May 3, 2019
Eleni Vakalo
Translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich


                                                                                      I   weep   over  the   body
                                                                                      of  a  sleeping   child  for
                                                                                      I feel  I  will   betray  him
                                                                                      before a new day dawns.

 



              Let my confession
              Be written for the first time
              With its true name
              Confession
              And not an attempt at poetry
              Since that’s how it must be
              I must hurt even more

              Once I could protect myself
              Now I call it solitude


 
Related to this, I’ll add to my memories that I once had a dog.
I thought there could be nothing better than to be a dog. The
way you hit them and they submit.

 
It’s been a long time since then.

 
              As for what I’ve left
              Today
              For you to understand
              It wasn’t from love
              It was because
              One can drown in the forest
              And I only wanted
              To find a way out

  
                                                                        (Pause for deep breath)

 
 



                                                                                     This poem
                                                                                     Is my last revolutionary act
                                                                                     Before I obey
                                                                                     The advice of foreigners.



                                                                                                           January–February 1952   
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THE STORY OF OUR LIVES DO NOT HAVE FACES: SALLY WEN MAO INTERVIEWED BY ANNE ANLIN CHENG
 

"Art has a role not to redeem history, but to reanimate and reimagine the lost moments, the feelings never expressed, the secrets never surfaced. I think that it’s possible for art to reckon with and mourn this loss even as it imagines or recovers what has been lost. I think it’s possible to simultaneously arrive at both." 

via BOMB Magazine
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Brian Teare's handwritten version of "As Kingfisher's Catch Fire"

"I remember the moment I learned words could record the reciprocal press of poet upon the world and the world upon poet. A truant undergraduate student, I had signed up late for a “Modern British Poetry” course, and came to the second class unprepared. The assigned reading was Gerard Manley Hopkins."
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