Category Archives: Translations

A passage about what is stolen. Je vous dis qu’ils nous ont volé notre temps quotidien. Notre précieux temps de tous les jours pour jouer dehors, dedans, dans la verdure de la tendresse mutuelle. Notre temps à nous autres, temps … Continue reading →

There is a central image from Adam Zagajewski “Transformation” in Mysticism for Beginners translated by Clare Cavanagh that captures well the tall flowers at their maturity. I’ve seen sunflowers dangling their heads at dusk, as if a careless hangman had … Continue reading →

From the third of Fifteen Poems of My Heart by Juan Chi [Ruan Ji] translated by Jerome Ch’ên and Michael Bullock in Poems of Solitude. I quoted aloud the last lines to my lover who remarked the the speaker was … Continue reading →

Some lines from Li Ho [Li He] (791-817) “The Grave of Little Su” translated by A. C. Graham in Poems of the Late T’ang Grass like a cushion, The pine like a parasol: The wind is a skirt, The waters … Continue reading →

Choices. A.C. Graham, Introduction to Poems of the Late T’ang Because of this combination of phonetic poverty and graphic wealth the system of meanings and associations touched off by a Chinese word inheres not in its sound structure but in … Continue reading →

1970s. It was a time of searching for ancestors. (Roots – Alex Haley). “A literary ancestry long denied” D.D.C. [Douglas] Chambers reviewed three books of poetry: Orgasms of Light: The Gay Sunshine Anthology edited by Winston Leyland, The Dead Slave … Continue reading →

Judy Grahn had us reaching for the highest apple. But this picker did not at first notice this proverb preserved by Tryphon quoting the Lesbian poet until taking note of its placement by Stanley Lombardo (2002) who sets it as … Continue reading →

Janine Beichman. Masaoka Shiki (Boston: Twayne Publications, 1982). From 1895 on, though he was uncertain when death would come, Shiki lived each day with its presence unbearably close. Time as he experienced it had qualities it does not have for … Continue reading →