Literature in Translation |
from Motherfield
“Every year the motherfield is a bride / under a thin muslin of snow, / under the strict supervision of tradition, / it is smoothed with rakes, / combed with ploughs, / inseminated.”
Poetry |
“What’s Your Favorite Color”
“— I asked, icebreaker, and someone said “orange, now,” / and I agreed, somewhat, having come around to it also. / My favorite rose is orange.”
Poetry |
“Anterior Cartography”
“Certain wavelengths appear / not as beatific summation / but as feral anterior cartography where terror attempts to invade / our interior translucency”
Literature in Translation |
“I am Watermelon, I Am Lamb” and “Skin Mole”
“My family used me to drink water, / they thought I was a tin cup. / This goes back to the day I cupped my palm in prayer, / and to the times I’d fallen but didn’t break.”
Fiction |
“Adventure”
“We watched the dog for a little while. He peed again, then we got back to our activities inside Vee’s house. We did not know how to play with a dog, what he was for. Later I walked home and wanted a dog for myself, but not one just to look at.”
Poetry |
“Edensong,” “Can You Hear Me?” & “What the Beard Said, III”
“Wanting song / in the beginning / beginning to end // now we are falling // through what’s to come …”
Interview |
“Making the Unseen Visible: A Conversation With Kelsi Vanada”
‘I feel more keenly the sense of speaking in someone else’s voice when I’m reading my translation of Andrea’s nonfiction — maybe the difference is that when translating poetry, I’m able to speak with someone else’s voice.”
Poetry |
“Sabbatical,” “Genealogy” & “Allegory”
“I knew I’d go missing if I lugged my life / around the corsos of Mezzegra / but I got lucky, stumbling on a celebration: / the anniversary of Mussolini’s hanging.”
Lyric Prose |
on “Poems Not Written” — a recurring feature On The Seawall
“I used to tell my creative writing students when they got stuck to write absolutely anything at all for seven minutes.”
Poetry |
“Nourish,” “Old Lady Smell” & “January 6, 2022”
“My mother made me promise / to tell her if she ever started to smell / like an old lady. My fastidious mother — / who dusted every Saturday / who never left a dish in the sink overnight …”
Literature in Translation |
from Blood Red
“Thinking about my husband kept making me heave; sweet, soft retches. I managed the bouts of nausea with lemon rind or by peeling the skin from my lips. It took us time, orphaned little souls that we were, to leave one other.”
Lyric Prose |
“My Mom’s Knitting Bag is Still Filled With Her Last Projects,” “Last Night I Saw Mom at a Party” & “Aren’t Healthy People Unaware of Their Heartbeats?”
“No past nor future was mentioned, only the clicking of needles or scissors’ snips were heard. At times silence was broken by the difficulties in finding a certain silk thread in a matching color.”
Literature in Translation |
“Village,” “Poems,” “Birds,” “Deer,” “Explanation,” “Countryside,” “Zapatoca,” & “Tree”
“The light / of words // with which / we look at / light.”
Literature in Translation |
“After the Storm,””Daily Routine” & “At night you sweep …”
“Everything is so perfectly clear, there are no more secrets, the birds settle in their place and the nights find shelter beneath the deserts. Out of your eye, a small stone softly rolls.”
Poetry |
“Lost Rakusu,” “Episodes From a Crisis (2015)” & “Leading a Tired Horse Into the Years”
“I’m helping her fill out a form, when a nurse hears my breathing. / Suddenly I’m on a gurney, rushing off at full speed. / I’m no longer responsible; I’m the center of many faces. / A pinprick; then, lights out.”