Poems by Barid Baran

The Almosts That silence is full, almost When tobacco-roses Fly out of old diary pages, And ants crawl across the table Like love’s own mischief, Crumbling fancies reach the feet As we touch the river with our toes To be tugged by the heart Of our soliloquys. We knew romance As the flute of solitudes, Dulcet enough to be drowned In the laughter of The priest and the disciples, A young God tells us From the depths of leftover wine, Being ancient isn’t the spirit Of our history. Love, the…

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Poems of Barrina South

Cockatoos my eyes caress his limbs diaphanous droplets glisten like a crown on the canopy I press against the cool bark from the valley floor whee-la whee-la whee-la a mournful cry that has circled all day bringing more makarra some land heavy loosen the jewels that shower down onto the nape of my neck others crack pinecones a glimpse of a yellow blush cheek I eavesdrop on clicks and chatter envious of their gentle allopreening as they leave believing I can touch their sombre underbellies reach out I am home…

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Poems of Amelia Walker

Gone. Now. Still. Written on Kaurna Yarta, the lands of the Kaurna people, where I was born and live as a non-indigenous person ignorant of so very much. I was born here, decades gone now, still I have no way of saying where — no words for this red glory I call dirt. But that’s not one, not any of the names to which it answers. Soundless, the mouths of my feet seal over like they were never there — here (true: they never were — whoever heard of feet…

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Three Poems of Yuan Hongri

Translated by Yuanbing Zhang Bio:Yuan Hongri (born 1962) is a renowned Chinese mystic, poet, and philosopher. His work has been published in the UK, USA, India, New Zealand, Canada, and Nigeria; his poems have appeared in Poet’s Espresso Review, Orbis, Tipton Poetry Journal, Harbinger Asylum, The Stray Branch, Pinyon Review, Taj Mahal Review, Madswirl, Shot Glass Journal, Amethyst Review, The Poetry Village, and other e-zines, anthologies, and journals. His best known works are Platinum City and Golden Giant. His works explore themes of prehistoric and future civilization. Yuanbing Zhang (b.…

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Aritra Sanyal in conversation with Alexander Shurbanov

Alexander Shurbanov (Sofia, 1941) has published twelve volumes of poetry and six collections of essays. Shurbanov is the Bulgarian translator of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, Milton’s Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes, Coleridge’s poetry and prose, Dylan Thomas’s poems, Beatrix Potter’s tales, a collection of nursery rhymes, etc., as well as of Shakespeare’s mature tragedies. He has also translated a representative collection of Rabindranath Tagore’s poetry. For over four decades Shurbanov has taught English literature at Sofia University and has published a number of literary critical books dealing with the English…

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Poems of Ricardo Venegas

Ricardo Venegas (San Luis Potosí, SLP, Mexico, 1973), always has lived in Cuernavaca, Morelos. He studied Letras Hispánicas in the Faculty of philosophy and letters at UNAM and is master in Mexican literature by the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, BUAP, graduated with honors. Member of the Board of national advisors of the Mexican Academy for education and research in science, arts and Humanities (2015). His texts have appeared in the magazines Siempre, Ulrika, Casa Silva y Arquitrave (Colombia), Buenos Aires Poetry (Argentina), Agulha (Brasil), Siete culebras (Perú), revista de…

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Poetry is a Movement of Thought in a Visual Field

Murat Nemet-Nejat, a Turkish-American poet, essayist and translator. I met him first time during his reading session of his book length poem Animals of Dawn at Kolkata, organized by Kaurab in 2016. I was absolutely mesmerized by his reading. Words and sounds were engraving the architecture of animals, plants, speck of dust, dew of dawn with colour and without colour to transform Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It was a journey of a poet to search for the metaphor between void and non-void, real and unreal, living and un-living, sanity and insanity. A…

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Aritra Sanyal in conversation with Elizabeth Willis

“…within my own work that I like best are places where I experienced a sense of mystery—rather than mastery”   I thought I was reading but suddenly I’m read. Some kind of artist then, painting his targets. Distinct or in- distinct sensation? I prefer clarity when I can afford it. So what if another flower plagiarized the rosary? I’d pick up a dime in private or a quarter in public, mon- ey’s always been ‘dirty’, some kind of death wish. Sure I’d like to own a pet, not own but…

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Dispatches from Hermetic Definition to Hermetic Divagations

  A slowly unfolding rose…yes, that is the cover page of Hermetic Divagations: After H.D., a collection  of poetry by Michael Boughn, an USAmerican/Canadian poet, whom I know through his well-known online journal, ‘Dispatches from the Poetry Wars’, he edits with Kent Johnson. The slowly unfolding rose reminds me the line from Ezra Pound’s Canto 106, “so slow is the rose to open”. Question comes into mind, is it symbolizing Pound’s rose or Rose-Croix, the Christian Symbolism? But “After H.D” in the title of the book turns my attention to Hilda…

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Poems of Nighat Sahiba

A Peace Poem You kill people in front of me, I mourn And people kill you infront of me, I mourn; You kill people for them, they celebrate And people kill you for them, they celebrate; The “I’s “are only few: scattered, tired and shrinking, The “they’s”are many: united, energetic and expanding. (Poem and translation by: Nighat Sahiba)   Barren Land “A barren land you are,” you said, “yielding nothing!” Oceans welled up in my eyes The drop that remained concealed, turned into a pearl And the drop that found…

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POEMS OF PRABIR ROY

Prabir Roy Born in 1952, Roy, an electrical engineer by profession, became a permanent resident of Jalpaiguri by choice and by love. Address – Shyamalchhaya, Ukilpara, Jalpaiguri. He was associated with “Sanhato kabita” (compact poetry) movement. Prabir Roy’s first book “Magic LanThon” (Magic Lantern) was published in 1980. Roy was involved with “Erka” and “Ekhon” magazines. He is always a great guide, mentor and friend of young poets. Almost 20 books of Roy got published till now. In 2013, his “Poetry Collection-1” was published from ‘ekhon – bangla kabitar kagoj’…

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Poems of Alina Stefanescu

Polytropos, Tuscaloosa The neighborhood alphas leave engines running as hands soap car windows with specialized sponges. I try watching but the plot is deadbeat daddy, common weekend refrain. Patches of armpit sweat vary by fabric but football logos every pocket. Silence is a scrimmage I invent back plots yet action runs circle to circle. Huddles over tires. We are oval at best, baby blue eggs lining Easter baskets. Kids shuck corn from cobs and leave the silk on the lawn for nests. A mom wonders what happened to muses. A…

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An Introduction to Galician Poetry: Manuel Antonio’s Poems

Spanish poetry is well known across the world – being one of the most widely spoken languages helps, no doubt. However, within the Spanish speaking countries and people, other languages and poetries exist. They may share a common modern context more than they share a common past; still, each of these languages has a particular poetic tradition, generally shunned from literary discussions not so much for lack of merits as for lack of awareness. I am fortunate to belong to one of such poetic traditions, Galician poetry. The shadow of…

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Poems of Chengru He

Gift The gift of today is eyes of the tree who dedicates to me a world slow and deep. Persimmons fall, autumn ends, the soil narrates a tale of time. Birds take off from the water, too hurried to bid farewells to a damp dream. A man walks out of the tent. His pipe was left at yesterday. Feet are invited into the soil. Wind baptizes memories.   Banquet The banquet is held at the tunnel underneath the bottom. The artisan sewed up a flute with moonlight fine and soft.…

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Poems of Manindra Gupta

The Second Era of the Timeless, Continuous Tradition of Bangla Poetry Comes to an End When I finished reading poems for our timeless, ever-continuing tradition of Bangla poetry and looked up I was staring at the last part of the month of Chaitra, the end of the year. Under the open, clear sky, the earth looked clearer, but because I have been reading poems year after year the outlines of alphabets, like iron rods in prison gates, are still walking  in front of my eyes. The moment I came out…

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Poems of Kristi Maxwell

Plenty To nanny ghosts          or just baby them chill children, subtracted adults           I hold a ghost in the bassinet of my mouth                a cherry tomato without a crown Things I’ve learned: an AMBER alert is a bacronym, created to honor the kidnapped and murdered girl who inspired it             all-capped and angry    ghost in a letter behind which is a hidden room            a whole word   a harnessed sound the bacronym and acronym a kind of camping chair   making cartable the broader seat of a phrase                 a kind of bacon that’s an…

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Poems of Heidi Lynn Staples

DUST Dust is the only secret from the grate’s breath. Dust an unseamed presence the lights at night flare in the house, house whose windows are eyes to the sole body, mine, whispers of dust spilled everywhere throughout. The cabinets and dresses shushed and veiled by dust, these bodies unbecoming wide-spread public unrecorded, can you see their eyes? In the morning, when I dust off the piano, I see a park of single-wides shipwrecked on bricks porches empty blinds drawn everyone inside. They begin to sing, first softly then loudly…

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The Return

Returning is equivalent to remembering. The two are synonyms, inseparable brothers, rather conjoined twins sharing one heart, big enough to pump enough blood to both semantic bodies. Returning involves repetition, and as it happens, having returned we must go through cupboards and drawers the content of which we do not easily recall. They demand a thorough exploration that leads us to the rediscovery of something we once knew, thought, felt and had. Returning is an exercise of memory, a prophylactic technique against Alzheimer’s disease. Inside drawers and cupboards, in wait…

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