Poetry
The Monk and the Child
Translated by Andrew Wachtel
In the cognac twilight sheep hearts will keep on beating to the rhythm of the switch,
after our exile a stocking’s elastic will slip down—air ripped by shepherd’s smoke;
Returning home, by the church gates a monk will find his sorrow in a bast basket—
an abandoned child, whose age
will suggest beating a path to the silted pond; but having torn away the
yellow rushes with his nails, he’ll draw back from the water in terror,
having seen the wrinkled white triangle
of a face and not his star
in the reflection. Loud steers will bellow in the stockyard.
and then, having emptied his backpack he’ll stomp
cheese and blood sausage into the roadside dust, and roll in wormwood ‘til dawn.
He’ll go mad, and lose his faith in the spines of wise books,
in joyful blackberry fields, and in the vaults
where once he mortified his flesh and repented with lowered eyes, but only in Latin;
The child will sleep tranquilly as children do, and upon waking
will stare at him—from the corner of his eye.
Contributor
Anzhelina PolonskayaANZHELINA POLONSKAYA lives in Moscow. "A Voice: Selected Poems" was published by Northwestern University Press in 2004.
RECOMMENDED ARTICLES

Women in Concrete Poetry 1959–1979
By Megan N. LibertyNOV 2020 | Art Books
This addendum to the history of concrete poetry makes evident the connections between concrete poetry and artist books. Chance visual connections between the diverse works included make visible the materiality of language, the unifying component of concrete poetry.
A chessboard drawn by the child Kuba
By Erín MoureAPRIL 2020 | Critics Page
Erín Moure’s most recent poetry is The Elements (Toronto: House of Anansi) and most recent translation is Uxío Novoneyra’s The Uplands: Book of the Courel and other poems (El Paso: Veliz Books) from Galician. She folds paper in Montreal.
Joseph Jarman's Black Case Volume I & II: Return From Exile
By George GrellaMAY 2020 | Art Books
A republication of the jazz artists self-published 1974 DIY book, this edition maintains its DIY quality filled with typewritten text and photographs. It is a collection of poetry, both in prose-poem manner and free verse, that explores his personal history and the larger world of African-American culture surrounding him.
“POETRY AS FORCES” AFTER Cecilia Vicuña
By Andrea Abi-KaramAPR 2019 | Critics Page
The "about to happen" / "poetry as forces" when Cecilia Vicuña says that the lies (the words, the language) of the Chilean dictatorship murdered & tortured thousands of people I remember the power of the word & i remember the power of poetry"made of forces"that holds something in the action of language