Ithaka ~ C.P. Cavafy Interpreted by Sarah Ban Breathnach You may be familiar with the translation by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard, which you can read here. I also enjoy this version, as it offers a fresh take on the work. While not a direct translation, Ban Breathnach brings a feminine perspective. Pray that your journey be long, full […]
No Holds Barred ~Anna Swir (Świrszczyńska) I catch hold of different things: snow, trees, useless telephone calls, the tenderness of a child, journeys, Rosewicz’s poetry, sleep, apples, morning exercises, conversations about the salutary properties of vitamins, exhibits of avant-garde art, walls on Kosciuszko’s mound, politics, Penderecki’s music, natural disasters in foreign countries, the joy of morality […]
Slow Rain ~ Gabriela Mistral Translated from the Spanish by Gunda Kaiser and James Tipton This water, sad and fearful, like a child who suffers, before touching the Earth, fades away. Calm the wind, calm the tree— but in the tremendous silence, this lean, bitter song is falling. The sky is like a heart, immense, […]
I miss posting the Daily Poem, and some of my lovely readers have said they miss the poems as well. So, starting May 9, the Daily Poem returns! With the usual provisos: daily is usually Monday through Friday, rarely on the weekend, and subject to the vagaries of my travel schedule and occasional bouts of […]
He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven ~William Butler Yeats Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; […]
