Bookshelf Juxtapositions #81
#TheSealeyChallenge Day 17: Spring Essence, tr by John Balaban:
Jackfruit
My body is like the jackfruit on the branch:
my skin is coarse, my meat is thick.
Kind sir, if you love me, pierce me with your stick.
Caress me and sap will slicken your hands.
#WITMonth
#TheSealeyChallenge Day 16: The Ink Dark Moon, tr by Jane Hirshfield with Mariko Aratani:
By Izumi Shikibu:
We live
in a tide-swept inlet,
floating, flung.
In such a world, why cling to
collections of poems?
#WITMonth #sealeychallenge
Bookshelf Juxtapositions #80
#TheSealeyChallenge Day 15: BeautyBeast, by Adina Dabija, tr by Claudia Serea:
from The Blood:
I’m thirty and I have known the blood.
I am the second daughter of Ana
who stuck a spindle into her uterus
to get rid of the baby.
#WITMonth #sealeychallenge
Bookshelf Juxtapositions #79
#TheSealeyChallenge Day 14: Songs of Love and War: Afghan Women’s Poetry, tr by Marjolin De Jager (from French translation of the Pashtun by Majrouh and Velter)
Landay 25:
You would be a heap of ashes instantly
If I threw you my intoxicated look.
#sealeychallenge #WITMonth
#TheSealeyChallenge Day 13: Poems of Jahan Malek Khatun in Faces of Love, tr by Dick Davis. Read his bio of her.
“You’re like the nightingale,”
He said, “whose lovesick woe
Harangues the rose! Poor wretch,
Stop whining now, and go!”
#WITMonth #sealeychallenge
#TheSealeyChallenge Day 12: Sin Puertas Visibles, edited & translated by Jen Hofer.
From Third World, by Cristina Rivera-Garza: “It was at the far edge of the far edge/about to exist and about not to exist like faith”
#WITMonth #sealeychallenge
Bookshelf Juxtapositions #78
Day 11 #TheSealeyChallenge, #WITMonth: Songs of the Kisaeng, tr by Constantine Contogenis, Wolhee Choe.
This is by Maehwa:
I would have to take each and every
detail of my constant thoughts of him
and send them through the silk curtain
across the moonlit window of his room
to have a chance that he imagine
I have a longing that will not spare him.
Bookshelf Juxtapositions #77
Bookshelf Juxtapositions #76
Day 10 #TheSealeyChallenge: Cattle of the Lord, by Rosa Alice Branco, tr. by Alexis Levitin.
From Savings Bank: “I follow the numbers that lead to you./The rosary of bones tells this love/that does not fit within my hands.”
#WITMonth
Day 9 #TheSealeyChallenge: She Says by Venus Khoury-Ghata 📚
“He shakes her so she’ll drop the words she stole
makes her break her engagement to the maple tree
attaches her to the same leash as a goat and four-leave clover
then sets her free in compensation”
#WITMonth
Bookshelf Juxtapositions #75
Day 8 #sealeychallenge: Factory Of Tears, by Valzhyna Mort.
This is from “Berlin-Minsk:”
It’s not a lump in the throat
that’s made you mute.
This is how brutally,
this is how tight
heart climbs out of the mouth
and strains eyesight.
#WITMonth
Bookshelf Juxtapositions #74
Day 7 #sealeychallenge: Other Side River, eds. Leza Lowitz & Miyuki Aoyama.
From “Puddle,” Ryōko Shindō
I can’t help feeling that
the people I love are just piling up
in the ridges of the earth
holding up the sky
in no particular rush
to die…
#WITMonth
Bookshelf Juxtapositions #73
#sealeychallenge Day 6: A Long Rainy Season: Contemporary Japanese Women’s Poetry, Volume 1” edited & traslated by Leza Lowitz, et al.
This is a tanka by Fumi Saitō:
“On my frozen nerve
there is a place
where a red canary
comes
to perch.”
#WomenInTranslationMonth
Bookshelf Juxtapositions #72
#sealeychallenge Day 5: Trace/Traza, by Iliana Rodríguez:
from “On The Mound of Earth:”
A woman like me
should be the glorious Penelope,
but I never wanted to wait for a hero.
Rather, I wanted to be the heroine:
And I’m still waiting for me
as I weave and unknit
these bitter lines.
#WomenInTranslationMonth
Bookshelf Juxtapositions #71
#sealeychallenge Day 4: Look There, by Agi Mishol.
This is from from “Moment:”
“I could have trembled with you under the covers
but I can also make you tremble inside my head
inside the thick stuff of alchemy
from which poems are made.”
#WomenInTranslationMonth
