Desire (Vol.13, Term Issue I)

JoLT

Volume 13, Term Issue I

Oboje są przekonani, że połączyło ich uczucie nagłe. Piękna jest taka pewność, ale niepewność jest piękniejsza.

- fragment z utworu Wisławy Szymborskiej pt. 'Miłość od pierwszego wejrzenia'

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Volume 13, Term Issue I "DESIRE"

Desire is a yearning, a hunger, a search. It shapes our aspirations and actions, and propels us towards our end goals. Exploring this theme through translation allows human experiences to truly shine through.

This issue reveals how our contributors and artists perceive the theme of desire. Thank you to all who took the time and care to create the works enclosed in this edition. Your creativity and talent never ceases to amaze us.

As always, I am truly indebted to the editorial team. Your support has been invaluable to the creation of this issue. A special thanks also to the people who edited the languages we didn't know. Thank you for your time and generosity. JoLT flourishes and grows because of you.

To you, the reader, welcome to the first term edition of JoLT's thirteenth volume. Allow it to inspire you to create, connect, and take risks. You might just get everything you dream of.

Julianna

Żarnowska

Editorial Staff 2024/25

Editor-in-Chief

Julianna Żarnowska

Deputy Editor

Ioana Răducu

General Assistant Editors

Ciara Gallagher

Hazel Mulkeen

Art Editor

Eve Smith

Language Editors

Nicole Battù

Meadhbh Ní Cheallacháin

Leila Purcell Collins

Giulia Nati

Elvira Petrovici

Sophie Quinn

Hazel Scott

Layout and Design Editor

Monica Elena Grigoraș

Naemi Victoria - Untitled

Cover art by Eve Smith

Editorial

Untitled art by Naemi Victoria

Dagen Svalnar transl. by Elsa Kulatunga

Edith Södergran weighs romantic desire against the desire for autonomy. She toys with language of freedom and saviourship, referencing effects Swedish and Russian colonialism had on her cultural identity as a Finland-Swede. The final declaration of self in ‘Dagen Svalnar’ became a cornerstone in form and theme for Scandinavian modernists.

Ebriae Cupidines transl. by Mackenzie Hilton

Sharing the same patron as poet Horace, Maecenas, the Roman poet Propertius was afforded the opportunity to write 4 books of elegiac poetry. Propertius’ poetry focuses on his love interest, Cynthia, and the erotic desires he feels toward her, common motifs in elegy. Poem 1.1 exemplifies Propertius’ double-desire (duplici ardore) of lust and love.

Wär nicht das Auge sonnenhaft & Begeisterung transl. by Eoin MacNally

Goethe’s short poems express, in relating the desiring thing to the thing desired (i.e. the sun, art and inspiration, or an aching search for God or the Muse) a profound longing for identity and wholeness. They embody a piercing speculation that defined much of Goethe’s work, both assertive and ambiguous.

L’Homme Atlantique transl. by Ioana Răducu

For Duras, desire and sorrow are permanently intertwined. In L’Homme Atlantique, a woman abandoned by her lover questions the capacity of artistic expression to fill the emotional void of heartbreak. Longing and loneliness suffuse a text in which absence is so poignant it becomes a character in itself.

Syysilta transl. by Sara Lynch

This poem reflects on desire and the passage of time. There is a longing to revisit a past filled with passion, and regret for not acting upon romantic feelings then. The excitement of that past now feels distant, and desire lingers in the darkness of the present.

I had been hungry, all the Years transl. by Sara Lynch

In this poem, Dickinson explores the irony of fulfilled desire, revealing how an abundance of the “wealth” we once longed for can leave us feeling disappointed rather than satisfied.

Ellen art by Louise Norris

Celeste art by Louise Norris

Melodia inconclusa transl. by Molly Crawford

Rosamaría Roffiel’s work emerges from a macho, conservative Mexico, and thus her proud demonstrations of lesbian love are both an act of defiance and desire. She unashamedly declares her physical yearning and fully expresses her wants. Her work is real and raw, showing the deepest parts of human longing.

Uη źir int al Saraśìn transl. by Liam Frabetti

Due to his childhood poverty, the author’s desire for freshly baked biscuits from Tassinari’s bakery could not be fulfilled. In fact, this desire continues to haunt him in his better-off adult years as the baker has sadly passed away.

Bizden Önce Biri transl. by Neil P. Doherty

Written in 2021 as part of a twelve-poem suite for the following year’s Istanbul Biennial, this poem sketches Rosa Luxemburg as she is caught between desire for an absent lover and the daily chores and papers that were the mainstay of her existence.

Bile İsteye transl. by Neil P. Doherty

This is the title poem of the poet’s most recent collection. In this poem she captures the tension between the desire to flee from all that is overly familiar and claustrophobic and the pressure society places on women to conform to certain gender roles.

Νικώμενοι ῠπ’ Ἔρωτος transl. by Lluis Cuesta

In this passage from Hippolytus, Euripides reflects on love as a powerful force of human nature that transcends individuals. He presents desire as love's basic form, leading to sex, which ensures the survival of any species. With its many facets, this emotion is portrayed as the supreme power on earth, influencing both mortals and gods.

Το Φθινόττωρον βέλτιστον transl. by Lluis Cuesta

The beauty of this poem lies in its expression of an unconventional desire rooted in sincere, mature love. In this short piece, the Byzantine poet offers a heartfelt ode to his beloved, evoking a longing that persists not despite the passing years, but because of them. Time cannot extinguish the couple's passion; instead, it feeds the flames, making their fire burn even brighter.

Widokówka z tego świata transl. by Tomasz Balcerkiewicz

Among the many possible addressees for Barańczak’s seemingly entirely desperate pleas (the absent God, the abandoned homeland, a dead friend or lover), one possibility is desire itself — need expressed through and towards need, desire for desire in an aimless, vacated, ever-fleeting space.

Kentaur transl. by Nina Stremersch

The myth of the Centaur speaks to an Ancient, all-too-human desire: the desire for mastery over threatening natural forces. Much like Arendt’s notion of amor mundi [thelove-of-worldly-things], the demand here is a forthright facing up to the double-edgedsword of the world. We should like to want the here, not an elsewhere.

Dați-mi un trup, voi munților transl. by Elvira Petrovici

Lucian Blaga was a Romanian poet and philosopher whose work is highly celebrated throughout Romania. “Dati-mi un trup, voi muntilor” ( Give me a body, you Mountains) is a poem about the desire to connect with nature due to the tumult of human emotions, it expresses the desire for a deeper existence amid the struggle for identity.

Finally home art by Elvira Petrovici

Dantelărie în Piatră (Trei Ierarhi, Iași) art by Monica Elena Grigoraș

Aeneid Book IV (lines 54-89) transl. by I. E. Forrest

This painful section of the Aeneid depicts the Carthaginian queen Dido, falling violently and unrequitedly in love with the epic’s protagonist, Aeneas. Her desire is destructive, obsessive and all-consuming – damaging not only herself, but also the physical fabric of the city she rules.

Όνειρο transl. Eirini Maria Bregianni

The poem "Dream" was written by Maria Polydouri (1902-1930) and it explores the themes of love and unwavering desire. The poet, consumed by passion, overlooks the challenges that ultimately led to her heartbreak. In the end, she develops a sense of disapointment in her inability to show her love effectively, experiencing loneliness and hopelesness.

Σάρκινος Λόγος transl. by Eirini Maria Bregianni

In this poem, Giannis Ritsos (1909-1990) talks about love and carnal desire. The poet is obsessed with the woman he loves, wishing her beauty could be visible only to him. This carnal desire rapidly becomes an uncontrollable and entracing force, making the poet forget about the rest of his own life.

Багъчаларда кестане transl. by Denis Ferhatović

These folk lyrics come from the Crimean Karaites, speakers of an endangered Turkic language called Karaim. They speak about erotic desire in terms of food. The material

in the brackets in the second lyric consists of my corrections of some typographic errors and accidental omissions of the printed original.

El poeta pide a su amor que le escriba transl. by Ray Linn

This poem is about dark-sided love and longing. In the translation, source text rhythm is maintained by matching the number of syllables in each line to its corresponding line in the source text, highlighting one element of the Arte Mayor tradition that the source text loosely follows, while accentuating imagery.

To-day or this noon transl. by Giulia Nati

This poem is soaked in her yearning for her lover; whom she had almost managed to reach, but ultimately got separated from. Dickinson knows there is no point in supposing a proper relationship with her, thus only being able to desire her from afar.

Fragment 105a transl. by Giulia Nati

In this poem the reddening apple is a metaphor for a person. Despite the ‘apple-pickers’ stretching out their arms to try and get this person from the high branch, their desire remains a mere unfulfilled dream, as the apple/person is too far away, unachievable.

Untitled art by Eve Smith

Untitled art by Eve Smith

Extract from "Grief Is The Thing With Feathers" transl. by Eve Smith

Max Porter's debut novel "Grief Is The Thing With Feathers" tells the story of a widowed father of two young sons visited by death in the foprm of a crow. Through a fragmented blend of their different perspectives, Porter provides and answer to Emily Dickinson's conception of hope as an enduring force, with that of a grief having a similarly unrelenting mind of its own. In this extract, the father remembers a time from befopre, when his wife's bodyu was warm and alive and close to his. It is desire and pain and longing all at once. But inside the painful compression of everything memory is, what endures is love.

Der Panther transl. by Ilka Demmler

Rilke’s Der Panther invites readers to see themselves within its elusive lines, evoking the universal experience of feeling trapped—watching desires slip by, just out of reach, and confronting the powerlessness that sometimes surrounds us in life.

Piosenka wzruszająca transl. by Jes Paluchowska

Żeleński was a Polish writer active in the early 20th century Kraków bohemian circles. His Piosenka Wzruszająca falls into a tradition of challenging the accepted status quo portrayal of sexuality. An anticlericalist and proponent of women's rights, he died in World War II.

transl. by Dr Kevin Kiely

KGB transcripts recount Mandelstam’s interrogation, his prison life, suicide attempt (foiled), and his conditions; kept in a straitjacket in the cell. One of Mandelstam’s former ‘poet-friends’ Pyotr Pavlenko got permission to conceal himself during the Mandelstam- interrogations which preceded death while incarcerated. ‘Hidden in either a cupboard or between the double doors of the office, he [Pavlenko] heard everything. Mandelstam, he gleefully reported, presented a pathetic figure, chattering nonsense and clutching at his falling trousers’ (Shentalinsky). Pavlenko is representative of the State’s bought-spies who hate the poet and poetry.

je voudrais que mon amour meure transl. by Dr Kevin Kiely

Beckett’s four-line poem written in 1948 perturbs critics and biographers as to the mysterious woman invoked. While there are no definite persons identifiable or identified by the poet who claimed exclusive ‘silence’ or almost about his writings, speculation points to Lucia Joyce (daughter of James Joyce) and/or the American writer, Kay Boyle.

Roses art by Louise Norris

RUIDO transl. by Alannah Purslow

The source text deals with a woman anticipating the end of her relationship. Her fear of her partner leaving her is represented in the imagery of passion and sexual tension becoming weaponised forms of aggression. It is as if the only thing that can break her heart more than her impending breakup is if her partner leaves her without a trace.

ESTRELLA FUGAZ transl. by Alannah Purslow

This poem recounts a woman’s struggle with the numbness of her depression and coming to terms with the world around her. By the poem’s end, she returns to her home and her partner and finds she has met her desire for inner peace.

Senza titolo transl. by Maria Sabina Sassi

The decision to propose and translate this poetry comes from my reading of the double desire for change, both in the people surrounding the poetess and within herself, to rediscover the inner self. This need is started - legitimated - by nature’s observation. The poetess, embodying this experience, converts it into words whose mutable interpretation can enhance something different according to the reader’s interpretation.

Overhead art by Louise Norris

Amavisse transl. by Thais Giammarco

Integrating what was supposed to be Hilst’s last work, but actually turned out to be the one before the last, this poem, whose Latin title means “having loved” showcases desire particularly through the presence of fire, water and air. However, despite being intense, desire is frustrated.

La pluie d’été transl. by Isabelle Mann

La pluie d’été is the story of Ernesto and Jeanne, the eldest siblings in a numerous, poor immigrant family. When Ernesto’s genius is discovered, he embarks upon a search for knowledge and meaning. This passage illustrates the awakening of Ernesto and Jeanne’s taboo desire for each other.

De Profundis Amamus transl. by Vicente Velasques

In this poem Portuguese queer poet Mário Cesariny describes a late night rendez-vous between two men. Desire is a constant presence throughout the text, but is never allowed to be addressed directly, contained and repressed through the taut and covert/ nonchalant verses, reflecting the persecution faced during the regime.

Sono nata il ventuno a primavera transl. by Fabiola Perversi

Born in Milan in 1931, Alda Merini spent her life moving from one mental health institution to the other. Her poetry, both intense and dramatic, often reflects on the fragility of the self: in this piece, the juxtaposition of the poet’s plight with the hope represented by the renewing cycle of spring unveils a profound longing, and desire, for life.

Wants transl. by Machaela Donnellan

Larkin critiques societal conventions and explores the urge to escape from the pressures of social conformity. These desires are more than just personal, they are implied to be potentially universal - a deep, existential longing for something beyond the mundane structures that govern our lives.

Dagen Svalnar

Edith Södergran

I

Dagen svalnar mot kvällen...

Drick värmen ur min hand, min hand har samma blod som våren. Tag min hand, tag min vita arm, tag mina smala axlars längtan...

Det vore underligt att känna, en enda natt, en natt som denna, ditt tunga huvud mot mitt bröst.

II

Du kastade din kärleks röda ros i mitt vita skötejag håller fast i mina heta händer din kärleks röda ros som vissnar snart...

O du härskare med kalla ögon, jag tar emot den krona du räcker mig, som böjer ned mitt huvud mot mitt hjärta…

III

Jag såg min herre för första gången i dag, darrande kände jag genast igen honom.

Nu känner jag ren hans tunga hand på min lätta arm... Var är mitt klingande jungfruskratt, min kvinnofrihet med högburet huvud?

Nu känner jag ren hans fasta grepp om min skälvande kropp, nu hör jag verklighetens hårda klang mot mina sköra sköra drömmar.

IV

Du sökte en blomma och fann en frukt.

Du sökte en källa och fann ett hav.

Du sökte en kvinna och fann en själdu är besviken.

Translated by Elsa Kulatunga

I

Daytime cools to evening… Drink warmth from my hand, The very hand from which flows the blood of spring. Take my hand, take my pale arm, take the longing in my narrow shoulders… It would be wonderful to feel, even for just one night, a night like this, the weight of your head against my breast.

II

You cast your love’s red rose in my white lap –I hold fast in my searing hands that very red rose, about to wilt… O, you cool-eyed saviour, I accept the crown you present unto me, which bows my head to my heart…

III

Today I saw my saviour for the first time, trembling, I recognised him at once. Now I feel his heavy hand upon my delicate arm… Where is my joyful virgin shout, my womanly freedom, her head held high? Now I feel his steadfast grip around my quaking body, now I hear that reverberant ring of reality against my brittle, brittle dreams.

IV

You sought a flower and discovered a fruit. You sought a well and discovered a sea. You sought a woman and discovered a soul–you are dismayed.

Ebriae Cupidines

Sextus Propertius

Qualis Thesea iacuit cedente carina languida desertis Cnosia litoribus; qualis et accubuit primo Cepheia somno libera iam duris cotibus Andromede; nec minus assiduis Edonis fessa choreis qualis in herboso concidit Apidano: talis visa mihi mollem spirare quietem Cynthia consertis nixa caput manibus, ebria cum multo traherem vestigia Baccho, et quaterent sera nocte facem pueri. hanc ego, nondum etiam sensus deperditus omnis, molliter impresso conor adire toro; et quamvis duplici correptum ardore iuberent hac Amor hac Liber, durus uterque deus, subiecto leviter positam temptare lacerto osculaque admota sumere tarda manu, non tamen ausus eram dominae turbare quietem, expertae metuens iurgia saevitiae; sed sic intentis haerebam fixus ocellis, Argus ut ignotis cornibus Inachidos. et modo solvebam nostra de fronte corollas ponebamque tuis, Cynthia, temporibus; et modo gaudebam lapsos formare capillos; nunc furtiva cavis poma dabam manibus: omnia quae ingrato largibar munera somno, munera de prono saepe voluta sinu; et quotiens raro duxti suspiria motu, obstupui vano credulus auspicio,

Translated by Mackenzie Hilton

Just as Ariadne laid languid on a deserted shore as the ship of Theseus departed; And just as Cepherian Andromeda reclined in her first sleep, now free from hard crags; And just as a Bacchante, tired by endless dancing, collapses on the grassy banks of the Apidanus;

Just so, Cynthia seemed to me to breathe softly, peacefully, resting her head upon joined hands,

While I, drunk with much wine, was dragging my feet, and Cupid was stoking my passions in the dead of night.

Here I, not yet entirely senseless, Attempt to approach her lying softly on the bed;

And although Love and Wine, each a stern god, command me seized by a double desire, to steal kisses sensually, with my arm placed under her, Still, I did not dare to disturb the rest of my mistress,

Fearing the rebukes of her rage I already know too well;

But I clung to her, affixed with eager eyes, Just as Argus clung to Io, with her unfamiliar horns.

Once, I untied the garlands from my head,

ne qua tibi insolitos portarent visa timores, neve quis invitam cogeret esse suam: donec diversas praecurrens luna fenestras, luna moraturis sedula luminibus, compositos levibus radiis patefecit ocellos. sic ait in molli fixa toro cubitum: ‘tandem te nostro referens iniuria lecto alterius clausis expulit e foribus? namque ubi longa meae consumpsti tempora noctis, languidus exactis, ei mihi, sideribus? o utinam talis perducas, improbe, noctes, me miseram qualis semper habere iubes! nam modo purpureo fallebam stamine somnum, rursus et Orpheae carmine, fessa, lyrae; interdum leviter mecum deserta querebar externo longas saepe in amore moras: dum me iucundis lassam Sopor impulit alis. illa fuit lacrimis ultima cura meis.’

And placed them on yours, Cynthia; Once again, I was happy to play with your hair;

Now I was giving apples secretly to your welcoming hands; I bestowed all these gifts to your ungrateful sleep, Gifts often tumbled out of my loosened tunic; And when you occasionally stirred and sighed, I was dumbstruck believing false signs, That you might be having a nightmare, Or that someone else forced you to be his, unwillingly;

Until the moon, fluttering past diverse windows, The moon busy with its lingering lights, Opened your closed eyes with its delicate rays. Leaning on her elbow in a soft bed, she says: “Has another’s offense expelled you from locked doors, returning you to our bed at last? Where did you spend the long hours of my night,

You, exhausted, with the stars now fading? Woe is me!

If only you could experience such nights that you force upon me in my misery, you wretch! Just now I avoided sleep, weaving purple threads,

Tired once more by the songs of Orpheus’ lyre; Until I was slightly weeping, alone, deserted, Since you delay so long, so often with the love of another:

Until Sleep compels me to fall under its delightful wings.

That was the last cure for my tears.”

German Wär nicht das Auge sonnenhaft

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wär nicht das Auge sonnenhaft, Die Sonne könnt es nie erblicken; Läg nicht in uns des Gottes eigne Kraft, Wie könnt uns Göttliches entzücken?

German Begeisterung

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Fassest du die Muse nur beim Zipfel, Hast du wenig nur getan; Geist und Kunst, auf inhrem höchsten Gipfel, Muten alle Menschen an.

Were the Eye Not Like the Sun

Translated by Eoin MacNally

Were the eye not like the sun, A brief sun it could never capture; God’s powers not lying with our own, How could the divine enrapture?

English

Inspiration

Translated by Eoin MacNally

Grasping a hem the Muse may trail, You have got little done; Spirit and art, at their pinnacle, Seem to nourish everyone.

French

L’Homme Atlantique

Marguerite Duras

Hier soir, après votre départ définitif, je suis allée dans cette salle du rez-de-chaussée qui donne sur le parc, là où je me tiens toujours dans le mois tragique de juin, ce mois qui ouvre l’hiver.

J’avais balayé la maison, j’avais tout nettoyé comme avant mes funérailles. Tout était net de vie, exempt, vidé de signes, et puis je me suis dit : je vais commencer à écrire pour me guérir du mensonge d’un amour finissant. J’avais lavé mes affaires, quatre choses, tout était propre, mon corps, mes cheveux, mes vêtements et ce qui enfermait le tout aussi, le corps et les vêtements, ces chambres, cette maison, ce parc.

Et puis j’ai commencé à écrire.

Tout étant prêt pour ma mort, j’ai commencé à écrire ce dont justement je sais qu’il vous serait impossible de pressentir la raison, d’apercevoir le devenir. C’est ainsi que cela se passe. C’est à votre incompréhension que je m’adresse toujours. Sans cela, vous voyez, ce ne serait pas la peine.

Mais peu m’importait tout à coup cette impossibilité de votre part, je vous la laissais, je n’en gardais rien, je vous la donnais, mon souhait étant que vous l’emportiez, que vous l’emportiez avec vous, que vous l’incorporiez à votre sommeil, au rêve décomposé de ce dont on vous a appris qu’il était le bonheur — par là j’entends la putréfaction de l’entente du bonheur des amants. [...]

Et au contraire de mourir je suis allée sur cette terrasse dans le parc et sans émotion j’ai dit à voix haute la date du jour qu’il était, le lundi quinze juin 1981, que vous étiez parti dans la chaleur terrible pour toujours et que je croyais, oui, cette fois, que c’était pour toujours.

Je crois que je ne souffrais pas de votre départ. Tout était là comme d’habitude, les arbres, les roses, l’ombre tournante de la maison sur la terrasse, l’heure et la date, et

Translated by Ioana Răducu

Yesterday evening, after you’d left once and for all, I went to the ground floor room that overlooks the park and serves as my permanent retreat during the tragic month of June, the month that marks the beginning of winter.

I had swept all the floors, cleaned everything as though expecting my own funeral. Everything was devoid of life, hollow, empty of signs, and I told myself: I will begin to write so as to heal from the lies of this fading love. I had washed my things, all four of them, everything was clean, my body, my hair, my clothes, and so was all that contained my body and my clothes — these rooms, this house, this park.

And then I began to write.

When everything was in place for my death, I began to write — in such a way that you’d surely find it impossible to anticipate my reasoning or understand the unfolding of my thoughts. This is how it goes. It is always your incomprehension that I speak to. Otherwise, you see, it wouldn’t be worth it.

But I had no immediate need for this incapacity of yours. I’d let you keep it, save none of it for myself, I’d give it to you, my sole wish being that you carry it, carry it with you, let it seep into your sleep, into the decaying dream of what you were taught about happiness — by that, I mean the way lovers promise each other happiness, a promise bound to be broken. [...]

Instead of dying, I went out on the veranda in the park and, emotionlessly, I uttered the date — Monday 15th of June 1981 — that you went away into the terrible heat forever and I believed that yes, this time it really was forever.

I don’t think I grieved your departure. Everything was in its usual place, the trees, the roses, the circling shadow that the house casts on the veranda, the date and

vous cependant vous étiez absent. Je ne croyais pas qu’il vous fallait revenir. Autour du parc des tourterelles sur des toits criaient pour être rejointes. Et puis il a été sept heures du soir.

Je me suis dit que je vous aurais aimé. Je croyais qu’il ne me restait déjà de vous qu’un souvenir hésitant, mais non, je me trompais, il restait ces plages autour des yeux, là où embrasser comme là s’étendre sur le sable tiède, et ce regard centré sur la mort.

C’est alors que je me suis dit pourquoi pas. Pourquoi pas faire un film. Écrire serait trop dorénavant. Pourquoi pas un film.

Et puis le soleil s’est levé. Un oiseau a traversé la terrasse le long du mur de la maison. Il croyait la maison vide et il est allé si près d’elle qu’il a heurté une rose, une de celles que j’appelle de Versailles. Ça a été brutalement un mouvement, le seul du parc sous le niveau de la lumière du ciel. J’ai entendu le froissement de la rose par l’oiseau dans le velours de son vol. Et j’ai regardé la rose. Elle a d’abord bougé comme animée de vie et puis petit à petit elle est redevenue rose ordinaire.

Vous êtes resté dans l’état d’être parti. Et j’ai fait un film de votre absence.

time, and yet you were absent. I didn’t think you needed to come back. On roofs around the park, doves cried out for companionship. And then it was 7 in the evening.

I told myself I would’ve loved you. I believed I had nothing left of you except for a timid memory, but no, I was wrong. I still had those lines around my eyes like beaches and when you kissed me there it was like lying down on the humid sand; and that gaze fixed on death.

That is when I told myself why not. Why not make a film. Writing would be too much from that moment on. Why not a film.

And then the sun rose. A bird flew across the veranda, along the wall. He believed the house to be empty and flew so close to it that he bumped into a rose, one of the kind I call Versailles. It was an abrupt movement, the only one in the park underneath the light emanating from the sky. I heard the bird rustling against the rose in its velvety flight. And I looked at the rose. It had moved at first as if alive, then little by little it became an ordinary rose again.

You went away and stayed gone. And I made your absence into a film.

Finnish Syysilta

Saima Harmaja

Sade hiljaa ja herkeämättä yli mäntyjen lankeaa. On ilta. Ja jälleen tummuu tämä köyhä ja harmaa maa.

Ja huoneessa äänettömässä minä en voi ymmärtää:

että kerran keskellä kesää elin suurta ja säteilevää,

että jalkani polkenut kerran maan lämpimän multaa on, missä Tonava verkkaan vyöryy läpi kukkivan tasangon,

ja suojassa akaasioiden on neilikkapuutarha.

Voi miksi en tahtonut silloin sinua suudella!

Rain falls over pine trees in a steady patterned silence. It is evening. And it darkens again on this poor and leaden land.

And in the silence of this room I cannot understand: that once, in the middle of summer, I lived so full and radiant, that my feet once tread over earth’s warm soil, where the Danube tumbles through the flowering plain, and sheltered by acacias is a garden of carnations. Oh where was my desire to kiss you back then!

Translated by Sara Lynch

I had been hungry, all the Years

Emily Dickinson

I had been hungry, all the Years— My Noon had Come—to dine— I trembling drew the Table near— And touched the Curious Wine—

’Twas this on Tables I had seen— When turning, hungry, Home I looked in Windows, for the Wealth I could not hope—for Mine—

I did not know the ample Bread— ’Twas so unlike the Crumb The Birds and I, had often shared In Nature’s—Dining Room—

The Plenty hurt me—’twas so new— Myself felt ill—and odd— As Berry—of a Mountain Bush— Transplanted—to a Road—

Nor was I hungry—so I found That Hunger—was a way Of Persons outside Windows— The Entering—takes away—

Olin ollut nälkäinen, kaikki Vuodet

Translated by Sara Lynch

Olin ollut nälkäinen, kaikki Vuodet—

Iltapäiväni oli Saapunut—ruokailemaan—

Täristen vedin Pöytää lähelle—

Ja kosketin Vierasta Viiniä—

Se oli se, jonka Pöydillä olin nähnyt—

Kun kävelin, nälkäisenä, Kotia kohti

Etsin Ikkunoista, sitä Rikkautta

Jota en voinut toivoa—Omakseni—

En tiennyt että se Leivän määrä—

Oli niin erilainen kuin se Murunen

Jonka olin Lintujen kanssa jakanut

Luonnon—Ruokapöydässä—

Runsaus satutti minua—se oli niin uutta—

Tunsin itseni sairaaksi—ja oudoksi—

Kuin marja—Vuori Pensaan—

Tuotuna—Tielle—

Enkä ollutkaan nälkäinen—joten tajusin

Että Nälkä—oli tunne Ihmisten

Ikkunoiden ulkopuolella—

Sisäänmeno—pois sen vie—

Louise Norris - Ellen

Louise Norris - Celeste

Spanish Melodia inconclusa

Rosamaría Roffiel

Abarco tu horizonte con mi cuerpo en este enésimo reencuentro nuestro toda tú me presientes y yo,

despierto. Me sumerjo en tu pelo nido lleno de sol con mis dedos enciendo tu piel mientras delineo los surcos que la vida ha formado en tu cuello.

Descifro los botones que encierran tu espalda y aparecen tus pecas como diminutos planetas

beso casa una cada vértebra cada músculo repleto de fuerza. Entre tus piernas tu otra boca me llama con un canto que hechiza desde un mar promesa mi mano lo escucha y baja

lentamente por tu vientre hasta tocar las cuerdas de tu lira húmeda.

I cover your length with my body in this, our umpteenth meeting, every part of you senses me and I, awaken.

I bury myself in your hair a nest full of sunlight with my fingers I ignite your skin whilst I trace the wrinkles life has forged along your neck. I unpick the buttons which confine your back and thus appear your breasts like small planets

Unfinished melody

Translated by Molly Crawford

I kiss each one each vertebrae each muscle

fraught with fervour. Between your legs your other mouth calls me with a bewitching song from a promised sea my hand hears it and lowers slowly along your abdomen until it plucks the strings of your wet lyre.

Uη źir int al Saraśìn

Flavio Bertelli

Am ciàpa impruvisamént la nostalgìa dal Saraśìn, dill so butégh, dill so ca’, dla so źént e… dal so udór. Eco a créd propia che la nostalgìa l’am sia nata priηzipalmént da l’udór. L’udór ach gnéva fóra da la butéga ad Tassinari quand che, a la matìna, al faśéva i biscòt.

Pòrca misèria ach fat udór! Oh, intandénas: l’è véra che ‘sta banadéta misèria l’as mitéva iη cundizión ad naśàr solamént, però l’è aηch véra che Tassinari al spargugnàva, par tut al Saraśìn, n’udór ch’al s’palpàva. Uη quèl ch’at faśéva gnir vója ad tiràr su col naś cumè uη can da trìfula coη l’arfardór.

Tassinari al li faśéva lu, ‘sti biscòt, e al cuśéva int al fóraη ch’al gh’aveva ad dré da la butéga. Quand al li tiràva fóra (a diéś ór dla matìna) al jéra uη spargugnamént d’udór ch’al rivàva iηfìn iη Saη Piér e l’andava déntar dapartùt.

Tuta la źént varźéva i buś dal naś e con al slaηgurìn dla matìna, al jéra propia un tribulèri duvér sól naśàr.

Ad ogni mod agh jéra póch da sègliar: o as gh’aveva i quàtar sold par cumpràrin un, o as duvéva far cónt ad gnént e mandàr sla fórca la buléta.

St’banadét pastiziér, quand al tirava via dal fóran i sò bilìn, al li mitéva in vedrìna, tut bèj stéś su na padèla.

I jéra propia da védar! Grand cumè na cartulina, rigà tut par la lunga e séch ch’j sa sgranàva, j gh’éva uη culór da roba bona ch’a gnéva infìη vója ad rubàri. Mi a digh che se j fus sta’ partìcul, e la butéga la fus sta’ na Céśa, avrìsaη fat la comunión tut ill matìn.

Mi a sóη sémpar sta’ iη lòta con al desidèri ad cumpràrin un, e… aη l’ho mai cumprà. I soldi, qualch volta, a jò aηch avù, mó al peηsiér ad spéndar vint zantéśam int uη quèl ch’al sarìa sparì in du e du quàtar, aη m’ha mai da’ la spinta par varcàr cla porta. E, acsì, am è rimàst la vója! Na vója granda che am la strapégh ancora a dré tant che, se al fus pusìbil, andrìa a truvàr Tassinari.

Sicóm però l’è mort, l’è mèj che am tiéna la mié vója!

A walk about the Saraceno

Translated by Liam

Frabetti

I am suddenly struck by nostalgia for the Saraceno, its shops, its houses, its people and… its smell. In fact, I actually think my nostalgia is due in large part to its smell. The smell which emanated from Tassinari’s shop when, in the morning, he baked biscuits.

Sweet Jesus, what a smell! Let's be honest: our god-given poverty meant all we could do was smell. However, it is also true that Tassinari spread, all throughout the Saraceno, a smell… you could touch. A smell that made you want to sniffle deeply, like a cold-ridden truffle dog.

Tassinari himself made these blessed biscuits, and baked them in the oven he kept behind the shop. When he took them out (at ten in the morning) the smell they emanated was so intense it spread all the way to San Pietro and entered everywhere.

Everyone widened their nostrils and, experiencing as they were the morning munchies, it was a real suffering to be restricted to smelling only.

In any case, we had little choice: either you had the money to buy one, or you had to suck it up and tell your poverty where it could go.

This damned baker, once he removed his treats from the oven, would put them on display behind the glass pane, all beautifully resting on a pan.

What a sight to behold! As big as a postcard, all lined longways and so dry they crumbled in your mouth. Their appearance was enticing to the point you felt compelled to steal one. I’d say that, had they been Communion bread, and had the shop been a church, we would have taken Communion every morning.

I always toyed with the idea of buying one and… I never did. The money, at times, was there, but the idea of spending twenty cents on something that would have disappeared in the blink of an eye always stopped me from crossing the threshold of the shop. And so, the desire has remained. A heavy desire I still drag around. So much so that, were it possible, I would go searching for Tassinari.

However, since he’s dead, I’d better suffer through this desire!

Turkish Bizden Önce Biri

Gonca Özmen

Bu düş senin. Bu bitimsiz ova.

Elinden kayıp gideni durdurmak boşlukta.

Sis çanlarıyız. Gecede uyanık.

Gülgillerden Rosa, Kızıl Rosa –Bir kuş günü kadar kısa.

Günlük işler, eşyalar, kâğıtlar arasında –Bizden önce biri daha susmuş bu arzuda.

Işığıyla tutuşan ateş böceği. Pervasız neşe.

“Yanı başındayım,” diye fısıldıyor Leo.

“Canımın çekirdeği,” diyor Rosa “mein Lieber”.

Dünya diniyor karda. üzgâr getiriyor ölenlerin sesini.

İçinde neler neler düşünülmüş kaç oda. Sabah olduğundan habersiz kaç sabah.

Bizden önce biri geçmiş burdan.

Buzdandır zirve Rosa. Yakar. Beden unutmaz –Kalır bir yerlerde o boşluk tadı.

Sırtüstü uzanırız. Sürer ölümün sarısı.

Translated

by

Neil P. Doherty

This dream is yours. This never-ending plain. Whatever slips from your hands sways in this emptiness.

We are fog bells. Awake in the night.

Rosa, of the Family Rosaceae, Red RosaAs short as a bird’s day.

Among the daily chores and things, among the papersSomeone before us fell silent in this desire.

A firefly blazing in its own light. A reckless joy.

“I’m right beside you,” whispers Leo. “The core of my being” says Rosa “mein Lieber”.

In the snow the world rests.

The wind bears the voices of the dead.

So many rooms where so much was thought. So many mornings unaware of themselves.

Someone passed through here before us.

The summit is of ice Rosa. It burns. The body never forgetsSomewhere a taste of nothingness remains.

On our backs we lie. As the yellow of death lingers.

Bile İsteye

Gonca Özmen

Gölgenin verdiği bir cinnet vardı – tattım

Olmadım deyince olunuyor değil

Sevgilim – beni eve götürme geceleri

Beni en çok eve, en çok geceleri

Sandığımı deş, harmanımı yak, yollara düşür

Bendeki taşra geniş odalara alışık değil

Sana bunları hep tek tek

Zemberekten birer birer geçirerek

Sevgilim – beni bağışla geceleri, en çok geceleri

Bırak oyalansın o aç kalabalık dansımda

Gövdem kederden bir tabanca

Üstünde patlayabilmez değil

Götürme beni o apansız kapana

Ev dediğin ne ki kaçtığımın yanında

Sevgilim – beni o uzun masalara, o şık salonlara

Sevgilim – beni gündüzlerden kolla

Ölülerin sazlığından geçir, annenin yanağından

Çorabı kaçık kızlar zaten sabahın değil

II

Sevgilim – dinle beni geceleri, en çok geceleri

Zaten nasıl akar bu dilimdeki

Translated by Neil P. Doherty

II tasted the madness the shadow bringsJust saying I’m not doesn’t mean I am

My love- never take me home at nights

Me mostly home, mostly at nights

Rifle through my drawer, burn my harvest, scatter me onto the roads

The provinces in me aren’t used to such spacious rooms

To you one by one I thread

All of these one by one through this coil

My love- forgive me at nights, mostly at nights

Let that hungry crowd linger in my dance

My body’s a gun of sorrow

That could go off right on you

Never lure me into that abrupt trap

What I’m fleeing from isn’t just a home

My love- me to those long tables, those elegant chambers

My love- protect me from those bright lights

Pull me through the reeds of the dead, through your mother’s cheek

Anyhow, the girls with their ripped tights aren’t of those lights

II

My love- listen to me at nights, mostly at nights

How else will all on my tongue flow

Pıtraklı, çoklu, ayazlı

Bendeki ses öylesine değil

Sevgilim – beni şaraba yatır geceleri

Korkularından yont, yoksulluğundan damıt

Beni süsenlere söyle, yaseminlere beni

Beni semazenlere en çok, beni en çok geceleri

III

Sevgilim – beni dünya say, bir üzümden soy

Pergelin döndüğü bizden değil

Seni durmadan çarptığım o ağrıyı unut Olduğu yerde kalsın uzak – onu unut

Bir elma olup bir sokak ağzında

Kahkaha olup patlamak kulaklarında

Sevgilim – sen benim sesimden geçtin sularla

Yollarda düşürdüğün oysa cebinden değil

Öylece duran saksıda bekleyiş ne ki

Benim tozumun yanında

Düğmenin çözülüşüdür anlam Sözdür, kime vursa öldürür

Sevgilim – eğil de bir bak bana

Yanına kıvrıldığın çoktur senden değil

Suyun da vakti yok nedense benimle akmaya

Kimse gelmeyecek işte – gecede duranı sabaha koymaya

It’s not for nothing

My cracked, my frosted, my abundant voice

My love- lay me down in wine at nights

Sculpt me from your fear, distil me from your poverty

Tell the irises of me, tell the jasmines

Mostly tell the dervishes of me, of me mostly at nights

III

My love- see me as the world, peel me from a grape

It’s not through us the compass spins

Forget that pain I struck and struck you with Forget that distance- let it stay just where it is

An apple on the corner of the street

A laugh bursting in your ear

My love- you cascaded through my voice

Whatever dropped on the roads wasn’t from your pocket

Waiting, I’ve gathered far more dust

Waiting, more than a patient flowerpot

Meaning lies in a button’s undoing

Words kill whomever they may strike

My love- lean down and look into me

The one you curl up beside isn’t yours anymore

Not even water has time to flow with me

No one will come- to bring all the night holds into the light

Hippolytus

The Dominion of Passion

Translated by Lluis Cuesta

So, you are in love—what’s exceptional about it? Many mortals are too! Will you end your life for the sake of a single love? Those who love now and those who shall love find little reward if death is the price. For the Cypriot deity is irresistible if she sweeps down upon us, she treats the willing with care, but if you’re too proud or stubborn, once caught, she’ll bring you down—you won’t even wonder how...

She strolls through heaven, treading the waves over the Cypriot Sea. Through her, all things are born: She is the one who sows desire and the one who grants it; the very desire from which all of us on the earth have sprung.

Those who have held the poems of the ancient ones in their hands and lived forever among the Muses know well that even Zeus once desired Semele, and how the radiant Dawn —Aurora— abducted Cephalus, driven by passion: all in all, those who abide in heaven do not flee from tender deities; even they, divine as they are, would rather yield, dominated by love.

Paul the Silentiary

English

Magnificent Autumn

Translated by Lluis Cuesta

I truly favour, my cherished love, the wrinkles on your skin over any youthful appearance: I long to hold in my hands the two fruits you bear like ripe pomegranates more than the firm bloom of a young bosom.

For your autumn still outshines any spring, and your winter would burn hotter than anyone else’s summer.

Monica Elena Grigoraș - Suaimhneas

Widokówka z tego świata

Stanisław Barańczak

Szkoda, że Cię tu nie ma. Zamieszkałem w punkcie, z którego mam za darmo rozległe widoki: gdziekolwiek stanąć na wystygłym gruncie tej przypłaszczonej kropki, zawsze ponad głową ta sama mroźna próżnia milczy swą nałogową odpowiedź. Klimat znośny, chociaż bywa różnie. Powietrze lepsze pewnie niż gdzie indziej. Są urozmaicenia: klucz żurawi, cienie palm i wieżowców, grzmot, bufiasty obłok. Ale dosyć już o mnie. Powiedz, co u Ciebie słychać, co można widzieć, gdy jest się Tobą.

Szkoda, że Cię tu nie ma. Zawarłem się w chwili dumnej, że się rozrasta w nowotwór epoki; choć jak ją nazwą, co będą mówili o niej ci, co przewyższą nas o grubą warstwę geologiczną, stojąc na naszym próchnie, łgarstwie, niezniszczalnym plastiku, doskonaląc swoją własną mieszankę śmiecia i rozpaczy –nie wiem. Jak zgniatacz złomu, sekunda ubija kolejny stopień, rosnący pod stopą. Ale dosyć już o mnie. Mów, jak Tobie mija czas – i czy czas coś znaczy, gdy jest się Tobą.

Translated by Tomasz Balcerkiewicz

Wish You were here. I've settled in a spot, from which for free I get vast vistas: wherever one stands on the extinguished cold ground of this enflattened dot, always over one's head the same frosted vacuum keeps silent with its addict answer. Bearable climate, though it swings. Air better, presumably, than elsewhere. Some variety: flight of cranes, shadows of palms and skyscrapers, thunder, puffy cloud. But enough about me. Say, how are things on Your side, what's there to see, when one is You.

Wish You were here. I locked myself up in a moment proud, at the growing cancer of the era; thought what they'll call her, what they'll say about her, they who'll top us by a thick layer of geology, standing on our rot, falsehoods, unbreakable plastic, perfecting their own mixture of garbage and despair –I do not know. Like a scrap crusher, a second passes another step, growing under the feet. But enough about me. Say, how You are passing time – and does time mean anything, when one is You.

Szkoda, że Cię tu nie ma. Zagłębiam się w ciele, w którym zaszyfrowane są tajne wyroki śmierci lub dożywocia – co niewiele różni się jedno z drugim w grząskim gruncie rzeczy, a jednak ta lektura wciąga mnie, niedorzeczny kryminał krwi i grozy, powieść-rzeka, która swój mętny finał poznać mi pozwoli dopiero, gdy i tak nie będę w stanie unieść zamkniętych ciepłą dłonią zimnych powiek. Ale dosyć już o mnie. Mów, jak Ty się czujesz z moim bólem – jak boli Ciebie Twój człowiek.

Wish You were here. I delve into a body, in which encrypted are secret sentences to death or life imprisonment – little difference between the two as a matter of the marshy fact, and yet this reading drags me in, preposterous thriller of blood and horror, stream-novel, which will reveal its muddy finale only once I won't be able to raise the warm-hand-closed cold eyelids. But enough about me. Say, how are You feeling with my pain – how pains You Your man.

Hannah Arendt

Reite über die Erde

Hin zu den Rändern der Weite, Bis Dein menschlicher Rücken

Sich fügt in die tierischen Schenkel.

Umflügle gebändigt in Dir

Die Erde der Menschen und Rosse, denen alles die Herrschaft verdirbt.

Trabend, doch wie im Fluge, Gestreckt von Gesicht zu den Schenkeln, Sei ihnen die ältere Einheit Von Mensch und Tier.

Ride across the Earth

Toward the edge of the expanse, Until your mortal back Yields to its bestial thighs.

Wings envelop, are tamed by you The Earth of men and horses, Whose rule is blighted by all.

Trotting, as though in flight, Stretched out from face to thighs, Be to them now the elder unity Of Man and beast.

Translated by Nina

Stremersch

Romanian Dați-mi un trup, voi munților

Lucian Blaga

Numai pe tine te am, trecătorul meu trup, și totuși

flori albe și roșii eu nu-ți pun pe frunte și-n plete, căci lutul tău slab mi-e prea strâmt pentru strașnicul suflet ce-l port.

Dați-mi un trup, voi munților, mărilor,

dați-mi alt trup să-mi descarc nebunia în plin!

Pământule larg, fii trunchiul meu, fii pieptul acestei năprasnice inimi, prefă-te-n lăcașul furtunilor cari mă strivesc, fii amfora eului meu îndărătnic!

Prin cosmos

auzi-s-ar atuncea măreții mei pași și-aș apare năvalnic și liber cum sunt, pământule sfânt.

Când aș iubi, mi-aș întinde spre cer toate mările ca niște vânjoase, sălbatice brațe fierbinți, spre cer, să-l cuprind, mijlocul să-i frâng, să-i sărut sclipitoarele stele.

Când aș urî, aș zdrobi sub picioarele mele de stâncă bieți sori călători

și poate-aș zâmbi.

Dar numai pe tine te am, trecătorul meu trup.

Give me a body, you mountains

Translated by Elvira Petrovici

I only have you, my passing body, and yet I don’t place white and red flowers on your forehead but in locks, because your weak clay is too strained for the harsh soul that I wear.

Give me a body, you mountains, seas, give me a different body to unleash my madness in full!

Wide world, be my torso, be the chest of this fierce heart, transform yourself into the dwelling of the storms that crush me, be the amphora of my stubborn self! Through the cosmos my mighty steps will be heard and I would appear impetuous and free how I am, holy Earth.

When I would love, I would stretch all my seas to the sky like some strong, wild burning hands, towards the sky, to embrace it, to break its centre, to kiss its glittering stars.

When I would hate, I would crush under my rocky feet, the poor wandering sons and maybe I would smile.

But I only have you, my passing body.

Elvira Petrovici - Finally home

Monica Elena Grigoraș - Dantelărie în Piatră (Trei Ierarhi, Iași)

Aeneid Book IV (lines 54-89)

Virgil

His dictis incensum animum inflammavit amore, spemque dedit dubiae menti, solvitque pudorem. Principio delubra adeunt, pacemque per aras exquirunt; mactant lectas de more bidentis legiferae Cereri Phoeboque patrique Lyaeo, Iunoni ante omnis, cui vincla iugalia curae.

Ipsa, tenens dextra pateram, pulcherrima Dido candentis vaccae media inter cornua fundit, aut ante ora deum pinguis spatiatur ad aras, instauratque diem donis, pecudumque reclusis pectoribus inhians spirantia consulit exta.

Heu vatum ignarae mentes! quid vota furentem, quid delubra iuvant? Est mollis flamma medullas interea, et tacitum vivit sub pectore volnus.

Uritur infelix Dido, totaque vagatur urbe furens, qualis coniecta cerva sagitta, quam procul incautam nemora inter Cresia fixit pastor agens telis, liquitque volatile ferrum nescius; illa fuga silvas saltusque peragrat

Dictaeos; haeret lateri letalis arundo.

Nunc media Aenean secum per moenia ducit, Sidoniasque ostentat opes urbemque paratam; incipit effari, mediaque in voce resistit; nunc eadem labente die convivia quaerit, Iliacosque iterum demens audire labores exposcit, pendetque iterum narrantis ab ore.

Post, ubi digressi, lumenque obscura vicissim

Translated by I. E. Forrest

Her words inflamed Dido’s soul with love, Lending hope to a doubting mind, loosening her shame. They first submit their cause at the temple, searching for peace at the altar; Choosing to glorify, in the usual way

The lawgiver Ceres, Phoebus father of Lyaeo, And above all Juno, who cares for the bonds of marriage.

Clutching the libation bowl, the beautiful Dido Pours wine between the horns of a glistening bull

And walks before the richly laden altars with the eyes of the gods upon her Honouring the day with gifts, and with the cattle opened Gazes into its trembling breast, and consults the entrails within.

Oh, the ignorant minds of prophets! What use are prayers to one so impassioned? What use are sacrifices?

The flames burn inwards at her tender bones, And the wound lives silently in her chest.

So burning, ill-fated Dido roams

Frenzied through her city, as if struck by an arrow, Like a reckless deer hit by a herdsman from a distance

In some Cretan pasture, with the flying steel left in her unknowingly. There she flees through the woodlands of Dicte, The deadly shaft hanging concealed in her side.

Now she leads Aeneas around the high walls, Showing off her Sidonian wealth, the city she has built; Trying to speak, her voice halts mid-thought. Now she wishes again for the banquet, as the day slips away, So that she might once again madly implore the Trojan to repeat his tales

To hang once more on his every word.

luna premit suadentque cadentia sidera somnos, sola domo maeret vacua, stratisque relictis incubat, illum absens absentem auditque videtque; aut gremio Ascanium, genitoris imagine capta, detinet, infandum si fallere possit amorem. Non coeptae adsurgunt turres, non arma iuventus exercet, portusve aut propugnacula bello tuta parant; pendent opera interrupta, minaeque murorum ingentes aequataque machina caelo.

Later, when they have left, when the moon darkens And the setting stars urge Dido to sleep, She grieves alone in her empty house, and lies on the couch he abandoned. In his absence she still hears him, sees him, Or holds Ascanius on her lap, captivated by the likeness to his father, To disguise the depths of love she has fallen to.

The towers cease to rise, the young men cease their work in the harbour, And cease preparing the war defences. All labour is suspended, the remarkable walls half-built, The cranes still hung in the heavens.

Maria Polydouri

I picked flowers for you in the mountains I wandered. Each had a thousand thorns and as I held them, I was in pain.

I was waiting for you to pass by in the cold winter wind holding my gift sheltered by desire

In my warm embrace. I was always looking far away. With longing in my heart and tears in my eyes.

Blinded by lust I didn’t see the dark Night closing in and hopeless I cried as I hadn’t brought them to you myself.

Translated by Eirini Maria Bregianni

Giannis Ritsos

Translated by Eirini Maria Bregianni

How beautiful you are. Your beauty scares me. I’m hungry for you. I’m thirsty for you.

I plead you: Hide; Be invisible to all; visible only to me; covered from head to toe with a dark transparent veil

dotted with silver sighs of spring moons.

Your pores emit vowels, consonants, desire; Secret words are formed; Rosy explosions from the act of love.

Your veil expands, shines above the city at night, with half-lit bars, wine taverns at the port;

green spotlights illuminate the overnight pharmacy; a glass sphere

rotates fast, showing landscapes around the globe. A drunk staggers in a storm arising from the breath of your body.

Don’t go. Don’t go. So material, so intangible.

A stone bull jumps from the pediment into dry grass.

A naked woman climbs the wooden staircase holding a basin with warm water. The steam hides her face.

High in the air a patrol helicopter is bombing indistinct places.

Be careful. It’s you they want. Hide deeper in

my arms.

The coat of the red blanket that covers us, keeps expanding , it becomes a pregnant bear.

Under the red bear, we love each other infinitely, beyond time and beyond death, in a lonely, global union.

How beautiful you are. Your beauty scares me.

Anonymous/Folk

Багъчаларда кестане,

Багъчаларда кестане,

Докулюр дане-дане,

Докулюр дане-дане.

Аманым, дживаным, кель яныма,

Инджилер такърым герданынъа.

Багъчаларда патылджан,

Багъчаларда патылджан.

Бунъа даянырмы джан,

Бунъа даянырмы джан,

Аманым, дживаным, кель яныма,

Инджилер такъарым герданынъа.

In the Garden, A Chestnut Tree

Translated by Denis Ferhatović

In the garden, a chestnut tree

In the garden, a chestnut tree

Drops its fruit one by one

Drops its fruit one by one

My relief, my young beauty, come to me

I will adorn you with a necklace of figs

In the garden, an aubergine shrub

In the garden, an aubergine shrub

Is this something a person can take on

Is this something a person can take on

My relief, my young beauty, come to me

I will adorn you with a necklace of figs

Spanish El poeta pide a su amor que le escriba

Federico García Lorca

Amor de mis entrañas, viva muerte.

En vano espero tu palabra escrita

Y pienso, con la flor que marchita, Que si vivo sin mi quiero perderte.

El aire es inmortal. La piedra inerte. Ni conoce la sombra ni la evita.

Corazón interior no necesita

La miel helada que la luna vierte.

Pero yo te sufrí. Rasgué mis venas

Tigre y paloma sobre tu cintura

En duelo de mordiscos y azucenas.

Llena pues de palabras mi locura, O déjame vivir en mi serena

Noche del alma para siempre oscura.

The Poet Asks His Love to Write

Translated by Ray Linn

Love within the core of me, long may death live. In vain, I hope and wait for your written word to me And I think, with the flower as it withers, If I live without me, I want to lose you.

The air is immortal. The stone remains motionless. Darkness is not known, nor can it be avoided. The intimate heart of my heart does not need The frozen honey that pours down from the moon.

But I suffered through you. I tear at my veins Violent tiger and peaceful dove above your waist In a duel of teeth and madonna lilies.

So satiate my insanity with words Or leave me to live in the calm twilight dew Sun falls into forever dark, night of the soul.

English

To-day or this noon

Emily Dickinson

To-day or this noon She dwelt so close, I almost touched her; Tonight she lies Past neighbourhoodAnd bough and steepleNow past surmise.

Greek

Fragment 105a

Sappho

Hodie vel hac meridie

Ea sic vicina morata fuit, Eam paene tangebam; Hac nocte cubat

Ultra vicumEt verbenam turremqueNunc ultra praesumptionem.

Hodie vel hac meridie

Translated

by

Giulia Nati

Fragment

Translated

by

Giulia Nati

That one sweet apple reddening on an high branch, High there, on the highest branch of all, the apple-pickers have forgotten; They have not forgotten her, really, but they cannot reach her. English

Eve Smith - Untitled

Eve Smith - Untitled

Extract from "Grief Is The Thing With Feathers"

Max Porter

By the side of the road was a young dead fox, eyes Open, stuck frozen to the grass, looking more stillBorn than road-killed.

I could cycle to Hepstonstall or bring it defrosting to The kitchen and set it down for my sons to see. I am obsessed.

I remember the night I got home and told her I’d Finished the book proposal, and she said, ‘God help us All,’ and we drank Prosecco and she said I could have My birthday present early. It was the plastic crow. We made love and I kissed her shoulder blades and Reminded her of the story of my parents lying to me About children growing wings and she said, ‘My body is not bird-like.’

We were smack bang in the middle, years from the Finish, taking nothing for granted.

I want to be there again. Again, and again. I want to be held, I wanted to hold. It was the plastic crow.

We made love. The wing story. My body is not birdLike. Again. The wings. The love.

Bird-like. Again. I beg everything again.

Extraído de "El Luto Es La Cosa Con Plumas"

Translated by Eve Smith

Al lado de la carretera había un joven zorro muerto, con los ojos abiertos, pegado congelado a la hierba, que parecía mas nacidomuerto que atropellado.

Podría ir en bici a Hepstonhall o traerlo descongelándose a la cocina y dejarlo para que mis hijos lo vean. Estoy obsesionado.

Recuerdo la noche en la que llegué a casa y le dije que había terminado la propuesta del libro, y me dijo, ‘que Dios nos ayude a todos,’ y bebimos Prosecco y me dijo que me diera mi regalo de cumpleaños temprano. Era el cuervo de plástico. Hicimos el amor y le besé los omóplatos y Le recordé la historia de mis padres mintiéndome que los niños crecían alas y me dijo, ‘Mi cuerpo no es de pájaro.’

Estábamos justo en el medio, a años del final, sin dar nada por hecho.

Quiero estar allí de nuevo. Una y otra vez. Quiero ser abrazado, quería abrazar. Era el cuervo de plástico.

Hicimos el amor. La historia de las alas. Mi cuerpo no es de pájaro.

Otra vez.

Las alas. El amor.

De pájaro.

Otra vez. Lo ruego todo otra vez.

German Der Panther

Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris

Rainer Maria Rilke

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält. Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte, der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht, ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte, in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille sich lautlos auf —. Dann geht ein Bild hinein, geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille — und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.

The passing of the metal bars has tired out his gaze, has seen no world beyond, no stars, a thousand bars blurred in a daze.

He’s prowling lithely, a powerful stride, around in circles of the smallest kind, a force of nature, a dance alike, and in its centre paralyzed a mighty mind.

Just rarely lifts the pupil’s veil in silence - an image then descends in stillness tense from limbs to tail, and in the heart its journey ends.

In the Jardin des Plantes, Paris

Translated by Ilka Demmler

Piosenka wzruszająca

Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński

Choć twej młodości jasny płomień

Iskrami bucha oszołomień,

O Piękna ma,

Nie kusi mnie twych wdzięków wiosna, Kiedy promienna i radosna

Ku życiu drga…

Spoglądam z dala obojętny, Jak w żądzy szczęścia zbyt namiętnej

Zatracasz gust —

I patrzę z leniwym uśmiechem, Jak poisz się wciąż nowym grzechem

Wciąż z innych ust…

Lecz kiedy ujrzę w twojej twarzy

Cierpienie, co się w oczach żarzy

Posępną skrą —

Gdy w smutku widzę cię żałobie, Ach, wówczas muszę być przy tobie

Czuć mękę twą…

Ty mnie nie kochasz, ni ja ciebie, A jednak tulę cię do siebie,

Nie mówiąc nic —

I piję smutek twój, dziewczyno, I piję twoje łzy, co płyną

Z pobladłych lic…

Czy to jest przyjaźń idealna, Czy też perwersja seksualna? —

Obłędne sny — ?

Ach, nie wiem, co się ze mną stało, Lecz chciałbym pić przez wieczność całą

Twe drogie łzy, Twe drogie łzy…

Though the bright flame of your youth

Awesomely blooms that is the truth

O my delight, I am not tempted by your charms’ spring When radiant, with delightful zing It quivers to light…

From distance uninterested I look

As in the want of joy too lewd

You lose your tasteAnd I look with a lazy smile, As you drink new sin’s sweetest bile, From mouths unchaste…

But when I see in your face unmarred

Eyes burnt by pain and by pain charred

The sorrow sparks –When I see your mourning gloom

Ah, then I must enter your room

Feel your pain, stark…

You do not love me nor me you And yet an embrace we construe

Where no one speaksAnd so, I drink your sadness, dear And so I drink your flowing tears

From white-turned cheeks…

Is this platonic love’s ideal

Or a perverse, sexual ordeal

Feverish dreams - ?

Ah, I don’t know what came upon me, But I would want to ever more drink

A Moving Song

Translated by Jes Paluchowska

Your precious tears, Your precious tears…

Russian Osip Mandelstam

I

К пустой земле невольно припадая,

Неравномерной сладкою походкой

Она идет - чуть-чуть опережая

Подругу быструю и юношу погодка,

Бе влечет стесненная свобода

Одушевляющего недостатка,

И, может статься, ясная догадка

В ее походке хочет задержаться-

О том, что эта вешняя погода

Для нас - праматерь гробового свода,

И это будет вечно начинаться.

II

Есть женщины, сырой земле родные,

И каждый шаг их - гулкое рыданье,

Сопровождать воскресших и впервые

Приветствовать умерших - их призванье.

И ласки тре бовать у них преступно,

И расставаться с ними непосильно.

Сегодня - ангел, завтра - червь могильный,

А послезавтра - только очертанье...

Что было - поступь - станет недоступно...

Цветы бессмертны. Не бо целокупно.

И всё, что будет, - только обещанье.

Poems to Natalya Shtempel

Translated by Dr Kevin Kiely in consultation with Jes Paluchowska (TCD) & Elizaveta Domokeeva (TCD)

I

forcefully with heavy steps along hollow ground she limps with exertion, beyond a lady friend whose pace is faster—zig-zag movements are part of the attraction her rhythmic meditative walk towards the funeral of humanity

II

O women of mother earth each step sounds sorrowful towards the resurrected so familiar welcoming the dead—

it is criminal demanding loving kisses from you we lose our strength saying ‘farewell’ to these women— today this angel walks our world towards the grave the future shadowy as we step forward the sky is one clear blue immortal flower everything imminent is a promise—

je voudrais que mon amour meure

Samuel Beckett

je voudrais que mon amour meure qu’il pleuve sur le cimetière et les ruelles où je vais pleurant celle qui crut m’aimer

I want my love to die

English Translated by Dr Kevin Kiely

I want my love to die— and let rain fall on the cemetery as I go from alley to alley and cry: she only thought she loved me

Louise Norris - Roses

Spanish RUIDO

Elvira Sastre

Si te marchas hazlo con ruido: rompe las ventanas, insulta a mis recuerdos, tira al suelo todos y cada uno de mis intentos de alcanzarte, convierte en grito a los orgasmos, golpea con rabia el calor abandonado, la calma fallecida, el amor que no resiste, destroza la casa que no volverá a ser hogar.

Hazlo como quieras, pero con ruido.

No me dejes a solas con mi silencio.

MAKE SOME NOISE

Translated by Alannah Purslow

If you go make some noise: break the windows, insult my memories, throw each of my attempts to reach you to the dust, turn orgasms into screams, strike the abandoned heat, the perished peace of mind, the unrelenting love with your anger destroy the house that will never again be a home.

Do it as you see you fit, but make some noise.

Don’t leave me alone with my silence.

Spanish ESTRELLA FUGAZ

Elvira Sastre

Tal vez amar es aprender a caminar por este mundo. - OCTAVIO PAZ

Hay una tristeza propia de las cosas que las hace bellas y no quiero llegar a comprender nunca.

Hoy he tenido un sueño triste he despertado en una cama ausente, En unas sábanas blancas y tristes, Y en el balcón mis plantas me miraban tristes.

He salido a la calle y era pronto. Los domingos por la mañana Madrid es hermoso y duele: pasearla así ha sido como ver una estrella fugaz, y me ha parecido todo tan triste que me he puesto la canción más triste de mi cabeza y he deseado la soledad.

Me he acordado de este olvido mío y he maldecido el paso del tiempo por un momento; después he leído que la mujer de Cortázar Tenía ojos azules y apenados y el mundo se ha vuelto algo más sencillo, pero también más triste. Los fantasmas también quieren flores, pero la gente tiene miedo.

He visto a una pareja sentarse separada en el metro

Translated

by

Alannah Purslow

To love is to learn to walk the Earth. - OCTAVIO PAZ

There’s an inherent sadness to things that makes them beautiful and I don’t ever want to grasp it.

Today I had a sad dream I woke up in a bereft bed, in white and sad sheets, and on the balcony, my plants held my sunken gaze.

I went out on the street and it was early. On Sunday mornings Madrid is painfully beautiful: walking amongst its beauty is like watching a meteor falling, and it all seemed so sad to me, that I pressed play on the saddest song in my head, and longed for loneliness.

This forgetfulness of mine came to mind and for a moment, I cursed the transient time; then I read that Cortázar’s wife had blue and sorrowful eyes and the world somehow became simpler yet sadder. Spirits also want flowers, but people are just afraid.

I saw a couple sitting separately on the metro with their eyes only an inch apart, a little girl getting the giggles at the truth,

con los ojos a un centimetro de distancia, a una niña reírse a carcajadas de una verdad, dos manos besarse en una terraza, una tierra abandonada a través de una ventana a alguien pensando en otra vida, y me he puesto triste al verme en todos ellos.

Después, he vuelto a casa, a mi refugio blanco y triste, a mi paz en calma culpable, al fin de cada comienzo, y te he mirado, tranquila y bella en el sofá y en tu universo de estrella fugaz, y he dejado toda la tristeza en la puerta.

two hands kissing on a terrace, an abandoned world from a window, somebody contemplating another life, and I felt sad to see myself in all of them.

After all this, I went back home, to my sad, white refuge, to my calm in the guilty storm, to the end of every beginning, and I looked at you, serene and beautiful on the sofa and in your own meteoric world, and I left all my sadness at the door.

Italian Patrizia Cavalli

English Senza titolo

Quella nuvola bianca nella sua differenza insegue l’azzurro sempre uguale: lentamente si straccia nella trasparenza ma per un po’ mi consola del vuoto universale. E quando cammino per le strade e vedo in ogni passo una partenza vorrei accanto a me un bel viso naturale.

Untitled

Translated by Maria Sabina Sassi

That white cloud in its fickleness follows the never-changing light blue: slowly it tears into transparency yet for a while it comforts me from the universal void. And when I walk in the streets and I see in every step a departure I wish beside me a nice genuine visage.

Louise Norris - Overhead

Hilda Hilst

Como se te perdesse, assim te quero.

Como se não te visse (favas douradas

Sob um amarelo) assim te apreendo brusco

Inamovível, e te respiro inteiro

Um arco-íris de ar em águas profundas.

Como se tudo o mais me permitisses, A mim me fotografo nuns portões de ferro

Ocres, altos, e eu mesma diluída e mínima

No dissoluto de toda despedida.

Como se te perdesse nos trens, nas estações

Ou contornando um círculo de águas

Removente ave, assim te somo a mim:

De redes e de anseios inundada.

Translated

by

Thais Giammarco

As if I lost you, that is how I want you.

As if I couldn’t see you (golden beans

Under a yellow tone) that is how I grasp you blunt

Immovable, and breathe the whole of you

A rainbow of air in deep waters.

As if anything else you granted me, I photograph myself by gates of iron

Ocre, tall, and I myself diffuse and minimal In the dissolution of each farewell.

As if I lost you in trains, in stations Or going round a circle of waters

Nebulous bird, that is how I take you in: In meshes and yearnings submerged.

La pluie d’été

Marguerite Duras

Parfois les parents s’enfermaient tout à coup dans leur chambre sans pour autant être allés au centre-ville. Cela sans raison qui pouvait se dire sans doute, tellement elle était particulière, personnelle. Ernesto disait que c’était peut-être le printemps de mai. Il s’était souvenu que l’année d’avant et l’année d’encore avant ç’avait été pareil. C’était le cerisier en fleurs, ce printemps excessif que la mère disait ne plus pouvoir supporter, ne plus vouloir voir. Ce qui l’accablait c’était que le printemps puisse revenir. Toute la population de Vitry se réjouissait d’un temps si beau, si bleu et elle, la mère, elle insultait le cerisier en fleurs. Saloperie elle disait et en même temps elle interdisait qu’on le taille, qu’on coupe même les petits rameaux au bout des branches qui envahissaient la cuisine.

Une fois, Ernesto avait dit à Jeanne que peut-être ils se trompaient, elle et lui, que c’était peut-être pour s’aimer que les parents s’enfermaient dans la chambre.

Jeanne était restée muette après ce qu’avait dit Ernesto. Il avait regardé sa sœur longuement et elle avait été forcée de fermer les yeux. Et lui, ses yeux avaient tremblé et à leur tour ils s’étaient fermés. Lorsqu’ils auraient pu se regarder de nouveau ils avaient évité de le faire. Dans les jours qui avaient suivi ils n’avaient pas parlé. Ils n’avaient pas nommé cette nouveauté qui les avait anéantis et privés de parole.

Translated by Isabelle Mann

Sometimes the parents would suddenly close themselves up in their room without even going into the city centre. And this for no reason that could be spoken with any certainty, so particular, personal as it was. Ernesto said that it was maybe the springtime. He remembered that the year before and the year before that had been the same. It was the cherry blossoms on the trees, that excess of springtime which the mother said she couldn’t stand any longer, didn’t want to see any more. She was overwhelmed by the spring’s return. All the population of Vitry rejoiced at weather so beautiful, so blue while she, the mother, abused the cherry tree in bloom. Crap she said, and at the same time she forbade anyone from trimming it, from cutting even the ends of the branches that invaded the kitchen.

Once, Ernesto had said to Jeanne that maybe they were wrong, she and he, that it was maybe for love of each other that the parents closed themselves up in the room.

Jeanne had remained silent after Ernesto said this. He had looked long at his sister and she had been forced to close her eyes. And his eyes had trembled and had closed in their turn. Once they were able to look at each other again they avoided each other’s gaze. In the following days they didn’t speak. They hadn’t named this new feeling that crushed them and deprived them of their words.

De Profundis Amamus

Mário de Cesariny

Ontem às onze fumaste um cigarro encontrei-te sentado ficámos para perder todos os teus eléctricos os meus estavam perdidos por natureza própria

Andámos dez quilómetros a pé ninguém nos viu passar excepto claro os porteiros é da natureza das coisas ser-se visto pelos porteiros

Olha como só tu sabes olhar a rua os costumes O Público o vinco das tuas calças está cheio de frio é há quatro mil pessoas interessadas

De Profundis Amamus

Translated by Vicente Velasques

Yesterday, at eleven you smoked a cigarette I found you sitting we stood by missing all your trams mine were missed by their own nature

We walked ten kilometres on foot nobody saw us pass by except of course the doormen such is the nature of things to be seen by doormen

Look like only you know how the street the customs

The Public the bulge in your trousers It’s so cold and there are four thousand people interested

nisso

Não faz mal abracem-me os teus olhos de extremo a extremo azuis vai ser assim durante muito tempo decorrerão muitos séculos antes de nós mas não te importes muito

nós só temos a ver com o presente perfeito corsários de olhos de gato intransponível maravilhados maravilhosos únicos nem pretérito nem futuro tem o estranho verbo nosso

in it

It’s alright hold me in your gaze of pure and true blue it will be like this for a long time many centuries will come before us but don’t mind it much we only matter in the present perfect

marauders with cat-like eyes inscrutable marvelled marvellous unique neither past or future has this queer verb of ours.

Sono nata il ventuno a primavera

Alda Merini

“Sono nata il ventuno a primavera.

Sono nata il ventuno a primavera ma non sapevo che nascere folle, aprire le zolle, potesse scatenar tempesta. Così Proserpina lieve vede piovere sulle erbe, sui grossi frumenti gentili e piange sempre la sera. Forse è la sua preghiera.”

I was born on the twenty-first in spring

Translated

by Fabiola Perversi

“I was born on the twenty-first in spring.

I was born on the twenty-first in spring, but I never knew that to be born mad, to crack up slabs, would unleash a tempest. So Proserpina, fair, sees the rain that falls on herbs, on great and gentle wheats and sheds always nighttime tears. Perhaps that is her plea.”

English Wants

Philip Larkin

Beyond all this, the wish to be alone: However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards

However we follow the printed directions of sex

However the family is photographed under the flag-staffBeyond all this, the wish to be alone.

Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs: Despite the artful tensions of the calendar, The life insurance, the tabled fertility rites, The costly aversion of the eyes away from deathBeneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs.

Translated by Machaela Donnellan

Au-delà de tout cela, le souhait d’être seul:

Cependant le ciel s’assombrit avec les cartes d’invitation

Cependant nous suivrons les directions imprimées du sexe

Cependant la famille est photographiée sous le mât

Au-delà de tout cela, le souhait d’être seul.

Au-dessous de tout cela, le désir pour l’oubli persiste:

Malgré les tensions sournoises du calendrier,

L’assurance vie, les rites de fertilité mis de côté,

L’aversion coûteuse des yeux loin de la mort -

Au-dessous de tout cela, le désir d'oublier persiste.

Contributors

Tomasz Balcerkiewicz is a Senior Fresher History of Art and Architecture / English Literature student.

Eirini Maria Bregianni is a Greek translator based in Dublin. Having a strong foundation in English Language and Literature, she is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Literary Translation at Trinity College Dublin.

Molly Crawford is a final year student of Middle Eastern and European Languages and Cultures at Trinity College Dublin. She enjoys both travelling and talking about said travels. Subsequently, she took to learning languages to justify this hobby, and now uses this knowledge to share her love of words.

Lluis Cuesta (Xixón, 2001) studied for his Bachelor’s degree in Classical Philology and Asturleonese in Granada (Andalusia) and Uviéu (Asturies) and recently completed an M.Phil. in Classics at Trinity. He enjoys the taste of black tea, Ribera wine (in moderation!), and hot chocolate, as well as the sound of waves in any harbour and the indescribable smell of books filled with history.

Ilka Demmler is an aspiring literary translator who recently completed her Master’s Degree in Literary Translation at TCD. Passionate about languages and literature, she works with English, Spanish, and German. When not immersed in words, she can be found exploring the outdoors.

Neil P. Doherty, originally from Kildare, Ireland, resident in Istanbul since 1995. He is a translator of Turkish prose and poetry. His translations have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Wales, The Dreaming Machine, The Honest Ulsterman, The Seattle Star and The Berlin Quarterly. He is currently working on an anthology of Turkish Poetry for Dedalus Poetry, Dublin.

Machaela Donnellan is a fourth year English and French student of Trinity College Dublin. As graduation approaches, she cannot help but wonder if she should have chosen a more employable degree.

Denis Ferhatović is a multilingual Bosnian-American scholar and writer. You can find his work in Rumba Under Fire, Index on Censorship, The Riddle Ages, Iberian Connections, Turkoslavia, Double Speak, Exchanges, and in various scholarly journals and collections.

I. E. Forrest is a third year History and Ancient History undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin. Their favourite novel is a Dutch fantasy book from 1962, which they read in translation for the first time aged eleven. They have been fascinated by language and translation ever since. This is their first published work.

Liam Frabetti is an Irish/Italian graduate of TSM History/French. Much like the author of his translated piece, he’s partial to a freshly baked biscuit.

Thais Giammarco is a Brazilian translator taking an MPhil in Literary Translation at Trinity College Dublin. She is interested in the translation of poetry and other short literary forms.

Mackenzie Hilton is a medical librarian in Toronto, Canada. Holding an MA in Classics, and an MI in Library & Information Science, Mackenzie’s research interests include Greek and Latin literature, and the interplay between the Greek and Latin languages.

Kevin Kiely., Poet, Critic, Author; PhD (UCD) in the Patronage of Poetry at the Edward Woodberry Poetry Room, Harvard University; W. J. Fulbright Scholar in Poetry, Washington (DC); M. Phil., in Poetry, Trinity College (Dublin); Hon. Fellow in Writing., University of Iowa; Patrick Kavanagh Fellowship Award in Poetry; Bisto Award Winner.

Elsa Kulatunga is a student of Classics and Religion at Trinity College Dublin, visiting from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Her mother tongue is Swedish, in addition to which she reads Ancient Greek, Latin, and French. Besides her interest in translation theory, Elsa is interested in aspects of intellectual history.

Ray Linn will soon graduate from Maynooth University with a Master's in Spanish and Latin American Studies. His thesis explores professional wrestling, the US-Mexico border, and more. His dream is to be a lucha libre superstar, but he will settle for (and, truly, he will enjoy) research and translation.

Sara Lynch is a half Finnish, half Royal County citizen who finds great pleasure in discovering new poetry. She is a fourth year psychology student in her free time.

Eoin MacNally is a poet, born and currently living in Dublin. He has published a number of poems in a variety of publications, including Icarus, both in Ireland and internationally. He believes in the translating of poetry ‘as a means of beginning a day’s work’.

Isabelle Mann recently completed the MPhil in literary translation in Spanish, French, and English at Trinity College. Born and raised in New York, she obtained undergraduate degrees in cultural anthropology and Spanish literature from Fordham University. She has worked in Madrid and Marseille as an English teacher and freelance interpreter.

Giulia Nati - please please please call her Jules - is a second year English Studies student, but doing a History minor is what is central in her personality. She really, really likes Emily Dickinson - all of the American Renaissance, actually - and Ancient Greek Literature.

Jes Paluchowska is a third year English Major in a constant struggle against modernism and the ghost of Hegel. They love modern gothic literature and overcomplicating their original writing with references.

Fabiola Perversi is a third-year English Major in Trinity. She was born in Milan, Italy, where she cultivated her passion for literature, especially theatre and poetry.

Elvira Petrovici is an aspiring writer, fluent in both English and Romanian, currently studying for a degree in history. She has worked on a variety of projects including translating Romanian historical documents, and is now seeking to combine her love for the written word alongside her linguistic skills to contribute to the Journal of Literary Translations.

Alannah Purslow completed her M.Phil in Literary Translation at TCD this summer. Her working languages are English, Spanish and French. She loves reading, musical theatre and watching endless Hallmark movie reruns.

Ioana Răducu is the deputy editor of Trinity JoLT and a final year student of English Literature and French.

Maria Sabina Sassi is a third-year student of History of Art and Architecture at Trinity College, whose passion for arts has accompanied her since infancy thanks to her parents’ interest in visual arts, music and literature. She discovered Patrizia Cavalli in her adolescence and helped her understand the importance of personal growth.

Eve Smith is the art editor of JoLT and currently working on a collection of short stories.

Nina Stremersch. is a third-culture third-year undergrad and scholar in Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin. She is glad that her work in Philosophy heightens her impulse toward poetry and literature. Still thinking about how metaphor introduces sense experience into language, and thus enables thought..

Vicente Velasques is a Portuguese translator doing an MPhil in Literary Translation in Trinity College Dublin. He enjoys translating speculative and ergodic fiction. He is also very passionate about minority languages and sequential art.

Artists

Monica Elena Grigoraș is a second year Medicine student at TCD.

Louise Norris is currently the co-editor of Icarus and avid marathon runner (she wept when she ran a 5k in February).

Elvira Petrovici is an aspiring writer, fluent in both English and Romanian, currently studying for a degree in history. She has worked on a variety of projects including translating Romanian historical documents, and is now seeking to combine her love for the written word alongside her linguistic skills to contribute to the Journal of Literary Translations.

Eve Smith is the art editor of JoLT and currently working on a collection of short stories.

Naemi Victoria is a visual artist, film reviewer, and PhD student in Film Studies. She primarily draws digitally, but also works with traditional media, like acrylics on canvas or pencil on paper. Her intuitive style weaves together line art and intricate detail into a mesmerizing visual narrative.

Eve Smith - Untitled

They are both convinced, That they were connected by a sudden feeling. Certainity like that is beautiful, yet uncertainity is even more beautiful.

- excerpt from 'Love at first sight' by Wisława Szymborska transl. Julianna Żarnowska