What is lost and what is found. By Iris Eisenman In 1915, poet Ezra Pound published Cathay, a slim volume of English translations from Classical Chinese poetry. He did not speak a lick of Chinese. On paper, Pound was in no way qualified to tackle the works of Li Bai, often considered the greatest poet in Chinese history. Pound disregarded Chinese poetry’s key formal features like tonal prosody, used secondhand translations, and lacked in-depth historical knowledge of the Tan

By Duda Kovarsky Rotta Carlos Drummond de Andrade is a name every Brazilian child at least vaguely recognizes—most major cities have invariably named a street or a square after him. Some say he was our greatest poet; others, that he just was another rich intellectual brandishing communism and art as sword and shield. Either way, there is a stark contrast between his towering influence and the terribly insufficient translations of his work into English. The poem I chose to tra

By Ava Lattimore I left in the morning with a stain under my skin. You left in the morning to wash it all off. I sat with my legs straddling your hips. Can you feel it now? You asked me if you were my friend. I said you were my friend and I wanted to have sex with you. I don’t think I got it right. Is it under your skin? Let me try again. I sat with my skin pressed against yours, but only the part where I could feel it. I said you were my friend and I am in love with you. I

By Kiera Baird who makes the spark, the rock or the stick? the wood that’s fragile with texture, soft with jagged ends, weak with pointed pricks or the solid, sound, smooth surface of the cold and hard, composed and round and ready to be struck? one breaks with two fingers but cuts when it snaps in dying, it lies in the blood of its killer. the other is defended from touch but is broken when dropped, in shattering it is so distant from the hands that let it go down,

By Marvin Cho Tethered on marble steps firm under a city gathered by the Bard’s song and choral wail to tears and awe moved the City enamoured. And on the distant stage swooning bacchants sing winesongs, then at their leisure yield to koaxing Frogs or a lover’s heartburn or to acts of grace on a Trojan field. There I sat cross-legged and with critic’s eye grasped at intentions, and on that happy day I was with you. But impelled by a god’s whisper or by a chance curse I am sw

By Kate Sibery I stacked my books on the sill but every time there was wind they fell over and every time it rained they got wet. So I moved the books to the floor but they got stepped on instead of read. I bought a bookshelf but couldn’t put it together I swallowed the screws which went down easy like cough drops or pennies coppery and cold. I left the freezer open for a day or two to see how it would smell which was bad but not as bad as the smell of paint after I deci

By Hannah Lui Illustration by Selin Ho Turtle-necked at the Kawai where he learned to waltz&rag. And compose and doodle and dance but I only hear Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf tortured from the copper When I think of him here At the piano I am looking at his post-op face on my phone. Not as bad as I expected Mom says When he left two days ago the last time I saw the face she bore, his&this hits me now Now, Fog bruising purple, his nose is not the same Thick hanging hea

By Lynn Wilcox You are tired. You sweat from your eyes while slumber makes your breath a whistle, I brought you here, my restless traveler, under sterile light, in hotel bathrooms, on cold porcelain, my sole splits. I cry out, but your mind is far away, reaching for some immaterial idyll. Silence enters through the window and I want for you to listen, so I steal a moment from your slumber, unconscious, allowed. I go to sleep with a dirty mouth and unquiet mind. Too early.

A lovely moment I recall. By Eva Spier Illustration by Jiaying Geng In 1825, Alexander Pushkin, widely regarded as the father of Russian poetry and memorized by legions of pupils to this day, joined Russian socialite Anna Kern at her aunt’s Trigorskoye estate near Mikhaylovskoye to work on his manuscript of Eugene Onegin . He became infatuated with the woman in a matter of weeks, who had been unhappily married to General Yermolai Kern by ways of an arranged marriage since th

By Elika Khosravani It is spring again and everyone is day-dreaming about falling in love again. Again. And again and again and again, until it finally sticks. So my mind, naturally, is also turned towards love. To be in love, I imagine, must feel like a lighthouse. A crumbling column on a crag, dangling delicately over the frothing sea. A lonely boat, guided by a single lantern and a ramshackled anchor, hesitantly heads toward the shoreline, toward the red and white tower, a

Jewel Anderson The sky’s white mirror makes a feast of me— eyes first, then teeth, then pulse. I open my mouth and she swallows the sound. The light bends wrong tonight. I step into it and it steps back. My shadow clings and flakes like psoriasis. The shine is a trick, a white worm. It crawls the length of my arm, makes veins into rivers, rivers into ropes. I told the doctor I was cured. He smiled, yellow crescent, and asked who was speaking. My mouth is a traitor— The tide l

By Jewel Andersen Oscillating between reality’s thin wires, flashes of Samhain fiending fleshed fires. Echo poised on the cliff’s edge seam, fish-mouthed and bowed in gaping scream. Or Ophelia — weed-laced and willow dazed. Nettle at wrist, daisy gaze half-raised. Foam-veiled, unmade, she mouths the flood — dream-drunk on silt and spindle-blood.

By Joseph Griffiths I lived my life like the recluse tucked within his barky coat amid the dark boreal forest I kept still, not wishing to uproot that hidden light and dark, knowledge I only wished to see everyday, more terribly that beautiful thing that passed me he seemed moved or stuck in some otherworldly energy a love, it was obvious, that would elude my judgement. Until one day, he began hacking and I was feeling unsteady later, in the evening, snapping into my bed, cu

By Elika Khosravani I will begin by saying that Every Lady Sings The Blues. It is a terrible hue, a blue of utter pain. Coiled into a...

By Ryan Crawford Lord, i am not worthy instead i paint my lies like my mother paints her nails cheap dollar-store red & by the TV ...

A poem inspired by Louis Armstrong and his work. By Caitlin Whitaker 26 letters threaten to combust within me. Xs and Qs and Ys Charge my...

By Elika Khosravani Illustration by Etta Lund high in this papal chair, blessing zealous crowds, white knuckled with the strained ...

By Gracie Moran (Don’t tell anyone), but I’m here with the students on the steps flickering in buttercream light. (I think I love them,...

By Gracie Moran No need to search my helices to find my creator, just see me right here in this rotten mood, inhaling like I want to...

By Gracie Moran I saw chilled extremities stretched over the bridge’s ledge, ducks creeping through the pond in St. Stephen’s Green like...