Author: admin

Everything becomes small
only the ocean makes the night’s leather clothes
open up the further out it spreads.

Flying north
to the right is Tianjin
to the left is Beijing
two clusters of moths flinging themselves at fire.

Then the East China Sea suddenly moves
the wind brings silver bits that can’t be more shattered
and many thick wrinkles whip up

I see the face of the ocean
I see the aged seashore
trembling and hugging the world too tightly.

I have seen death
but never seen death come back to life like that.

Notes on the Poem
This week’s poem from the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize shortlisted collection, Something Crosses My Mind by Eleanor Goodman translated from the Chinese written by Wang Xiaoni.

Of the collection, the judges said: “...In a way nothing much happens in [Wang Xiaoni’s] magic lyricism: the wind blows, the ocean rises, people work or move from one place to another, or wait, or just leave some place, and they have souls (which behave like shadows); someone on a journey sees them, through the window, between one landscape and another, and it’s difficult to know why all this is so moving. Reading her, I found myself repeating Auden’s phrase “About suffering they were never wrong, / The old Masters.” Wang Xiaoni is a terrific contemporary poet gracefully extending the great classical Chinese tradition.”

Listen to Eleanor Goodman and Wang Xiaoni read from Something Crosses My Mind here.

I believe in the sun.
In the tangle of human failures of fear, greed, and
forgetfulness, the sun gives me clarity.
When explorers first encountered my people, they called us
heathens, sun worshippers.
They didn’t understand that the sun is a relative, and
illuminates our path on this earth.

After dancing all night in a circle we realize that we are
a part of a larger sense of stars and planets dancing with us
overhead.
When the sun rises at the apex of the ceremony, we are
renewed.
There is no mistaking this connection, though Walmart
might be just down the road.
Humans are vulnerable and rely on the kindnesses of the
earth and the sun; we exist together in a sacred field of
meaning.

Our earth is shifting. We can all see it.
I hear from my Inuit and Yupik relatives up north that
everything has changed. It’s so hot; there is not enough
winter.
Animals are confused. Ice is melting.

The quantum physicists have it right; they are beginning to
think like Indians: everything is connected dynamically
at an intimate level.
When you remember this, then the current wobble of the
earth makes sense. How much more oil can be drained,
Without replacement; without reciprocity?

I walked out of a hotel room just off Times Square at dawn
to find the sun.
It was the fourth morning since the birth of my fourth
granddaughter.
This was the morning I was to present her to the sun, as a
relative, as one of us. It was still dark, overcast as I walked
through Times Square.
I stood beneath a twenty-first century totem pole of symbols
of multinational corporations, made of flash and neon.

The sun rose up over the city but I couldn’t see it amidst the
rain.
Though I was not at home, bundling up the baby to carry
her outside,
I carried this newborn girl within the cradleboard of my
heart.
I held her up and presented her to the sun, so she would be
recognized as a relative,
So that she won’t forget this connection, this promise,
So that we all remember, the sacredness of life.

Notes on the Poem
This week’s poem from the 2016 Griffin Poetry Prize winning collection, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings (W.W. Norton & Company), by Joy Harjo.

Of the collection, the judges said: “...Intermingling Mvskoke storytelling, rock-and-roll lyrics, cityscapes and personal address, Harjo’s poems are at once sweeping in their concerns and intimate in their tone and approach. Harjo’s is a poetics that is not afraid to speak directly when the moment warrants, nor to refer to traditions – literary traditions, folk traditions, musical traditions – with effortless erudition...”

Listen to Joy Harjo read from her collection 
here. 

The earth has vanished.
There’s nothing to see, only the rain
gleaming against the dark windows.
This is the resting place, where nothing moves —

Now we return to what we were,
animals living in darkness
without language or vision —

Nothing proves I’m alive.
There is only the rain, the rain is endless.

Notes on the Poem
This week’s poem is from the 2010 Griffin Poetry Prize-shortlisted collection, A Village Life, by Louise Glück (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). 

Of the collection, the judges said: “In A Village Life, Louise Glück presents us with a choir of voices whose song enacts and contemplates our human quest for the very happiness that — as if instinctively — we refuse. The result is a restlessness that seems never to leave us, as Glück suggests in “In the Café”: “It’s natural to be tired of earth. / When you’ve been dead this long, you’ll probably be tired of heaven. / You do what you can do in a place / but after a while you exhaust that place, / so you long for rescue.” This clarity of wisdom everywhere punctuates these poems which, even as they concern restlessness, are cast in long lines shot through with imagery of pristine, archetypal simplicity producing a cinematic stillness; one thinks of the camera in a Bergman film."

Listen to Louise Glück read from her collection 
here. 

I took a trip to Ukraine. It was June.
I waded in the fields, all full of dust
and pollen in the air. I searched, but those
I loved had disappeared below the ground,

deeper than decades of ants. I asked
about them everywhere, but grass and leaves
have been growing, bees swarming. So I lay down,
face to the ground, and said this incantation —

you can come out, it’s over. And the ground,
and moles and earthworms in it, shifted, shook,
kingdoms of ants came crawling, bees began
to fly from everywhere. I said come out,

I spoke directly to the ground and felt
the field grow vast and wild around my head.

Notes on the Poem
This week’s poem is from the 2014 Griffin Poetry Prize-shortlisted collection, Colonies, by Mira Rosenthal, translated from the Polish written by Tomasz Rózycki (Zephyr Press).

Of the collection, the judges said: “In Mira Rosenthal’s translation of this work, English-speaking readers can themselves confront the sonnet as something supple, fresh and a little bit strange. Rózycki’s quirky and self-deprecating humour permeates the poems. So does his sense of the fundamental homelessness of 21st-century human beings. Nine of these seventy-seven sonnets begin with some variation on the line ‘When I began to write, I didn’t know . . .’ and blossom into wry and hilarious reflections on the writing life. Others exude a heart-rending nostalgia for a world that is constantly being translated from meaning into money, and thus constantly destroyed.”

Listen to Mira Rosenthal and Tomasz Rózycki read from Colonies here. 

One of the few things my mother saved was a doll.
It was the same height as my six-year-old self,
with the same grey-coloured eyes, brown hair,
the same fear of the dark
and drawn to it.
‘Don’t touch her!’ I was told.
‘I have nothing else to sell if we go broke!’
Until the day I secretly stole her
and broke her heel by accident.
It was worth nothing now. No capital.
And then it became mine.

I met you one day in May—
pure blue sky with sparse white clouds on the horizon
and nothing more, as if tiny drawings in a biscuit box
made to look tasty to angels and not humans.
What could I do to own such a day
except give it a hard kick in the heel?

For Achilles, the heel would be meaningless
if he hadn’t had to choose between glory and a happy life.
Happiness is anonymous, a face without features.
it belongs to no one. But glory, yes. Even to this day
he drags it behind him – his one and only divine defect.

And the motherland? If there weren’t a cracked pane
of glass between us, and ethereal wound, an undeniable
physical reality no matter the side that bleeds,
I would doubt such a place even exists.

We do everything we can to own life –
‘my life,’ ‘your life’ –
when in fact, the opposite happens.
Life needs more than a heel to fasten you to itself;
it hits you hard on the neck
and spits you into two, with no time for wonder.
So one day, you find yourself
exhibited in two separate museums at once.

At this very moment, I cannot be sure
which part of me is speaking to you
and which part the guide’s
commenting on and pointing to.

Notes on the Poem
Our Poem of the Week is from the 2019 Griffin Poetry Prize shortlisted collection, Negative Space by Ani Gjika, translated from the Albanian written by Luljeta Lleshanaku.

Of the collection, the judges said, “Luljeta Lleshanaku’s Negative Space offers a rare glimpse into contemporary Albanian poetry. Effortlessly and with crisp precision, Ani Gjika, herself a poet, has rendered into English, not only the poems in Negative Space, but also the eerie ambience which resonates throughout the book, the deep sense of impermanence that is one of the many consequences of growing up under severe political oppression...”

Listen to translator Ani Gjika and Luljeta Lleshanaku read from Negative Space here. 

Don’t miss Ani Gjika in Translation Talks with Dunya Mikhail on Thursday March 10. Register here.

Translation Talks is the Griffin Poetry Prize’s new series of conversations about translation and poetry where shortlisted and winning authors are invited to discuss their craft in company of other poets and translators.

How magnificent the war is!
How eager
and efficient!
Early in the morning,
it wakes up the sirens
and dispatches ambulances
to various places,
swings corpses through the air,
rolls stretchers to the wounded,
summons rain
from the eyes of mothers,
digs into the earth
dislodging many things
from under the ruins …
Some are lifeless and glistening,
others are pale and still throbbing …
It produces the most questions
in the minds of children,
entertains the gods
by shooting fireworks and missiles
into the sky,
sows mines in the fields
and reaps punctures and blisters,
urges families to emigrate,
stands beside the clergymen
as they curse the devil
(poor devil, he remains
with one hand in the searing fire) …
The war continues working, day and night.
It inspires tyrants
to deliver long speeches,
awards medals to generals
and themes to poets.
It contributes to the industry
of artificial limbs,
provides foods for flies,
adds pages to the history books,
achieves equality
between killer and killed,
teaches lovers to write letters,
accustoms young women to waiting,
fills the newspapers
with articles and pictures,
builds new houses
for the orphans,
invigorates the coffin makers,
gives grave diggers
a pat on the back
and paints a smile on the leader’s face.
The war works with unparalleled diligence!
Yet no one gives it
a word of praise.

Notes on the Poem
This week’s poem is excerpted from the 2006 Griffin Poetry Prize-shortlisted collection, The War Works Hard by Elizabeth Winslow translated from the Arabic written by Dunya Mikhail. 

Of the collection, the judges, said; “These are political poems without political rhetoric, Arabic poems without Arabic poetical flourishes, an exile’s letter with neither nostalgia nor self-pity, an excavation of the ruins of her homeland where the Sumerian goddess Inana is followed on the next page by the little American devil Lynndie England. In Elizabeth Winslow’s perfect translations, poetry takes on its ancient function of restoring meaning to the language. Here is the war in Iraq in English without a single lie.”

Listen to Dunya Mikhail read in this 92Y reading.

Catch Dunya Mikhail in conversation with Ani Gjika at our second Translation Talks event on March 10, 2022 at 7pm ET. Register here.

people arrived from portugal. people arrived from africa. people arrived from
india. people arrived from england. people arrived from china. people
predated arrival. people fled predation. people were arrayed. people populated.
whips patterned rays into people. people arose. people rayed outward to
toronto, london, boo york. people raided people. people penned the past.
people roved over on planes. people talked over people. people rented places.
people planted people in people. people raided plantations. people prayed.
people re-fried. people died and didn’t get second glances. people won
scholarships and vanished. people lived atop people. people represented
people. people drain-brained. people studied for the common entrance.
people paraded. people stumbled and tranced. people took two steps
backward. people simmered and boiled over. people plantain. people orphan.
people sugarcane. people undocumented. people underground. people never
lauded, landed. people arrived but. people             . people departed and
arrived again. people retreaded. people stole knowing. people plantation.
people horizon. people done run from people. people arrived not knowing
their patterns. people arrived riven, alone in the world. people made their
war from time. people hailed from climes. people fanned their spreading.
people cleaved unto people. people writhed over / under people. people
arrived over / under people

Notes on the Poem
Our Poem of the Week is excerpted from the 2020 Griffin Poetry Prize-winning collection Magnetic Equator (McClelland & Stewart) by poet Kaie Kellough. 

Of the collection the judges said: ““Speaking to Caribbean and hemispheric migrations, the poems in Magnetic Equator recall trouble, hybridity, steep falls, continuance, and elaboration. Taking on influence, place, and racialized diasporic experience as it draws language into geographic drifts and historic collisions, these are voicings that cascade and collect ‘an accent adrift in its second language / over a b-side version of empire’. Singing of exile and scattering, the text negotiates survival and revolt as it moves with the surety and complexity of improvisation and collaboration.” 

Watch Kaie Kellough from his collecting in this hypnotizing and visually captivating Griffin Poetry Prize video!

And so this foreday morning w/out light or choice
i cannot swim
the stone, i can’t hold on to water, so i drown

i swallow left, i turn & fall-
ow into fear & blight, a night so deep it make you turn
& weep the line of spiders of yr future you see spinn-

ing here, their silver
voice of tears, their lid. less jewel eyes .
all thru this buffeting eternity i toss i burn

and when i rise leviathan from the deep . black shining from my skin
of seals, blask tooth, less pebbles mine the shore
haunted by dust & bromes . wrist, watches w/out tone or tides, communion

w/out broken
hands, x-
plosions of frustration, the trans-

substantiation of the sweat
of hate, the absent ruby lips
upon the wrinkle rim

of wine . i wake to tick
to tell you that in these loud waters of my land
there is no root no hope no cloud no dream no sail canoe or dang, le miracle .

good day cannot repay bad night. our teeth snarl snapp-
ing even at halp-
less angels’ evenings’ meetings’ melting steel

in this new farmer garden of the earth’s delights
this staggering stranger of injustices
come rumbelling down the wheel and grave-

yard of the wind, down the scythe narrow streets, clear
air for a moment. clear
innocence whe we are running. so so so so so many. the crowd flow-

to tell you that in these loud waters of my land there is no root no hope no cloud no dream no sail canoe or dang, le miracle . good day cannot repay bad night. our teeth snarl snapp- ing even at halp- less angels’ evenings’ meetings’ melting steel in this new farmer garden of the earth’s delights this staggering stranger of injustices come rumbelling down the wheel and grave- yard of the wind, down the scythe narrow streets, clear air for a moment. clear innocence whe we are running. so so so so so many. the crowd flow-

ing over Brooklyn Bridge. so so so many . i had not thought death
had undone so many melting away into what is now sighing . light
calp from the clear avenue forever

our souls sometimes far out ahead already of our surfaces
and our life looking back
salt. as in Bhuj. in Grenada. Guernica. Amritsar. Tajikistan

the sulphur-stricken cities of the plains of Aetna. Pelée, ab Napoli & Krakatoa
the young window-widow baby-mothers of the prostitutes .
looking back looking back as in Bosnia, the Sudan. Chernobyl

Oaxaca terremoto incomprehende. al’fata el Jenin. the Bhopal
babies sucking toxic milk, our growing heavy furry tongues
accustom to the what-is-the-word-that-is-not-here-in-English beyond ashadenfreude
not at all like fado or duende

Notes on the Poem
Our Poem of the Week is by Kamau Brathwaite, from the 2006 Griffin Poetry Prize-winning collection Born to Slow Horses.

Of the collection the judges said: “To read Kamau Brathwaite is to enter into an entire world of human histories and natural histories, beautiful landscapes and their destruction, children’s street songs, high lyricism, court documents, personal letters, literary criticism, sacred rites, eroticism and violence, the dead and the undead, confession and reportage. An epic of one man (containing multitudes) in the African diaspora, Brathwaite’s world even has its own orthography and typography, demanding total attention to the poem, forbidding casual glances. Born to Slow Horses is a major book from a major poet. Here political realities turn into musical complexities, voices overlap, history becomes mythology, spirits appear in photographs. And, in it what may well be the first enduring poem on the disaster of 9/11, Manhattan becomes another island in the poet’s personal archipelago, as the sounds of Coleman Hawkins transform into the words and witnesses and survivors. Throughout Born to Slow Horses, as in his earlier books, Brathwaite has invented a new linguistic music for subject matter that is all his own.”

Watch Kamau Brathwaite read from this collection at Koerner Hall here.

Like the idea of Aisha.

I am not the idea of Aisha.

I am Aisha.

You I know you

Love the idea of Aisha.

I am not the idea of Aisha.

I am not the idea of Aisha.

I am Aisha.

Notes on the Poem
Our Poem of the Week is "He thinks I should be glad because they," from the 2018 Griffin-shortlisted collection I have to live. (McClelland & Stewart) by poet and performer Aisha Sasha John. 

Of the collection the judges said: “Aisha Sasha John’s I have to live. shows what poetry can become when stripped of prettiness and polite convention — when in survival mode. Spontaneous, its subjects unposed, its language unrehearsed, each poem has the effect of being taken with a Polaroid camera. John writes poems that are resistant to overwrought aesthetics, poems that have popular appeal yet are uninhibited by audience, poems whose casual demeanor belies their fight against casualty. They wind their way into us like a chorus.” 

Watch Aisha Sasha John read from this collection at Koerner Hall here.

Aisha Sasha John’s most recent collection is TO STAND AT THE PRECIPICE ALONE AND REPEAT WHAT IS WHISPERED (Ugly Duckling Press). 

Not a star, not a prophet’s inspiration
not a pious face worshipping the moon,
here he comes like a pagan spear
invading the land of alphabets
bleeding, raising his hemorrhage to the sun.
Here he comes wearing the stone’s nakedness
thrusting his prayers into caves.
Here he comes
embracing the weightless earth.

Notes on the Poem
Our Poem of the Week features our first Translation Talks guest, Khaled Mattawa, shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2011 for Adonis: Selected Poems (Yale University Press), translated from the Arabic written by Adonis.

Of the collection the judges said: “Adonis, along with Saadi Yousef and Mahmoud Darwish, has helped to bring into being modern Arabic poetry. Masterfully translated by Khaled Mattawa, his Selected Poems show a range comparable to Lorca’s, stretching from the sensuous to the political. When he left the Syrian socialist party in the early Sixties, Adonis left all traditional politics behind only to become committed to deep cultural transformation through the creative energies of poetry, in a quest for what could be called an Arabic modernism. In the case of his poetry, this new mode takes the form of a combination of metaphysics, interiority and solidarity, a hybrid present as well in the poetry of Rumi and the thought of Ibn Arabi.”

Don’t miss Khaled Mattawa’s conversation with Sarah Riggs on Thursday, January 27th at 7pm ET. Translation Talks is a new series of conversations about translation and poetry where shortlisted and winning authors are invited to discuss their craft in company of other poets and translators. Register here.