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
“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
Why Poetry Now
By Ann LauterbachAPR 2018 | Editor's Message
A friend recently handed me a bumper sticker that reads WHO NEEDS POETRY. A question in the form of a statement.
JAMES ENGLISH LEARY with Charles Schultz
NOV 2018 | Art
James English Leary was part of the gang of artists who brought Bruce High Quality into the world, and then took Bruce out of it.
Tisa Bryant, Miranda Mellis, and Katie Aymar's The Encyclopedia Project, Volume III L-Z
By Eli HillMAR 2018 | Art Books
The Encyclopedia Project Volume III L-Z is the latest and last volume in a series that seeks to create a new kind of encyclopedia by implementing a new kind of editorial process. The brainchild of Brown MFA alumni Tisa Bryant, Miranda Mellis, and Kate Schatz, The Encyclopedia Project began over a decade ago when each editor contributed a unique roster of potential authors. The editors offered each contributor a short list of words tailored to their interests, for which they could write one or more entries, and stipulated only that these entries range from one sentence to 4,000 words and address the question, “What occurs under the sign of fiction?” The result of this editorial process is three volumes of entries defined by experimental writing and artworks by authors—a web of artists, poets, novelists, and experimental writers—who represent various ages, races, sexualities, and gender backgrounds.
