Mural in Cochabamba, Bolivia / Photo by proyecto mARTaderoFor more on the poetry of Valdivia, read the companion essay by Margaret Randall. Aullido poema octogonalEn el graznido de mi no…
Poetry
October 3, 2017
September 26, 2017Samoylov as a soldier in the Red Army in the 1940sTranslator’s note: In June 1944 David Samoylov (1920–1990), an important Russian-language poet who was then a soldier in the Red Army, was se…
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 Institute…
September 13, 2017Gillie Rhodes, “Log pile,” November 7, 2009Late Autumn A butterfly searches our garden plants for blossoms I don’t see. Flitting, almost lurching, it lands at last on a ba…
September 7, 2017Grave at the US/Mexico border taken at a cemetery near Anthony, New Mexico, July 19, 2015 / Photo by Lanie ElizabethThe following is an excerpt from part 2 of a four-part poem called “The…
September 6, 2017Liu Xiaobo, 1991 / Courtesy of Wang YaTranslator’s note: This photo of Liu Xiaobo swimming surfaced on the Internet after the sea burial in Dalian, China. Those of us who were heartb…
August 30, 2017Bury Metell me wet limestone flinching coral reefs what’s it li…
August 23, 2017John, “Fallen Angel,” August 29, 2010 Here and NowHere he is sitting across from the balcony door;the wind will blow – a wound. The rustling lightblushes and fades in the rectangular mirror – the…
August 15, 2017moomin goat, “Goat Bells,” April 9, 2007Click here to read Sneeden’s translations of four of Giannisi’s poems. Phoebe Giannisi is one of Greece’s foremost contemporary poets and…
August 15, 2017Lorenzo Gaudenzi, “Agria,” September 15, 2016For more, read Brian Sneeden’s translator’s note on Giannisi’s work. (Nostos I) …
August 7, 2017Tail light. Photo: Sarah-Rose/Flickr Pistoningseas rise andmountains flow a river spreadsin the bed of an undulatingvalley forestswither and entire citiesblossom people copulate thereon certain n…
August 2, 2017coniferconifer, “water ablution pavilion,” November 30, 2013 Sparrows, SparrowsShe 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…
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…
July 24, 2017Mike Prince, “Black Drongo at Sunrise,” October 7, 2015Where Would I GoWhere would I goI shall only stay here,like a handprinton a doorjust to be there,I’ll be hidden inthe smell of a suitcasesitting…
July 20, 2017Iranian 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 Medal…
July 19, 2017A H T, “Goreme – Pasabag,” December 5, 2014GöremeA ripple of flicking eyelids,a rooster’s cryand the call to prayerbreak through this dustyIslamic morning.I have been in this room before.The tense jaw…
July 17, 2017Usha Akella’s poetry is known for an undertone of spirituality within a contemporary voice. Here she discusses the impact of travel on her work, poetry as a verb, and the distance between…
July 4, 2017Gary Burke, “Remembering 9/11,” September 11, 2014i’m from where the towers felli’m from where the towers felljaws where we mourned Tupacarmpit of a state bruised byhad-it-too-hard dollar ferries and…
June 19, 2017Eros Bendato (Eros bound), bronze, 1999, by Igor Mitoraj, Kraków, Poland / Photo by Val KerryNot Elegy, But Eros …
June 14, 2017Rich, “On a Saturday Afternoon” (on the road from Royal, Nebraska, to the Ashfall Fossil Beds), May 25, 2013Creation StoriesMy favorite creation story right nowis the Babylonian one,where Apsu and Tia…
June 7, 2017Biljana Obradović captures the immigrant’s distrust of the permanent in Incognito.Serbian American poet Biljana Obradović has lived in Yugoslavia, Greece, India, and in the US, where…
May 31, 2017Tanure Ojaide / Urhobo Historical SocietyTanure Ojaide seamlessly blends the personal with the political in this volume of verse to paint a compelling portrait of a Nigeria always in transition.…
May 30, 2017Drawing by Lea Goldberg / Courtesy of Tuvia RuebnerLea Goldberg (1911–1970), preeminent, versatile, and prolific writer of modern Hebrew letters, produced in her lifetime poetry that was characterized…
May 24, 2017Geoff Whalan, “Mistletoe Bird (Diaceum hirundinaceum),” Fogg Dam Conservation Reserve, Middle Point, Northern Territory, Australia, November 8, 2015Graphology Endgame 55: AdjustmentWe have no…
Recent Posts
Ukraine Right Now, a poster by seventeen-year-old artist Polina Pustovit from Zaporizhzhia, which is undergoing daily attacks / Courtesy…
Like many other Ukrainian writers since 2022, Ostap Slyvynsky has answered a unique call of duty, one of cultural and lexicographical preservation.…
(Left to right) Lea Goldberg, Jabrā Ibrāhīm Jabrā, and Almog BeharGoldberg photo courtesy of the Gnazim Institute / Behar photo by…
Illustrations by Cuauhtémoc Wetzka / Courtesy of Restless Books
Lamentations of Nezahualcóyotl: Nahuatl Poems (Restless Books, 2025…
When things are bad, I like to read books where things are even worse. In 1516 Thomas More imagined an island with an ideal society and coined the…
