LITERATURES FROM THE WORLD
Ahimaaz Ben Paltiel and the Book of Descents
Towards the end of the eighteenth century the discovery of a manuscript found in the Library of Toledo Cathedral by Adolph Neubauer, a librarian...
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
Ra Sh – The Narcissist
All his mirrors were women.
They displayed him with breasts
and vaginas and flesh buds.
Desperate,
he approached a blue lake
to see his male splendor.
His cock-a-doodle-do
his rippling muscles
his all knowing gaze
commanding brow.
The lake called him `Sister!’
and drowned him...
Ra Sh – Andro and Estro
Androgen and Estrogen
met over a cup of Energen.
You know how macho
Androgen is.
And how feminine
Estrogen is.
Androgen complained:
These males are horrible
a little extra of me and
they turn rapists.
Estrogen complained:...
Iliyana Deleva – Sad mornings…
Sad mornings,
lonely evenings,
breathless days
and strange nights …
I swallow tears,
run though days
and the moment I’m here –
I want you more.
I live stars,
I dream moons.
I calm anger –
still frozen.
In the coming days
I whisper
words of prayer
for our...
Iliyana Deleva – I strip to the skin…
I strip to the skin – I’m not naked:
vitiligo is a garment
which both conceals
and reveals the reason
that gave it birth.
Translated by Tom Phillips
Original text:
*
Събличам се до кожа – не съм гола,
защото витилигото е дреха,
която...
Iliyana Deleva – The wall’s memory
‘Red’s shadow is brown’ –
graffiti
on the wall of the National Academy
of the Arts.
It’s not there now.
The wall’s been repainted since then,
and other graffiti has occupied it,
but the sense remains:
Red’s shadow is brown.
I remind my...
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
Heiko H. Caimi – Mother, tongue
Mother, mother
how much you are tongue to me
how much language is to me my mother
blending strong with soft, soft words
immeasurably true
in their...
Sudeep Sen – Language
My tongue was born promiscuous
speaking in many languages,
my heart speaking another, my head
yet another — in seamless translation.
Auricles, ventricles perennially pump
circulating body’s...
Riccardo Duranti – Voice at a crossroads
Wind driven, the voice is at a crossroads:
flushed from their nests in the dark delta
between the two roads
suddenly words flutter up.
In small flocks they...
Barbara Ungar – Your Mother Serves Tongue
How could you
put another creature’s tongue
into your mouth? How could you
bite, chew, swallow?
Cannibal. Obscene.
How could you
tell the difference
between a cow’s tongue and its delicious
rump?...
Franco Buffoni – Mothers’ Tongues
For three years here in Rome I’ve had a partner
From Turkey, a Kurd.
Communist, tortured in jail,
He knows men and wolfs down life, when he...
Franco Buffoni
Franco Buffoni was born in Gallarate (Lombardy) in 1948. He is a full professor of literary criticism and comparative literature. For 30 years he...
Gwyneth Lewis – Mother Tongue
‘I started to translate in seventy-three
in the schoolyard. For a bit of fun
to begin with – the occasional “fuck”
for the bite of another language’s...
Gwyneth Lewis
Gwyneth Lewis is bilingual in Welsh and English and after being recognised as a poet in English whilst she was studying at Oxford in...
From the kitchen: Two-tongued Sea
How is a new Inkroci column born? How is an anthology conceived? Reading this story, you’re a witness to the inception of a transnational...
