Photo by Andrew Neel / Unsplash
Journal, or Story Without Words
And I follow the hand copying what it had written years ago,never knowing it would…
Poetry
September 4, 2018
August 10, 2018Photo by Sabah El Basha heirloom Ninety thousand men, women and childrendragged their dust to rivers,dams were never built for. Under six cataractslie the bones of my ancestors.Under my bed is the c…
August 7, 2018Sunset on Ithaka by T. Zengerink / Flickr Once on Ithaca Walking the harbor that day, I saw a cronesitting at a loom on her front porch.Was this Penelope, I wondered, weavingin midda…
August 2, 2018Photo by Paul Streltsov / Unsplash Grief that is now old, I ask it to come and sit near me today.I’m sitting, there’s my shadow, and if grief indeed comes and sits beside meI will feel quite good;…
July 26, 2018Photo: Peter Dressel Protective by defaultaffectionate by design apron, youare my mother:sweet bread bakingblue veins racingdown white expansedotted with delicioussplatter and spill. My mother woreyo…
July 18, 2018Photo by Michał Mancewicz / Unsplash Bathing with Tender Care And not this time the body of my child,but my own skin, loving the wrinkled kneesand the scars dealt t…
June 26, 2018Photo (left to right) - Translator Rowena Galavitz (courtesy of Emerson Richards) and author Paula Ilabaca Núñez He’ll hang the heartsBlack and dull as the…
June 19, 2018Lifecycles I was chatting with your executioner,a sweet, tidy man.He said because it’s me,I could choose the way you go out.He said when Eskimos get old,they wande…
May 30, 2018Photo by Atlas Green / Unsplash Boy for Dorsen Never seen him in a school uniform.Instead, each day, he wore clothes,bearing time’s hands. Hea…
April 17, 2018Mürtüz Yolcu (Enver) and Mansou Ciss (Otello) producing the radio play Blumen für Otello, April 9, 2014 / Photo by Sandro Most courtesy of Deutschlandradio Author’s note: Flowers…
April 5, 2018Courtesy of Natalia_Kollegova/Pixabay Ibis The Ibis, in Egypt, was not a bird,he was Thoth, the god in the pyramidwith my heart in his scimitar beak.We are not j…
January 8, 2018Photo by Inhabitat/ Flickr Happy New Year Everyone’s waiting for the ball to drop. The President’s son-in-law is going to jail. Or maybe not. Inform…
October 3, 2017Mural in Cochabamba, Bolivia / Photo by proyecto mARTadero For more on the poetry of Valdivia, read the companion essay by Margaret Randall. Aullido poema octogonal En el graznido de mi…
September 26, 2017Samoylov as a soldier in the Red Army in the 1940s Translator’s note: In June 1944 David Samoylov (1920–1990), an important Russian-language poet who was then a soldier in the Red Army, was…
September 20, 2017This view of Saturn’s rings from the “ringscape finale” series was among the last images Cassini sent back to Earth (September 13, 2017) / Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institut…
September 13, 2017Gillie Rhodes, “Log pile,” November 7, 2009 Late Autumn A butterfly searches our garden plants for blossoms I don’t see. Flitting, almost lurching, it lands at last on a barren branch as if exha…
September 7, 2017Grave at the US/Mexico border taken at a cemetery near Anthony, New Mexico, July 19, 2015 / Photo by Lanie Elizabeth The following is an excerpt from part 2 of a four-part poem called “T…
September 6, 2017Liu Xiaobo, 1991 / Courtesy of Wang Ya Translator’s note: This photo of Liu Xiaobo swimming surfaced on the Internet after the sea burial in Dalian, China. Those of us who were hear…
August 30, 2017Bury Me tell me wet limestone flinching coral reefs what’s it like to alwaysbe night tell me what is it to be rooted in shadow …
August 23, 2017John, “Fallen Angel,” August 29, 2010 Here and Now Here he is sitting across from the balcony door;the wind will blow – a wound. The rustling lightblushes and fades in the rectangular mirror – th…
August 15, 2017Lorenzo Gaudenzi, “Agria,” September 15, 2016 For more, read Brian Sneeden’s translator’s note on Giannisi’s work. (Nostos I) f…
August 7, 2017Tail light. Photo: Sarah-Rose/Flickr Pistoning seas rise andmountains flow a river spreadsin the bed of an undulatingvalley forestswither and entire citiesblossom people copulate thereon certain nig…
August 2, 2017coniferconifer, “water ablution pavilion,” November 30, 2013 Sparrows, Sparrows She is a man in her late forties and nobody knows when she was born or when she built a silvery house at the notorio…
July 31, 2017Chañaral is a small coastal city in the Atacama region of Chile. Devastating flash floods in 2015 caused an estimated $1.5 billion in damage to the region. Photo by jipe7. worldlittoday · Chanaral by…
July 26, 2017Editorial note: This Sunday, July 30, marks the World Day against Trafficking in Persons, established in 2013 by the UN General Assembly. Nadia Murad—nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and c…
Recent Posts
Yassini Girls (Beacon Books, 2024), the new novel by Shereen Malherbe, invites readers into a rich and emotional narrative, weaving together…
In this interview focused on devotional Indian poetry (bhakti), Arundhathi Subramaniam (b. 1967) discusses her interest and involvement in…
Photo by Daria ShchukinaUniversity of Oklahoma student Daria Shchukina recounts her recent trip to the 2024 ALTA conference and the impact it…
In June 2024 Pantheon published Tehrangeles, Porochista Khakpour’s latest novel (see WLT, Sept. 2024, 73). The novel satirizes…
Next Wednesday, November 13 at 4:00 pm cst, the University of Oklahoma’s Farzaneh Family Center for Iranian and Persian Gulf Studies will host the…
