LITERATURES FROM THE WORLD
Slavonic Tales on The Sacrifice of the Son
The Bulgarian story The three brothers and God invites us to reflect on how the character of oral literature is both transnational and specifically...
WORDS FROM IRELAND
June Caldwell – Upcycle: an account of some strange happenings on...
It is hardly worth telling, this story of mine, or at least in a modern context, because so many people go through the same...
Lauren Foley – Hot Rocks
Seaside village, North County Dublin, Ireland, 1993
Her first boyfriend used to kiss her after coffee and oranges. It was a strange taste. But she...
LATEST
FACING EAST
Lida Yusupova – “video…”
video: a russian soldier in the snow
instead of a face a raw flesh hole
this is russia
instead of a face a hole
instead of russia a hole
everything that was russia a...
Lida Yusupova
Lida Yusupova is the author of several books of poetry and prose, including her most recent book of poetry, Shutter (Centrifuga, 2021); The Scar We Know (Cicada Press, 2020; English translation and original...
Olga Bragina – There’s no getting out
there’s no getting out of here since it’s too close to shoot war after peace to grope for your body
among those like us expelled from all universities of historical truth tempered in the ashes...
Olga Braghina – “I don’t see why you must remember 1980s Kyiv”
I don’t see why you must remember 1980s Kyiv
the white walls the sterile windows of the churches
the empty silence the lines of white bandages and fresh asphalt
still hot scorching underdone bitumen
why you must remember...
Stanislav Belsky – 4 haikus
planes scream over the city
the inhabitants poured into the school yard
are we in hell or do we get a pass this time?
над городом ревут самолёты
жители высыпали на школьный двор:
мы в аду или в этот...
Yuliya Musakovska – “Who said that the words have no value now?”
Who said that the words have no value now?
Our words that are being written in the air
with an incandescent iron of breath,
that are clotted like blood on the pale lips,
are biting into the soil...
THE STONE
Claire Loader – Qetesh
A goddess sits at the end of my bed,
visits these nights of waking.
Where thoughts run
more than fingers, hands wary
of the divide.
Instead we turn...
TWO-TONGUED SEA
Laurence Hutchman – Lost Language
These photo albums span the decades:
wartime, marriage, early years in Canada.
The sounds of Dutch swell within me.
I read a language I knew and forgot—
“J’s”...
Moulinath Goswami – The Way We Speak
I'll kill you – a person once said
half the audience laughed
and half paled in fear
I pivotted my head along my nape
and nodded sideways –
to...
Lesyk Panasiuk – Alphabet as a Ward for Wounded
I
Can you hear these movements inside trunks
that’s language flowing in wooden veins and blossoming with barren flowers
the language is as dark as soil
as dark...
Terri Carrion – Lazy Tongue
Suddenly, I’m in speech therapy, a mirror in my hand, a thin gringa hovering over my shoulder, asking me to repeat, sarsaparilla, seashells, somersault,...
Terri Carrion
Terri Carrion is a first generation American conceived in Venezuela and born in New York to a Galician mother and Cuban father.
Terri Carrion earned...
Tom Phillips – Parental language
My mother could be sharp-tongued,
suffered no fools gladly, had
ready phrases in her head,
warmth that took off the sting.
Blunter, my father’s tongue, by far‒
his dozen...
Chandramohan Sathyanathan – A Posthumous Letter
I am a primate
dwelling in the wild forests
of my language.
My tongue lost irretrievably
in the swamp of hunger,
I hide amidst the barren rocks.
Your own selfie
sheds...
Chandramohan Sathyanathan
Chandramohan Sathyanathan alias Chandramohan S. (b.1986) is an Indian English language Dalit poet based in Trivandrum, Kerala. He has been published in many magazines...
Rino Cavasino – A pin with a butterfly
I wrote in my mother’s tongue, and not even
she could understand, but what she listened to
sounded Arabic Turkish German to her.
Each letter, each...
