in silence, those dark minutes of recess when they stomp on my shadow with their hyena / laughter
(poetry)
Category: Translations
She returned home when her village was liberated after six months of occupation. Her house greeted her with a collapsed wall.
(translations)
It was late in the evening and dark, the dark river with its lights passing by, reflections from the Seine travelling across the ceiling, sliding along the walls.
That day has never ended. / The fence he built is still new.
Entangled one with another they watch us. / The good died too soon.
(translations)
O, old ocean! the river has mixed with your waters / where I so often bathed
The roof soars so high above the sky’s hanging at arm’s length / And you, dear, are now drunk on a thousand glasses of wine
“Looking up / the wave of your gaze arrived / upon my shore.”
He demands I be a man. What is it to be a man? I ask him.
“In this story, day zero is when I live, and you die.”
(fiction)
“for just a moment I lived / through what they may have felt”
He remains in place next to the stove, watching everyone, observing their flaws.
(fiction)
just a slight breeze, early in the morning / as you lie asleep and the bulb / you planted pushes through the soil
Four poems by Alain Mabanckou, translated from the French (Congo-Brazzaville) by Nancy Naomi Carlson
He rejects the idea that Humankind descended from the apes, otherwise why has he, the gorilla, remained at the animal stage?
(poetry)
“wind unravels the light / seeks a face / for the coming storms” (TCTC translations/poetry)
The latest in our FORTHCOMING series of excerpts from new books
“I fell in love with a sweet-lipped / bitter-eyed / girl from Balkh”
(poetry)
Now the extent of my friend’s madness was clear. I couldn’t understand how I’d failed to realize it earlier.
(fiction/translation)
She didn’t go to a hospital—with the traffic in Bogotá, she’s sure she would have ended up giving birth in a taxi!
(fiction)
“d. h. lawrence”
“fuck your cv”
(TCTC translations/poetry)
“The Blind Musicians”
“Pontos”
“The Smokers”
(poetry)
“Colorado”
“Arkansas”
(poetry)
When Owlet was two years old I ran across the phrase “a mother should tempt her child into the world.” Meaning that she should show her child how cool it is to be alive, how interesting it is, how inspiring. Something like that. And that’s probably a good idea. I’m trying.
(drama)
Night:
#42
43
44
47
(poetry)
“That which befell you neither occurred nor didn’t occur”
“At the end of every season”
“Discover the place where you live”
(poetry)
Another Chicago Magazine 