Poetry

  • August 2, 2017 B. B. P. Hosmillo
    coniferconifer, “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, 2017 Laurence O’Dwyer
    Chañaral 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, 2017 Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee 
    Editorial 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…
  • July 24, 2017 Kedarnath Singh
    Mike Prince, “Black Drongo at Sunrise,” October 7, 2015 Where Would I Go Where would I goI shall only stay here, like a handprinton a doorjust to be there, I’ll be hidden inthe smell of a suitcases…
  • July 20, 2017 Manash Firaq Bhattacharjee 
    Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani died of breast cancer on July 15 at the age of 40. A professor at Stanford University, Mirzakhani became the first woman to win the prestigious Fields Meda…
  • July 19, 2017 A. G. Pettet
    A H T, “Goreme – Pasabag,” December 5, 2014 Göreme A ripple of flicking eyelids,a rooster’s cryand the call to prayerbreak through this dustyIslamic morning. I have been in this room before.The ten…
  • July 4, 2017 Puneet Dutt
    Gary Burke, “Remembering 9/11,” September 11, 2014 i’m from where the towers fell i’m from where the towers felljaws where we mourned Tupacarmpit of a state bruised byhad-it-too-hard dollar ferries…
  • June 19, 2017 Nausheen Eusuf
    Eros Bendato (Eros bound), bronze, 1999, by Igor Mitoraj, Kraków, Poland / Photo by Val Kerry Not Elegy, But Eros             for Xulhaz Mannan, LGBT activist murdered i…
  • June 14, 2017 Matt Mason
    Rich, “On a Saturday Afternoon” (on the road from Royal, Nebraska, to the Ashfall Fossil Beds), May 25, 2013 Creation Stories My favorite creation story right nowis the Babylonian one,where Apsu and…
  • May 24, 2017 John Kinsella
    Geoff Whalan, “Mistletoe Bird (Diaceum hirundinaceum),” Fogg Dam Conservation Reserve, Middle Point, Northern Territory, Australia, November 8, 2015 Graphology Endgame 55: Adjustment We ha…
  • May 22, 2017 Óscar Hahn
    Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending a Staircase (1912), oil on canvas, 147 × 89.2 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art / The Louise and Walter Arensberg Collection, 1950 Desnudo bajando una escalera…
  • May 15, 2017 Joanna Pollakówna
    Giovanni Bellini, Pietà (1505), oil on wood, 65 x 90 cm, Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice For more on the poetry of Pollakówna, read “A Terrible Ecstasy,” a companion essay by Alice-Cathe…
  • February 8, 2017 Hendrik Marsman
    Seb, “Gilded/Glider,” Amsterdam, October 8, 2008 from Zodiac  Early in the morning he wanders through the city.The silence is unnerving, and quickly the streetraises empty eyes to t…
  • January 25, 2017 Elisabeth Eybers
    Antti T. Nissinen, “Untitled” (spirit level), May 25, 2011 Homesickness  A house is something that stands up to a slopeby what it confronts on every side.But take note: say house in this cou…
  • November 23, 2016 Diti Ronen
    Isis Olivier, La grive II (The thrush II), 2015. All illustrations courtesy of the artist. A Note on the Illustrations  Diti Ronen: “I suddenly have this unexplained urge t…
  • October 4, 2016 Geet Chaturvedi
    The translation of The Diamond Sutra by Kumārajīva of the Yao Ch’in dynasty, in a handwritten version by Zhang Jizhi of the Southern Song Dynasty in 1253. Kumārajīva had established…
  • September 27, 2016 Najib George Awad
    A refugee’s shoes are worn, wet, and muddy after a long journey. These shoes are owned by Ali, a Yazidi refugee who traveled from Iraq to Preševo, Serbia, to avoid persecution (photo by Meab…
  • September 15, 2016 Lauren Camp
    Tony Webster, Dakota Access Pipeline protest at the Sacred Stone Camp near Cannon Ball, North Dakota, August 25, 2016 This poem addresses the demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pip…
  • September 13, 2016 Zofia Romanowicz
    Quinn Dombrowski, “Velvet Flower,” 2008 For more, read “The Renaissance of Zofia Romanowicz,” an essay by Alice-Catherine Carls.  The Circle Lion fangs, bear claws,…
  • July 27, 2016 Nader Naderpour
    Mohammadali F., “Daffodils,” Tehran, 2009 Translator’s note: Regarded as one of the leaders of the movement of “New Poetry” in Iran, Nader Naderpour (1929–2000) composed many poems…
  • July 20, 2016 João Luís Barreto Guimarães
    Esther Schwarz, “Lush (66/365),” 2009. For more of Schwarz’s photos, visit Inside My Shell.   Tangerinas de Natal «Será que eles ainda fazem?» Édomingopara segunda. Resolvesa teu f…
  • July 11, 2016 Aaron Brown
    Aaron Brown, “Brickyard,” Ati, Chad, March 2007 Author’s note: I recently returned to Chad after a five-year absence and found the nation of my youth to be both the same and yet rem…
  • July 5, 2016 Stephen Behrendt
    Christopher, Tania, and Isabelle Luna, “Mountains and Rain” (the hills of Fuzhou), September 2009   The Hills Overlooking Fuzhou Looking north you see them,roads like ragged scars on hard lean ribs:t…
  • June 28, 2016 Abdellatif Laâbi
    Translator’s note: Considered Morocco’s greatest living poet, Abdellatif Laâbi wrote this poem in 1975, roughly three years into his decade-long prison sentence, one of many thousan…
  • June 1, 2016 Mai Mang
    Jack Homme, “Goddess of Democracy 1989,” 2009 About Freedom Finishing the booze in the dead of night Then smashing the glass This is not freedom Opening the window Jumping out, but forgetting whi…