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Global Voices Interviews
At LIT, we see translation as the essence of all writing – whether it’s translating across languages or transforming life into words, images, and sound. From the individual to the collective, from the intimate to the universal: in the end, it’s all about translation. We are thrilled to share this newest, brilliant installment of Global Voices from Indonesia.
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“Wild Cranes” Four poems by Nirmal Ghosh (translated into Chinese by Liuyu Ivy Chen)
The “Wild Cranes” poetry and calligraphy exhibition featuring works by Nirmal Ghosh, Liuyu Ivy Chen, Zhao Xu, and Tanya Ghosh will be held at the Chinese American Museum, DC from 12 to 19 July 2021.
1.
How long can one gaze into the green hills,
Between curtains of rain?
The dribble of water down the gutter
Measures our minutes on this Earth.
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透过雨帘，
你能凝望青山多久？
雨水滴入沟槽
倒数我们在地球上的一分一秒。
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Global Voices Interviews *Hungary* Kinga Tóth & Timea Balogh in conversation with LIT’s JP Apruzzese
The Hungarian version of this interview is forthcoming in Aprokrif in early 2021.
In Kinga Tóth’s world everything is alive and moving and coalescing at each moment. Separation and disconnection are notions she considers unnatural in the natural world. In her work, the multimedia artist and poet captures what most of us neglect to see – not so much the interconnectedness of everything – which suggests the possibility of disconnection – but rather the relentless and organic becoming of everything into one living body that contains all animate and inanimate life.
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Five poems from “Nomad” by João Luís Barreto Guimarães (translated from the Portuguese by António Ladeira and Calvin Olsen) Artwork by Anthony Ulinski
In the photographs of others
I am present in the past of lives I
have no knowledge of (men who saunter to the north
women who are headed south) in
photos
that tied me to several foreign cities
where my face remained retained
by mere chance. A photo is memory
(like a map
is voyage)
in them I’m anonymous at the corner of
a scene
just because I crossed that square
at that time. -
Five Poems from “In the morning we are glass” by Andra Schwarz (translated from the German by Caroline Wilcox Reul) Artwork by Hannu Töyrylä
In the morning we are glass
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Am morgen sind wir aus glas
My hands reach into emptiness what is left under earth
I walk to the black mill at its edge the spring
nothing moves I still hear the grinding of wheels
the spray of water and how they revolve decades
in the millworks the building the dismantling the change
finally the child from then no one knows what might have been
every year another ring grows wolves prowl in the
forest now that I’m gone everything is large & -
Excerpts from the book length poem “Melismas” by Marlon Hacla (translated from the Filipino by Kristine Ong Muslim) Artwork by Tilde Acuña
Excerpts from
Melismas
Because I had been given healing salts, objects
that bring restoration, I shall brave the ripeness
of the week for you. I will sing about strengths
that seek loneliness but capable of saving
the world from impairment caused by its own
design. I have no more use
for you but each time I discard
the list that condones your utility,
a rice paddy’s hue turns pale, blankets are suddenly blown away
to reach every layer of the sky.
