les primeres orenetes,
però la boca que se’ns empassa
acaba sent més gran
que la paràbola
del vol.
Appeared in Guernica and forthcoming in Late to the House of Words: Selected Poems of Gemma Gorga, translated by Sharon Dolin (Saturnalia Books, 2021).
Kaleidoscope
I turn the capricious kaleidoscope
of the dictionary
between my fingers.
Sometimes
a poem appears, radial and symmetrical,
carrying my frame of mind.
Sometimes
I wonder if it won’t be the other way around:
if it won’t be my frame of mind
to adapt symmetrically
to the words
received
deceived
retrieved
to say.
Calidoscopi
Giro entre els dits
el calidoscopi capriciós
del diccionari.
A voltes
apareix un poema radial i simètric
amb el meu estat d’ànim.
A voltes
dubto si no serà a l’inrevés,
si no serà el meu estat d’ànim
que s’adaptarà simètricament
a les paraules
trobades,
torbades,
tornades
a dir.
Appeared in ACM: Another Chicago Magazine and forthcoming in Late to the House of Words: Selected Poems of Gemma Gorga, translated by Sharon Dolin (Saturnalia Books, 2021).
Direction of Growth
Flowers
fedoras
fingernails
and doors
grow outward.
If they ever grew inward
it would pierce
earth's tunnel
of pain.
Pain known by
caverns
roots
ears
and women,
who have learned how to grow
inward.
El sentit del creixement
Flors
i barrets
i ungles
i portes
creixen enfora.
Si mai creixen endins
és perforant
el túnel terrós
del dolor.
Un dolor que coneixen
coves
i arrels
i orelles
i dones,
que han après a créixer
endins.
Appeared in World Literature Today and forthcoming in Late to the House of Words: Selected Poems of Gemma Gorga, translated by Sharon Dolin (Saturnalia Books, 2021).
About the author
Gemma Gorga was born in Barcelona in 1968. She holds a Ph.D. in Philology from the University of Barcelona, where she teaches Medieval and Renaissance Literature. She has published seven books of poetry since 1997, most recently Mur (Barcelona: Meteora, 2015) and Viatge al centre (Barcelona: Godall Edicions, 2020).
About the translator
Sharon Dolin is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Manual for Living (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2016). A recipient of a 2021 NEA Fellowship in Translation and the winner of the inaugural Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize, her translation of Late to the House of Words: Selected Poems of Gemma Gorga is forthcoming from Saturnalia Books in the fall of 2021. She is also the author of a book of translations from Catalan, Book of Minutes by Gemma Gorga (Oberlin College Press, 2019) and a prose memoir, Hitchcock Blonde (Terra Nova Press, 2020). She is Associate Editor at Barrow Street Press and directs Writing About Art in Barcelona.
Sharron Hass
Translated from Hebrew by Marcela Sulak
Three poems from “Shelter Poems”
My beloved, no book / contains our story / for hours I sit behind the mountain / (a
place my face isn’t seen) / an old spinner and a young warrior / (as has been written before
by poets, not necessarily ones I love) / nevertheless / threads and plots / attempting to dream to give an account that burnishes the biographical to the anonymous giving another body / to a time that is passing / the words will again be / an offering, the possible splendor / and wish that when I return/ from that place that isn’t a place / where the writing life a somewhere / gathers around the source, / it is difficult to know /if it is darkness or light / the little house gods / will peek from behind the kettle, the books / to look upon years, and we draw nearer still / the stalactite sun / under which the ghosts /of us hold hands / in great bitterness too / next to the radiant oranges
Who / who will open the door for me / I lift my head from a pillow a book or dishes / the plain sprawls, sloping slightly at an almost imperceptible angle across great distances/ brutal bias/across the long years / —here you are dropped, for now / before the splendor of the subjects / two morning birds / one light blue, one grayish / the gaiety of giving voice to flight / and what is more dear to the dying/ if not the light in the leaves / and who is dying? / the bias seems to straighten slightly/ again you walk the beloved plain and the mind calms /relaxes from the antics of the all-at-once— the fear and the love of fear / the fret of being content with so little / and the ecstasy of crumbs
(Golden thread)
These are the last pages that come before the first pages. These pages are whiter than the first white pages. These pages are the death of a voice and the forgetting of the birth. In the street below a god is twisting and about to shed its skin. Be prepared. A kind of murmur. A mouse among dry leaves. How to sip and what to move to the other side, symmetrical but not identical how do you pass to the first white pages and not to the last pages, three, four at most beyond any ink that has dried. From what does one sip.
About the author
Sharron Hass was born in 1966, and is a graduate of the Classics Department of Tel Aviv University, and holds an M.A. degree in Religious Studies. She lectures on literature and poetry at the Alma Institute in Tel-Aviv, the Tel-Aviv Museum of Art, and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at TAU. Four of her six books of poems are prizewinners: The Mountain Mother is Gone (1997, the Hezy Leskly Award and the Art Council Prize), The Stranger and the Everyday Woman (2001, the Israeli Prime Minister's Prize for Poetry), Daylight (2011, The Bialik Prize), Music of the Wide Lane (2015, The Dolitsky Prize in 2017).
About the translator
Marcela Sulak is the recipient of a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellowship for the current work on Sharron Hass. Her translations from the Czech include Karel Hynek Macha’s May and K. J. Erben’s A Bouquet of Czech Folktales, from the Hebrew Twenty Girls to Envy Me. The Selected Poems of Orit Gidali, nominated for the 2016 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. From the French, she has translated Mutombo Nkulu-N’Sengha’s Bela-Wenda. Voices from the Heart of Africa. Sulak has published four collections of poetry, most recently, City of Skypapers, and the lyric memoir Mouth Full of Seeds. She’s co-edited the 2016 Rose Metal Press title, Family Resemblance. An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres. Sulak is an Associate Professor of English at Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
Rasha Omran
Translated from Arabic by Phoebe Bay Carter
Ordinary Life
I do nothing but wait
I write, catching words as though I were in a field filled with colorful butterflies fleeing from me
I read what others write and am impressed by their excessive eloquence in saying what they want
I invent a love, and call a charming man my lover, and I really do love him
I am overcome with passion and ecstasy
I clean my house daily, covering the walls with paintings so as not to live alone in a too-large house
I go to sleep, wake up, watch cheesy romantic films, cook, punish myself with a greasy meal
I walk and take my pills regularly and make plans with friends and dance, often
I do everything that indicates that my life is ordinary, like the life of so many others
except that really, I do nothing but wait for some moment, though I don’t know which
not Godot’s arrival, as you might be thinking
a moment that concerns me alone
and I do all of the above, just to know what it is
حياة عادية
.........
لا أفعل شيئا سوى الانتظار
أكتب وأنا التقط الكلمات كما لو كنت في حقل مليء بفراشات ملونة تهرب مني
أقرأ ما يكتبه الآخرون وأعجب من قدرتهم على قول ما يريدون بأناقة مفرطة
أخترع حبا، وأسمي رجلا رائعا حبيبي، وأحبه فعلا وأموت من الشوق والوجد
أرتب بيتي كل يوم ، وأغطي الجدران باللوحات كي لا أعيش وحدي في بيت شبه واسع
أنام وأصحو وأشاهد أفلاما عاطفية سخيفة وأطبخ وأعاقب نفسي على وجبة دسمة
أمشي وأتناول دوائي بانتظام وأواعد الأصدقاء وأرقص أحيانا كثيرة
أفعل كل ما يشي بأن حياتي عادية، تشبه حياة الكثيرين
غير أن الحقيقة أنني لا أفعل شيئا سوى انتظار تلك اللحظة التي أجهل تماما ماهي
ليست لحظة قدوم غودو كما قد يخطر لكم
لحظة تخصني وحدي
أفعل كل ما سبق لأعرف ماهي
You Didn’t Come
I wanted to tell you today when you came that I love you
I got dressed, as usual, in a black, low-cut dress
and wore my silver earrings
then wrapped my heart in a silk handkerchief
and placed it on the doorstep to let you know I was here
and waited…
A day went by
then two
a whole month
or maybe much more
and I kept wearing the same dress and those earrings
but you never came
someone passed by and took away the doorstep
someone else came and carried off the front door
others came for my life and left
I wet the threads of the handkerchief around my heart
I could no longer remember how to say the words “I love you”
you never came
and the cat swallowed my silver earrings
then hid under my black dress
and went to sleep.
أنت لم تأت
.....
أردت أن أقول لك اليوم حين تأتي أنني أحبك
لبست، كعادتي، ثوبا أسودا مكشوف الصدر
وضعت قرطي الفضي
ثم لففت قلبي بمنديل حريري
وضعته عند عتبة باب البيت كي يدلك على مكاني
وانتظرت ....
مضى يوم
مضى يومان
مضى شهر
وربما أكثر بكثير
أنا ما زلت أرتدي نفس الثوب والقرط
وأنت لم تأت أبدا
مر أحد حمل العتبة ومضى
ومر آخر أخذ معه باب البيت
ومر آخرون أخذوا حياتي ورحلوا
بليت خيوط المنديل الذي يلف قلبي
ولم أعد أعرف كيف ألفظ كلمة ( أحبك )
أنت لم تأت أبدا
القطة ابتعلت قرطي الفضي
ثم دخلت تحت ثوبي الأسود
ونامت .
I Have No One
says the green plant in the corner of the room before curling up her small leaves to keep them from falling,
I have no one
says the man walking in the Bahram Hajou painting as he carries his wife on his head, preparing since forever ago to arrive
I have no one
says the Bach symphony, left repeating itself for the past two days in the tape player with no one to listen to it
I have no one
cries Alberto Manguel as he sticks his head out of a book that hasn’t been moved from its spot on the bedside table for a month,
I have no one
a blue dress pokes its head out of the closet, protesting against the darkness it’s been living in for more than a year,
I have no one
says the dry skin of a woman, howling like a parched wolf in a far-off desert,
I have no one
murmurs a human heart as it turns somersaults like a lonely acrobat
I have no one
say the people in a house like a window one of them stole from an old wall to hang in the emptiness of the world, making sure to lock it up tight.
ليس لي أحد
تقول النبتة الخضراء المركونة في زاوية الغرفة ثم تلتف على أوراقها الصغيرة لتحميها من التساقط،
ليس لي أحد
يقول الرجل الماشي في لوحة بهرم حاجو وهو يحمل امرأته على رأسه ويستعد منذ أبد للوصول،
ليس لي أحد
تقول سيمفونية لباخ متروكة منذ يومين تكرر نفسها في جهاز تسجيل لا يوجد من ينتبه إليه،
ليس لي أحد
يصرخ البرتو مانغويل وهو يمد رأسه من كتاب لم تتغير وضعيته منذ شهر على طاولة في غرفة النوم،
ليس لي أحد
يمد فستان أزرق رأسه من خزانة الملابس محتجا على الظلام الذي يعيش فيه منذ أكثر من عام،
ليس لي أحد
يقول جلد امرأة ناشف وهو يعوي كذئب عطش في صحراء بعيدة،
ليس لي أحد
يتمتم قلب آدمي وهو يتقلب كبهلوان في هوة نفسه،
ليس لي أحد
يقول الجميع ذلك في بيت يشبه نافذة سرقها أحدهم من جدار قديم ثم وضعها في فراغ العالم وأحكم إغلاقها جيدا .
About the author
Rasha Omran is a Syrian poet born in Tartus in 1964. She has published six collections of poetry which have been partially translated into several languages and regularly publishes opinion pieces in the Arabic press. She currently lives in Cairo.
About the translator
Phoebe Bay Carter is a translator from Arabic and Spanish and a graduate student in comparative literature at Harvard University. Her translations have appeared in Brooklyn Rail’s InTranslation, Action Books’ Poetry in Action, ArabLit Quarterly, and elsewhere.
Inna Kabysh
Translated from Russian by Katherine E. Young
“Dacha: hot strawberry childhood”
Dacha: hot strawberry childhood,
pluperfect, near Mesozoic;
the genius boy with the evil gene
stalks a dragonfly, predatory.
An archaeopteryx twitters briefly
on a branch beside the red-haired hunter,
and two pears settle in the hammock
just like they would in Mama’s sack.
At night the dacha floorboards creak,
an old woman shivers in her chair-
bed, teenage misses are whispering,
currents ferment in their red pail.
At night the joints and vertebrae grow;
like plumping apples, breasts swell up;
train cars depart for far-off spots,
for youth—until the bluing plums,
until September, start of torment—
dacha season: sea and sun.
Our home, our golden mean. Southern
exile: Pushkin, Ovid Nazon.
Translation first published in Notre Dame Review.
[“Dacha: hot strawberry childhood” text—original poem is untitled]
Дача: клубничное жаркое детство,
плюсквамперфект, почти мезозой,
гений: ребёнок с геном злодейства
хищно охотится за стрекозой.
Археоптерикс щебечет на ветке
с рыжим охотником накоротке,
и преспокойно, как в маминой сетке,
груши-двойняшки спят в гамаке.
Ночью на даче скрипят половицы,
зябнет старуха на кресле-одре,
шепчутся девочки-отроковицы,
бродит смородина в красном ведре.
Ночью растут позвонки и суставы,
грудь набухает, как белый налив,
в дальние страны уходят составы,
в юность, и до посинения слив,
до сентября, до начала мученья:
море и солнце - дачный сезон.
Это наш дом золотого сеченья.
Южная ссылка: Пушкин, Назон.
“This is life: the summer house”
This is life: the summer house,
rain and sun, work and more work.
I wake a second before the baby,
the wailing, before bowing and scraping.
This is a bowl full to the top,
and trough, and tub, and chamber pot,
mishmash mix-up, yakkety-yak,
goddammit, short end of the stick.
This is the twitter, babble and coo,
laughter and tears, “halloo,” “goochie-goo,”
and the swallow builds a nest of her own
by day, double-quick, on the run.
This is the view, nothing simpler,
with an anthill close by a stump,
field, clearing, apiary, tree clump;
life—the divine bustle and fuss.
And grass grows between the stones,
and the poet writes between washloads.
This is a stitch, needle, pin,
this is happiness, of which there’s none.
Translation first published by the Stephen Spender Trust.
[“This is life: the summer house” text—original poem is untitled]
Это жизнь, то есть лето и дача,
дождь и солнце, труды и труды.
Я проснусь за секунду до плача,
до дитя, до травы и воды.
Это доверху полная чаша,
и корыто, и таз, и горшок,
печки-лавочки, каша-малаша,
ёлки-палки, вершок-корешок.
Это гулинье, щебет и лепет,
смех и слёзы, ау и агу,
и гнездо своё ласточка лепит
на свету, на скаку, на бегу.
Это вид, нету коего проще,
с муравейником около пня,
поле, просека, пасека, роща:
жизнь — божественная колготня.
И растёт между плитами травка,
и меж стирками пишет поэт.
Это строчка, иголка, булавка,
это счастье, которого нет.
“September was ending—leaving cigarette butts”
September was ending—leaving cigarette butts,
apple cores, drifts of leaves. Used to bad news,
I lived. Love always left without saying
goodbye, strolled regally along its way.
I followed it with my eyes. And lived. Expecting
cold, famine, plague, and civil war, and Judgment,
amid collapse, on the doorstep of hell
I lived, never hoping to make it till spring.
I wrote words, I read words, I wrote; in words
I escaped, but as in a child’s game, “One, two, three!”
rang out in me—then nothing saved me: after
each “three!” I blew myself up from within.
And then collected another self from what
had been. After that—in two words, “I lived”…
Life’s greater than autumn, homeland, love, the word…
Life encrusts everything: that’s why it’s so hard.
Translation first published in Tupelo Quarterly.
[“September was ending—leaving cigarette butts” text—original is untitled]
И кончался сентябрь - оставались окурки, огрызки
и сугробы листвы. К не-благим привыкая вестям,
я жила. А любовь уходила всегда по-английски
и брела королевской походкой по русским путям.
Я смотрела ей вслед. И жила. В ожидании хлада,
в ожидании глада, чумы, и гражданской войны,
и Суда, посредине распада, в преддверии ада
я жила, всякий раз не надеясь дожить до весны.
Я писала слова, я читала слова, вновь писала:
я спасалась в словах, но как в детской игре:
"Раз, два, три!"-
раздавалось во мне - и тогда ничего не спасало:
после каждого "...три!" я взрывала себя изнутри.
А потом собирала: другую себя из былого.
А что после потом - в двух словах говоря: "Я жила"...
Ибо жизнь больше осени, родины, больше любви,
больше слова...
Ею всё покрывается: то-то она тяжела.
About the author
Inna Kabysh has published eight collections of poetry in Russia. She has been awarded the Pushkin Prize of the Alfred Toepfer Fund, the Anton Delwig Prize, the Moskovsky schet Prize, the Anna Akhmatova Prize, and the Deti Ra Prize. Two chapbooks are available in English: Blue Birds and Red Horses and Two Poems; individual poems have appeared widely in English translation. Several of Kabysh’s poems have been made into short films; many have been set to music.
About the translator
Katherine E. Young is the author of Woman Drinking Absinthe and Day of the Border Guards and editor of Written in Arlington. She is the translator of prose by Anna Starobinets and Akram Aylisli, as well as poetry by Inna Kabysh and numerous Russophone poets; she was named a 2020 Arlington County Individual Artist Grant recipient, a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts translation fellow, and a 2015 Hawthornden Fellow (Scotland). She served as the inaugural poet laureate for Arlington, Virginia. https://katherine-young-poet.com
Thilini N. Liyanaarachchi
Translated from Sinhalese by Chamini Kulathunga
Lofty Treetops
There are treetops
of lofty proportions
that just breathe
lying parallel
entertaining less conversation
betraying no outward affection
not even competing
to get hold of the sun
Nobody would question
their age and lineage
only a random breeze
would make them touch each other
causing minimal interaction
yet when wild storms gatecrash
twisting all treetops
even the baby plants and frail stems
know they could rely
on their lofty friends
To be a Queen is a Sin
Venerating the kings with concubines
turning the pages of history books
they laughed at you, saying
“she’s an erotic being”
Could you come back once more
dear queen Anula1
to tell us
if you really poisoned
every man you married?
Was it their masculine auspices
that allowed them to be at play?
Was every nameless woman the kings brought
in love with them?
They say being a man is a merit,
was it why copulation only their right?
Was it why they pointed at you?
Was it to erase their sins from history?
In a country like this
being a queen itself is a sin
and once a woman climbs the ladder
she is but a genital that unites with another
I wish I could listen
to all your stories
for it’s you who knows
the truth of them all.
[1 The first female ruling queen in the recorded history of Sri Lanka. History books describe her as a woman who allegedly poisoned four of her husbands to remain in power as well as a woman with amorous qualities.]
Originally published on Project Plume (2020).
Shall We Ask Time to Stop?
Mother speaks slowly now
breathes tranquilly
hardly ever nags
cooks the same dishes
only eats a handful
often lost in thought
Mom,
shall we stop here
here at this very moment
and ask Time to stop with us
so we can remain
nestled in each other?
Originally published on Project Plume (2020).
About the author
Thilini N. Liyanaarachchi is a contemporary Sri Lankan female poet. Her debut poetry collection අප්රකාශිත ප්රේමය (Unrequited Love as it appears in the collection) was published in March 2020. Her Facebook page “unwritten poem” was one of the first literary pages in Sri Lanka to reach one-hundred- thousand followers. Liyanaarachchi’s poetry often brings into focus a range of topics from human connections to historical female figures to cultural restrictions from a female point of view.
About the translator
Chamini Kulathunga is a Sri Lankan translator. She is a graduate of the Iowa Translation Workshop and a former visiting fellow at Cornell University's South Asia Program. She is a recent recipient of The Global South Translation Fellowship awarded by Cornell University’s Institute for Comparative Modernities. Chamini is currently working as Asymptote’s Editor-at-Large for Sri Lanka and as an Associate Editor at The Song Bridge Project, a non-profit publisher of literary translations based in Iowa City. She was the former blog editor and a staff editor at Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation. During her time in Sri Lanka, she has worked in the corporate sector as an Editor-in-Chief in a news platform and as a visiting scholar at three Sri Lankan universities. Her writings, interviews, and translations have appeared and are forthcoming in The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Los Angeles Review, The Massachusetts Review, The World Literature Today, Asymptote, Project Plume, and elsewhere. More of her work can be found on chaminikulathunga.com
Suzanne Dracius
Translated from French by Nancy Naomi Carlson
Women's Fantasies
for Susanne Rinne
It pleases me to straddle a horse and ride
like women do in the frescos of Pompeii
in the Roman way, the Andromache way.
Then you would bear my mark
sweeter than brands made
from the red iron of lovely servitude, now banned.
Great joy for a woman as well!
You’ll have no cause for complaint.
You’ll be sated
doing all these things you say
to the gray kingbird, to the singing cock,
without end,
all these forbidden things
in theory
as they say:
a woman’s fantasy,
fantastic ride
of mighty Amazon warriors, female soldiers of Dahomey,
like Penthesilea, spirited queen.
After all, what’s the danger
in doing these things that you say—
if by chance we should do them—
as long as we do them
while wildly insane?
For an upright woman today
will not, for all that, be defamed.
Oh understand how I waver!
What is this feminine sense
of decency, its tight reins?
I’m well aware I must refrain
from doing these things you say
ill-bred,
ill-fated…
Believe me, I am dismayed
that these are forbidden things.
Now it is I inviting you
in melody,
in harmony.
Must we really be drunk to make
our living flesh rejoice?
Must we slowly drift away
in fairy tales,
in barbaric ways,
extreme in our rage
as in our cravings,
crazed,
convulsed?
Ah, to be able to ride
like women do in the frescos of Pompeii
like Andromache, in the Roman way,
straddling my proud horse
to Hell’s Road in Saint-Pierre
just below the volcano, Rise-to-Heaven Street
under Mount Pelée,
doing all these forbidden things
in paradise,
to allow myself all these positions you say
in mystic cries,
Yé mistikri!
To allow myself all these forbidden positions
and krik and krak
and krik krak.
No, the court will not sleep,
still hand to hand, filled with cries
of hedonistic poetry,
Philosophy,
sweet Philosophy!
I took off
and worse, untamed
and running, I escaped
as a chestnut brown
Caribbean gourmet.
Martinique, 2003
Translator’s notes: Hell’s Road refers to rue d’Enfer, the name of a street in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, destroyed by the volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée in 1902. Rise-to-Heaven Street refers to rue Monte au ciel nearby. Krik krak is part of a Caribbean storyteller’s ritual of warming up the audience by asking “Krik?” and encouraging the collective response “Krak!” The storyteller then says, “Yé mistikri!” and the audience responds, “Yé mistikra!” Finally the storyteller asks, “Is the court sleeping?” and the audience responds, “No, the court is not sleeping.”
Fantasmes de femmes
à Susanne Rinne
Il me plaît de chevaucher aussi
comme sur les fresques de Pompéi
à la Romaine, à l’Andromaque.
Alors vous porteriez ma marque
plus suave que marquage au fer rouge
d’exquise servitude abolie.
Pour une femme aussi, grand plaisir !
Ainsi n’aurez-vous rien à redire.
C’est comme ça que vous serez comblé
à faire toutes ces choses que vous dites
au coq chantant, au pipirit,
à l’infini,
toutes ces choses interdites
en théorie
comme on dit :
fantasme de femme,
en fantastique chevauchée
de haute guerrière, d’Amazone du Dahomey,
telle une fougueuse Penthésilée.
Après tout, qu’est-ce que l’on risque
à faire ces choses que vous me dites
– si d’aventure nous le faisions –
pourvu que nous le fassions
en douce folie ?
Car une femme debout d’aujourd’hui
ne sera pas pour autant maudite.
Oh, comprenez combien j’hésite !
Mais quelle est cette pudeur dite
féminine
qui me retient aux abords ?
Je sais bien qu’il faut que j’évite
de faire ces choses que vous me dites
en malappris,
en malfini…
Croyez bien que cela m’irrite
que ce soient choses interdites.
Maintenant c’est moi qui vous invite
en mélodie,
en harmonie.
Faut-il vraiment que l’on soit ivre
pour faire exulter nos chairs vives ?
Faut-il que longuement l’on dérive
en féerie,
en barbarie,
extrêmes dans nos emportements
autant que dans nos engouements,
en frénésie,
en malcadi ?
Ah ! Pouvoir chevaucher aussi
comme sur les fresques de Pompéi
à l’Andromaque, à la Romaine,
ma fière monture enfourchant
à la rue d’Enfer à Saint-Pierre
juste au-dessous du volcan
sous la Pelée rue Monte au ciel,
faire toutes ces choses interdites
en paradis,
m’offrir toutes ces poses que vous dites
en mystique cri,
Yé misticri !
M’offrir toutes ces poses interdites
et cric et crac
et cric crac.
Non, la cour ne va pas dormir
encore à corps et à cris
en hédoniste poésie,
Philosophie,
la Philo !
J’ai pris l’envol
et pis j’ai pris
courir
marronne en
caribéenne épicurie.
Martinique, 2003
Fantasm Fanm
Pou fanm tou sé bèl plézi
Di monté adada osi
« À la Romaine, à l’Andromaque »
Sé pousa ou pé di hak
Sé konsa ou ké kontan
Fè tout sé bagay ou ka di
O pipiri
Tout sé bagay ki intèwdi
An téyori
Kon yo ka di
An fantasm fanm
Sa ki pé rivé nou davré
Di fè tousa ou ka mandé
A sipozé ki nou ka fèy
Dépi nou fè sa épi
Ti bren foli
Puis fanm jodi
Pé ké modi
Mwen ka espéré kou pé konpwann
Sa ki sé kalté pidè fanm
Lè man noz fè
Sa ou ka di-a
Mèm si man sav
Ki fo pa fèy
An jèntifi
De bonnfanmi
Kon yo ka di
Atjolman sé mwen ki bandi
Ek sé mwen ké mandé-w li
An mélodi
An narmoni
Kon yo ka di
An fantasm fanm
Es fok tèt an mwen pati
Pou nou pwan titak plézi
An vakabonnajri
Kon yo ka di
An féyéri
An barbari
Pichonnaj ki pa té ka fèt an gran lari
Dousinaj ki nou ka vwè jodi
An pitènri
Kon yo ka di
An frénézi
An malkadi
Pou an fanm sé bèl plézi
Di monté adada osi
Kon sou lérwin Ponpéyi
Alabodaj an bèl péyi
« À l’Andromaque, à la Romaine »
Pa an sèl wozé pijé grènn
An mannyè pakoté Senpyè
An mannyè a lari Lanfè
Fè tout sé bagay intèrwdi
An paradi
Fantasm fanm
Fè tout sé bagay man ka di
An mistik kri
Yé mistikri
Fè krik krak
Kon yo ka di
Yé krak yé kri
An filozofi
Pou lakou pa domi
An poyézi
An malapri
An malfini
Lafilo !
Lavol an pri
Épi kouri
— Caribéenne épicurie —
Atè Matnik, dé mil twa
Originally published in Calazaza's Delicious Dereliction, Tupelo Press (2015).
From Hell's Road to Rise-to-Heaven Street
The fellow went down to Saint-Pierre,
Martinique, Martinique of cinders and ash,
in February 1902,
drifted along for somewhere to moor,
found no Johnny cakes nor demijohns,
only winks from ladies named Jeanne ad libitum,
was ogled from head to toe
by the lady lost in the clouds
with fire in her womb,
Venus’ bald mount.
At the foot of Mount Pelée,
from the rim of Hell’s road
as far as Rise-to-Heaven street,
he was lured by the brothels’ beguines.
From the water’s shores to the heart
of Le Mouillage and its harbor’s abyssal depths,
he relished the taste of sea-soaked hair,
feasted on rums and women in all shades and hues,
toured fire-filled wombs,
passed two or three zombies with grins
crazily bound
for Creole Saturnalia,
sultry, fantastic rides,
nights of orgy in Saint-Pierre.
With good will,
aroused,
he groped with chocolate-smeared hands
a crowd of little devils from Saint-Pierre
bedecked with red
and big-breasted matadors, stiletto-heeled,
tickled chabines with derrières high and round,
a calazaza adorned with a pair of fanciful horns,
lavished caresses and hickeys on a half-naked capresse,
a callipyge with buttocks jutting out like masts on a ship,
without cause, for his part, to dismast
until his tail should come undone,
saluted masks and bergamasks,
spirited skeleton brides raised from the dead,
a three-legged horse, crazed in heat,
languid women disguised as Marianne,
men disguised as old bodies astride one another’s backs
bound for Carnival
where the morituri live well,
the supreme,
the sublime
which never will rise
from cinders and ash
with bacchanal splendor restored.
In this short span of time,
intense and compressed,
in this lapse of bygone days,
a mere nothing of time,
barely, hardly
had he dispersed his seed,
remembering his wife
who was waiting for him in Fort-de-France—
a domestic pillar of strength
in the midst
of wedded restraint—
he retraced his steps just in time
to avoid the Disaster.
Le Mouillage, Saint-Pierre, 2001
Translator’s notes: References in this poem to the finely calibrated racial distinctions on the black/white continuum found in Martinique include the calazaza (light-skinned, bi-racial person with red or blond hair and very few black features), the chabine (light-skinned, bi-racial woman with red or blond hair and some black features), and the capresse (half-black, half-mulatto woman with darker skin than the chabine’s and with black hair). Marianne la peau-figue refers to a major Carnival caricature dressed in dry banana leaves. Figue is the Creole word for banana, and Marianne represents the fruit’s fragility.
De Rue d'enfer à Rue Monte au Ciel
Le bougre est descendu à Saint-Pierre,
Martinique, Martinique des cendres,
en février 1902,
a drivaillé en plein Mouillage,
n’y a pas trouvé de daubannes ni nulle dame-jeanne
mais des oeillades de dames Jeanne ad libitum,
s’est fait toiser par la dame
qui a la tête dans les nuages,
le ventre en feu,
le mont de Vénus pelé.
Au pied de la Montagne Pelée,
de rue d’Enfer en bordée
jusqu’à la rue Monte au Ciel
driva de biguine en bordel.
En bord d’eau au fond du Mouillage
et des abyssaux mouillages
goûta des chevelures océanes,
dégusta des rhums et des femmes de toutes couleurs,
visita des ventres de feu,
croisa deux-trois gais zombies
en folle partance
pour de créoles Saturnales,
de fantastiques et voluptueuses chevauchées,
des nuits d’orgie à Saint-Pierre.
A chocolaté
bon enfant,
tout excité,
un lot de diablotins
pierrotins
et de matadors mamelues,
chatouillé des chabines fessues,
une calazaza biscornue,
prodigué suçons et caresses à une capresse à demi nue
au callipyge bonda maté
sans démâter de son côté
jusqu’à ce que sa queue se dévisse,
honoré masques et bergamasques,
masques-la-mort en émoi,
cheval trois-pattes en grand rut,
Marianne la peau-figue alanguie,
vieux-corps vifs à califourchon
en partance pour un Carnaval
de morituri bons vivants,
l’ultime,
le sublime
qui jamais
ne renaîtrait de ses cendres
en telle splendeur bacchanale.
En ce petit temps
court et lourd,
en ce laps d’antan,
en un rien de temps,
à peine à peine
eût-il exonéré ses graines,
songeant à sa légitime
qui l’espérait à Fort-de-France
— poteau mitan
au beau mitan
de l’austérité conjugale —
retira ses pieds juste à temps
pour éviter la Catastrophe.
Le Mouillage, Saint-Pierre, 2001
Originally published in Calazaza's Delicious Dereliction, Tupelo Press (2015).
By Course and Discourse
for Jean-Charles Brédas, award-winning chef from Martinique, whose creations combine
ingredients from cuisines around the world
Such a delicious trip
To take by course and discourse,
Gluttony for crew,
Jean-Charles Brédas in the furnace room.
There, where the White River flows,
Our frank Creolity pours forth:
The Chief’s face is august,
Agamemnon’s proud mask of gold,
Brédas in his fief, Creole,
Not in narrowness—no!—
In beautiful universality.
Of haute cuisine,
Jean-Charles is a Chevalier, heroic
And gifted master cook.
By synesthesia so sweet,
His art makes our senses reel:
Juiciness we see,
Refinement we breathe in,
Subtle nuances perfume
And fill our taste buds with bliss.
To feast on one of Jean-Charles’s meals
Is not a joy of which we speak
Lightly, but rather we enjoy
In reverence, tuned in
To the most refined “Carpe diem!”
Chef Brédas, this is why I love you,
Master-at-arms of the mouth,
Who pays innovative hommage
To matrimonial heritage
Of our poto-mitan, pillars of strength, from days gone by—
Grands-manmans, grandmas and upright wives—
From a coulis of passion fruit, arousing
The taste of foie gras, of fish,
You know how to concoct so many delights
To design with a delicate touch
In devotion worthy of myth,
Celebration with no end,
The fête of flavors of mixed descent.
Rivière Blanche, 2007
Par Mets et par Mots
pour Jean-Charles Brédas
Il est un délicieux voyage
À faire par mets et par mots,
Gourmandise pour équipage,
Jean-Charles Brédas aux fourneaux.
Là où coule la Rivière Blanche
S’épand la créolité franche :
Noble est la figure du Chef,
Fier masque d’or d’Agamemnon
Créole, Brédas en son fief
Pas dans l’étroitesse, oh que non !
En belle universalité.
De la haute gastronomie
Jean-Charles est Chevalier, le preux,
Le talentueux maître-queux.
Par une suave synesthésie
Son art met nos sens en émoi :
Des succulences que l’on voit,
Délicatesses que l’on hume,
Nuances subtiles parfument
Et comblent nos papilles en joie.
S’asseoir à la table de Jean-Charles
N’est de ces plaisirs dont on parle
À la légère, mais que l’on goûte
En recueillement, à l’écoute
Du plus raffiné « Carpe diem » !
Chef Brédas, c’est pourquoi je t’aime,
Toi qui, en officier de bouche
Rendant un novateur hommage
Au matrimonial héritage
De nos poto-mitan d’antan
— Femmes debout et grands-manmans —
Flattant d’un coulis de passion
Le goût d’un foie gras, d’un poisson,
Sais concocter tant de délices,
Pour créer par exquises touches
En féerique dévotion,
Jubilatoire célébration,
La fête des saveurs métisses.
Rivière Blanche, 2007
Originally published in Calazaza's Delicious Dereliction, Tupelo Press (2015).
About the author
Suzanne Dracius, an acclaimed writer from Martinique, was praised by Frédéric Mitterrand as “one of the great figures of Antillean letters.” Writing in French and Creole, she recently won the Prix européen francophone Virgile – Senghor. Dracius spent her early years in Martinique, then moved with her family to a suburb of Paris. After completing her studies at the Sorbonne, she returned to Martinique to become a professor of classical literature. Dracius’ protagonists are usually "calazaza" women like herself (light-skinned and bi-racial) who struggle to fight racial and gender discrimination, often feeling too dark-skinned to fit in Paris, and too light-skinned to fit in Fort-de-France.
About the translator
Nancy Naomi Carlson is a translator, poet, essayist, and editor, having authored 11 titles (7 translated). An Infusion of Violets (Seagull Books, 2019), her second full-length poetry collection, was named a “New & Noteworthy” title by the New York Times Book Review. Her translation of Alain Mabanckou’s poetry is forthcoming this month. A recipient of two grants from the NEA, her work has appeared in such journals as APR, The Georgia Review, The Paris Review, and Poetry. She has been decorated by the French government with the French Academic Palms and is a professor of graduate counseling at Walden University.
Li Cheng'en
Translated from Chinese by Ming Di
Blue and white porcelain, autumn
Light travels from the tree top to the slender waist
of the blue flower porcelain vase—
its logic is hidden while the autumn aroma is calm.
Obsessed with Tang Dynasty, its female crafts,
the “female business”, I stretch out my lazy body.
My unspent waist waves, tree bugs stir around.
I make tea, water green bamboo, feed two goats.
There’s sleepiness, but when I’m finally awake I enter
a factory that makes blue and white porcelain
as if walking into a daydream. Autumn itself sleepwalks,
mountain animals popping out, moving
here and there, merged with the blue and white
flowers on the porcelain vases. My forehead is clean,
my fingers like bamboo shoots. I clean the courtyard
of the factory. Red fruits fall to my surprise.
Changes in nature are not changes in my mind.
Only when the moon falls,
darkness of sky and earth in one will control me.
I believe in the blue and white porcelain
that brightens, hidden in the split trees
and autumn insects and birds that shine.
It stretches the neck, its slender logic
as in all female crafts and art,
lightweight, yet against familiarity.
青花瓷，秋天
光线从绿树冠越过，照射青花瓷的细腰
逻辑静止，秋水恬淡
我迷恋唐朝，研读女红
对财务也情有独钟，在秋天伸出懒腰
懒腰闪烁，秋虫细碎
我端茶倒水，养了一盆翠竹、两只绵羊
困顿是有的，但清醒的时候
我进入青花瓷烧制的工厂，简直是梦游
秋天也是梦游，山岗上冒出的动物
跑过来跑过去，与青花瓷瓶拥挤在一起
我的前额光洁，手指如竹
打扫庭院，树上的红果坠落，我一惊一乍
自然界的变化不是我心灵的变化
今夜月亮坠落时天地的暗淡一下子控制了我
我相信劈开的木柴里藏着的青花瓷瓶
是我的所爱，也是我值得赞赏的秋虫
青花瓷伸长脖颈，修长的逻辑
像女红，像财务，清淡而陌生
Chronicle of tenderness
Someone carries a tree, its crown drips ink
Drop after drop into the summer shade
Someone opens the door, fingers pale
There she is—with flames on her face
And a tree on her lips
The tree tips over
She speaks fast
Her eyes flickering with excitement
She finally sits down
And looks into my eyes
Out of her breath, orchids
She tells me word by word:
Worldly things are like ink
I only take the crown of a tree
温柔传
一个人提着一棵树，树冠如墨汁
一滴一滴滴在夏日阴凉里
有人推开门，手指苍白
她的脸上有一团火苗
她的嘴上有一棵树
树冠翻滚
她说话快速
眼睛闪烁兴奋
她终于坐下来
看着我的眼睛
吐气若兰
一字一句告诉我
世事如墨
我只取一树冠
About the author
Li Cheng'en, born in Anhui in 1983, is one of the most prolific poets and writers of the younger generation in China. She has published twelve books of poetry and essays and one novel so far and has won numerous literary awards including the first Hai Zi Poetry Award (2014), the first Qu Yuan Award for Young Poets (2014), the second edition of Li Bai Award (2014), the Best Poet of Anhui (2015) and Chinese Poetry Ten Year Achievement Award (2020). She advocates Rouge-ism, a new Green Feminism to reflect her ecological concerns. She lives in Beijing but travels to Qinghai-Tibetan Prairie frequently as an independent documentary filmmaker.
About the translator
Ming Di is a Chinese poet living in the US with six books of poetry published in China. Co-founder and editor of PoetryEastWest, she translates both ways and has published four books of poetry in Chinese translation including Observations by Marianne Moore (Sichuan Wenyi, 2018). She has edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Tupelo Press, 2013) and New Poetry from China 1917-2017 (Black Square Editions, 2019).
Zheng Min
Translated from Chinese by Ming Di
Bleeding Orchid Cactus
Only the flowers were blooming,
the arrow-shaped thorns cut by a knife
squirting dark red blood
in the dark night of June. The flowers
brought the anger of desert
but here the heart was a white
marble, a dragon pillar of stones.
It didn’t absorb the blood.
In its pureness of jade
lay so much howling and moaning.
So many pale faces of the youth
with so many doubts and despairs.
Only the flowers were blooming.
The bleeding cactus had shot out arrows
in the silent June night
in its heavy, sultry,
inaccessible darkness.
1989
流血的令箭荷花
只有花还在开
那被刀割过的令箭
在六月的黑夜里
喷出暗红的血, 花朵
带来沙漠的愤怒
而这里的心
是汉白玉, 是大理石的龙柱
不吸收血迹
在玉石的洁白下
多少呼嚎, 多少呻吟
多少苍白的青春面颇
多少疑问, 多少绝望
只有花还在开
吐血的令箭荷花
开在六月无声的
沉沉的, 闷热的
看不透的夜的黑暗里
1989
It
It stays with me
even though the sun has climbed down,
the mountainous long limbs
stretch, and then crouch.
Through the impenetrable armor
it returns to my consciousness
where it releases
a light only visible to me.
From the sequence “Image of the Mind”, 1991.
它
不能忘记它
虽然太阳已经下山了
山峦的长长的肢体
舒展地卧下
穿过穿不透的铁甲
它回到我的意识里
在那儿放出
只有我看得见的光。
——《心象》组诗，1991
About the author
Zheng Min is one of the most important poets from China. Born in 1920 in Beijing, with family from Fujian, she graduated from the National Southwest Associated University in 1943 and studied literature and philosophy at Brown University earning a master's degree in 1952. She returned to China in 1955 and taught at the Beijing Normal University from 1960 till retirement in 2006. She has published Poems 1942-1947 (1949), Searching (1986), Picking Flowers in the Morning Rain (1991), Poems 1979-1999 (2000) and Collected Poems by Zheng Min (2016). She is also an accomplished translator and critic and published Contemporary American Poetry in 1987 and four books of critical essays on Western philosophy and comparative poetics.
About the translator
Ming Di is a Chinese poet living in the US with six books of poetry published in China. Co-founder and editor of PoetryEastWest, she translates both ways and has published four books of poetry in Chinese translation including Observations by Marianne Moore (Sichuan Wenyi, 2018). She has edited and co-translated New Cathay: Contemporary Chinese Poetry (Tupelo Press, 2013) and New Poetry from China 1917-2017 (Black Square Editions, 2019).