The Penguin Book of the Prose Poem

by Jeremy Noel-Tod

  There are natures purely contemplative, completely unsuited for action, who nevertheless, under mysterious unknown impulses, act sometimes with a rapidity of which they would suppose themselves incapable.

  Those for instance who, afraid their concierge may have bad news for them, pace an hour timorously before daring to go in; those who hold letters for two weeks before opening them, or wait six months to take some step that has been immediately necessary for a year already – but sometimes abruptly feel precipitated into action by an irresistible force, like an arrow leaving the bow. Moralists and doctors, who claim to know everything, fail to explain from whence so sudden a mad energy comes to these lazy, voluptuous souls and why, incapable of the simplest and most necessary things, they find at certain moments a spurt of first class courage to execute the most absurd and even most dangerous actions.

  A friend of mine, as harmless a dreamer as ever was, one day set a forest on fire, in order to see, he said, if a fire would catch as easily as generally claimed. Ten times the experiment failed; but the eleventh it was all too successful.

  Another lit a cigar next to a powder keg, to see, to see if, to tempt fate, to force himself to prove his own energy, to gamble, to feel the pleasures of anxiety, for nothing, caprice, to kill time.

  This sort of energy springs from ennui and reverie; and those in whom it so unexpectedly appears are in general, as I have said, the most indolent and dreamy of mortals.

  Another, timid to the extent of lowering his eyes before anybody’s gaze, to the point of having to pull together his poor will to enter a cafe or go past the ticket office of a theater (where the managers seem to him invested with the majesty of Minos, of Aeacus and of Rhadamanthus) will all of a sudden fall on the neck of some geezer and embrace him enthusiastically, to the astonishment of passers-by.

  Why? Because … because of an irresistibly sympathetic physiognomy? Maybe, but we may well suppose that he himself has no idea.

  More than once I have been victim to these crises, these outbursts, that give some authority to the notion that malicious Demons slip into us and make us unwittingly accomplish their most absurd wishes.

  One morning I got up on the wrong side, dejected, worn out from idleness, driven it seemed to me to perform some grand, some brilliant action. And, alas! I opened the window.

  (Please note that the urge to practical jokes, in certain persons, the result neither of work nor planning, but of mere chance inspiration, belongs largely, even if only through the eagerness of desire, to that temper – hysterical according to doctors; by rather better minds than a doctor’s, satanic – which drives us irresistibly towards a host of dangerous or indecent acts.)

  The first person I noticed in the street was a glazier whose cry, piercing, discordant, came up to me through the oppressive and dirty Parisian atmosphere. Impossible for me to say why this poor fellow roused in me a hatred as sudden as despotic.

  ‘– Hey there!’ and I yelled for him to come up, meanwhile reflecting, not without amusement, that, my room being on the sixth floor and the stairs very narrow, the man would find it difficult to effect his ascent, to maneuver at certain spots the corners of his fragile merchandise.

  Finally he appeared: I examined curiously all his glass and said to him: ‘What? you have no colored glass? pink, red, blue glass, magical glass, the glass of paradise? Shameful! you dare promenade this poor district and you don’t even have glass to suggest a better life!’ And I pushed him smartly towards the staircase where he stumbled growling.

  I went to the balcony, picked up a little pot of flowers, and when the man came out of the door below, I let my war machine fall straight down, onto the edge of his hooks. The shock sending him over backwards, he smashed under his back the whole petty fortune he carried, from which burst the sound of a crystal palace shattered by a bolt of lightning.

  And, drunk with my folly, I shouted at him, madly, ‘The beauty of life! the beauty of life!’

  These nervous pleasantries are not without danger, and sometimes quite costly. But what’s an eternity of damnation to one who has found in such an instant infinite satisfaction?

  Charles Baudelaire (1869), translated from the French by Keith Waldrop

  The Madman

  One carolous coin; or, if you would like, a golden lamb.

  – MS in the King’s Library

  The moon was grooming her hair with an ebony comb, sprinkling the hills, the meadows, and the woods with fireflies like pieces of silver.

  Scarbo, gnome sated with treasures, was up on my roof, and, to the crow of the weathercock, was winnowing his loot, separating the ducats and florins, which jingled in cadence, from the counterfeit coins, which showered over the street.

  How the madman laughed, mockingly, as each night he wandered about the deserted city, his one eye on the moon and the other – burned out!

  ‘Wealth of the moon,’ he muttered. ‘Scraping together these devil’s tokens, I shall buy a pillory where I may warm myself in the sun.’

  But, as always, there was the moon, the moon going down – and concealed in my cellar, Scarbo was turning out more ducats and florins with each echoing strike of his press.

  Meantime, its two horns waving ahead, a snail, which must have been confused by the night, was pushing its way across my glistening windowpane.

  Aloysius Bertrand (1842), translated from the French by Thomas Ligotti

  The Mason

  The Master Mason: ‘Come look at these bastions, these buttresses; they seem to have been built for all eternity.’

  – Schiller, William Tell

  The Mason Abraham Knupfer is singing, trowel in hand, scaffolded up so high that, as he examines the gothic inscription on the great cathedral bell, even the soles of his feet stand high above the rooftops of the thirty-arched church, in this town of thirty churches.

  He sees gargoyles spewing water from the slates down into the entangled abyss of galleries, windows, pendants, pinnacles, roofs, turrets and timberwork which the falcon’s hovering wing punctuates with its one still point.

  He sees the star-shaped outlines of the fortification-walls, the citadel sticking out like some fat hen inside a piecrust, the palace courtyards with their sun-dried fountains, and the monastery cloisters, where the sun revolves around the pillars.

  The imperial guard is quartered at the edge of town. In the distance, a soldier is drumming. Abraham Knupfer can see his tri-cornered hat, his epaulets of red wool, his cockade crimped with a rosette, and his pigtail tied with a bow.

  The next thing he sees are some soldiers who, in a far-off park surrounded by dense foliage, on wide, broad lawns, are firing with some blunderbusses at a wooden bird nailed to the top of a maypole.

  And in the evening, when the echoing nave of the cathedral falls asleep, its arms folded in a cross, he sees from his lofty ladder a village set afire by troops, flaming like a comet in the deep-blue sky.

  Aloysius Bertrand (1842), translated from the French by Michael Benedikt

  Haarlem

  While Amsterdam’s golden cockerel doth sing and spin,

  Haarlem’s golden chicken dwells within.

  – The Centuries of Nostradamus

  Haarlem, that fine free-hand sketch, birthplace of the Flemish school, Haarlem as painted by Breughel the Elder, Peter Neefs, David Teniers and Paul Rembrandt.

  With its canal full of shimmering blue water, and its church with flaming, golden windows, and the stone porches with bed-linen drying in the sun, with its roofs, green with straw.

  And the storks sailing around the town clock, stretching out their necks to catch raindrops in their beaks.

  And the slow-moving burgomeister stroking his double chin, and the lovelorn florist growing thinner and thinner, her eye battened upon a tulip.

  And the gypsy leaning over his mandolin, and the old man playing upon the Rommelpot, and the child filling up his wineskin-bladder.

  And the drinkers smoking in some dark dive, and the hotelkeeper’s ser
vant hanging up a dead pheasant in the window.

  Aloysius Bertrand (1842), translated from the French by Michael Benedikt

  Acknowledgements

  The editor gratefully acknowledges the following for permission to reprint copyright material:

  PAIGE ACKERSON-KIELY: ‘Cry Break’ from My Love is a Dead Arctic Explorer (Ahsahta Press, 2012). MEENA ALEXANDER: ‘Burnt Hair’ from House of a Thousand Doors (Three Continents Press, 1988), reprinted by permission of the author. AGHA SHAHID ALI: ‘Return to Harmony 3’ from The Veiled Suite: The Collected Poems (W. W. Norton, 2009), reprinted by permission of the publisher. SIMON ARMITAGE: ‘The Experience’ from Seeing Stars (Faber & Faber, 2010), reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. HANS ARP: ‘Around the Star’s Throne’, trans. by Bethany Schneider, from Models of the Universe, ed. by Stuart Friebert and David Young (Oberlin College Press, 1995), reprinted by permission of the publisher. JOHN ASHBERY: ‘For John Clare’ from Collected Poems 1956–1987 (Carcanet, 2010) and ‘Homeless Heart’ from Quick Question (Carcanet, 2013), reprinted by permission of the publisher. TIM ATKINS: Folklore, part 20 (Salt, 2008), reprinted by permission of the author. MARGARET ATWOOD: ‘In Love with Raymond Chandler’ (© O. W. Toad Ltd. 1983, 1992, 1994) from Good Bones and Simple Murders (Nan A. Talese, 1994), reprinted by permission of Nan A. Talese, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. W. H. AUDEN: ‘Argument: I’ from The Orators, in The English Auden: Poems, Essays and Dramatic Writings, 1927–1939, ed. by Edward Mendelson (Faber & Faber, 1977), reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. CHARLES BAUDELAIRE: ‘The Bad Glazier’, trans. by Keith Waldrop, from Paris Spleen (Wesleyan University Press, 2009), used by permission of the publisher (© Keith Waldrop 2009). EMILY BERRY: ‘Some Fears’ from Dear Boy (Faber & Faber, 2013), reprinted by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd. MEI-MEI BERSSENBRUGGE: ‘Fairies’, part 2, from Hello, the Roses (New Directions, 2013), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ALOYSIUS BERTRAND: ‘Haarlem’, trans. by Michael Benedikt, from Short: An International Anthology, ed. by Alan Ziegler (Persea Books, 2014), reprinted by permission of The Estate of Michael Benedikt. HERA LINDSAY BIRD: ‘Children are the Orgasm of the World’ from Hera Lindsay Bird (Penguin Books, 2017), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ELIZABETH BISHOP: ‘Strayed Crab’ from Poems: The Centenary Edition (Chatto & Windus, 2011), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ROBERT BLY: ‘A Caterpillar’ from Collected Poems (W. W. Norton, 2018), reprinted by permission of the publisher. CHRISTIAN BÖK: Extract from ‘Chapter E’, from Eunoia (Canongate and Coach House, 2008), reprinted by permission of the publishers. YVES BONNEFOY: ‘The Dogs’, trans. by Richard Stamelman, published in Modern Poetry in Translation (Summer 1992), reprinted by permission of the translator. SEAN BONNEY: Extract from ‘Letter Against the Firmament’, in Letters Against the Firmament (Enitharmon, 2015), reprinted by permission of the publisher. JORGE LUIS BORGES: ‘Borges and I’, trans. by James E. Irby, from Labyrinths (Penguin Modern Classics, 2000), reprinted by permission of The Random House Group. JENNY BORNHOLDT: ‘Man with a Mower’ from Waiting Shelter (Victoria University Press, 1991), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ANNE BOYER: ‘A Woman Shopping’ from Garments Against Women (Ahsahta Press, 2015), reprinted by permission of the publisher. CHARLES BOYLE: ‘Hosea: A Commentary’ from The Age of Cardboard and String (CB Editions, 2015), reprinted by permission of the publisher. BERTOLT BRECHT: ‘The God of War’, originally published in German in 1949 as ‘Der kriegsgott’, trans. by Thomas Mark Kuhn. Copyright © 1964, 1976 by Bertolt-Brecht-Erben / Suhrkamp Verlag. Translation copyright © 2015 by Tom Kuhn and David Constantine, from Collected Poems of Bertolt Brecht (W. W. Norton, 2015), used by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. ANDRÉ BRETON and PAUL ÉLUARD: ‘Force of Habit’ from L’Immaculée Conception (Oxford University Press, 1970), reprinted by permission of Enitharmon Editions. PAM BROWN: ‘How Everything Has Turned Around’ from This world / This place (University of Queensland Press, 1994), reprinted by permission of the author. JOANNE BURNS: ‘reading’, from blowing bubbles in the 7th lane (Fab Press, 1988), reprinted by permission of the author. VAHNI CAPILDEO: ‘Going Nowhere, Getting Somewhere’ from Measures of Expatriation (Carcanet, 2016), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ANNE CARSON: ‘Merry Christmas from Hegel’ from Float (Jonathan Cape, 2016), reprinted by permission of The Random House Group;‘Short Talk on Homo Sapiens’ and ‘Short Talk on the Total Collection’ from Plainwater (Vintage Contemporaries, 2000), reprinted by permission of Vintage Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC; ‘Short Talk on the Truth to Be had from Dreams’ and ‘Short Talk on the Sensation of Aeroplane Takeoff’ from Short Talks: Brick Books Classics 1 (Brick Books, 2015), reprinted by permission of the publisher. BRIAN CATLING: Extract from The Stumbling Block Its Index, in A Court of Miracles: Collected Poems (Etruscan, 2009), reprinted by permission of the publisher. LUIS CERNUDA: ‘Street Cries’, trans. by Stephen Kessler, from Written in Water (City Lights, 2004), reprinted by permission of the publisher. AIMÉ CÉSAIRE: ‘Phrase’, trans. by Clayton Eshleman and A. James Arnold, from The Complete Poetry of Aimé Césaire: Bilingual Edition (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), used by permission of the publisher (© Clayton Eshleman and A. James Arnold 2017). RENÉ CHAR: ‘The Swift’, trans. by Mary Ann Caws, from Poems of René Char (Princeton University Press, 1976), reprinted by permission of the publisher. MAXINE CHERNOFF: ‘Vanity, Wisconsin’ (© Maxine Chernoff) from Leap Year Day: New and Selected Poems (Another Chicago Press, 1991), reprinted by permission of the author. INGER CHRISTENSEN: ‘TEXT symmetries’, parts 1–3, from it, trans. by Susanna Nied (Carcanet, 2007), reprinted by permission of the publisher. CLARK COOLIDGE: ‘Letters’ from The Book of During (The Figures, 1991), reprinted by permission of the author and the publisher. PETER DIDSBURY: ‘A Vernacular Tale’ from Scenes from a Long Sleep: New and Collected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2003), reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. LINH DINH: ‘A Hardworking Peasant from the Idyllic Countryside’ from All Around What Empties Out (Subpress, 2003), reprinted by permission of the publisher. RITA DOVE: ‘Quaker Oats’ from Collected Poems (W. W. Norton, 2016), reprinted by permission of the publisher. LAURIE DUGGAN: ‘Hearts’ from Compared to What (Shearsman, 2005), reprinted by permission of the publisher and author. RUSSEL EDSON: ‘Ape’ from The Tunnel: Selected Poems (Oberlin College Press, 1994), reprinted by permission of the publisher. T. S. ELIOT: ‘Hysteria’ from Collected Poems 1909–1962 (Faber & Faber, 1963), reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. ELKE ERB: ‘Portrait of A. E. (An Artful Fairy Tale)’, trans. by Rosmarie Waldrop, from Mountains in Berlin (Burning Deck, 1995), reprinted by permission of the publisher. CARRIE ETTER: ‘Imagined Sons 9: Greek Salad’ from Imagined Sons (Seren, 2014), reprinted by permission of the publisher. IAN HAMILTON FINLAY: ‘Cinema-Going’ from Selections (University of California Press, 2012), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ROY FISHER: Extract from City, in The Dow Low Drop: New and Selected Poems (Bloodaxe, 1997), reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. CAROLYN FORCHÉ: ‘The Colonel’ from The Country Between Us (Harper and Row, 1981), reprinted by permission of the publisher. JOHN FULLER: ‘Flower, Quartet, Mask’ from The Dice Cup (Chatto & Windus, 2014), reprinted by permission of The Random House Group. ANZAI FUYE: ‘Sunflowers are Already Black Gunpowder’, trans. by Dennis Keene, from The Modern Japanese Prose Poem (Princeton University Press, 2014), reprinted by permission of the publisher. CLIFTON GACHAGUA: ‘Reclaiming a Beloved City’ from Madman at Kilifi (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), reprinted by permission of the publisher. DAVID GASCOYNE: ‘Lozanne’ from Collected Poems, 1988 (Oxford University Press, 1988), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ALLEN GINSBERG: ‘A Supermarket in California’ (© Allen Ginsberg 1956, 1961) from Howl (City Lights, 1955), reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers and by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited. PETER GIZZI: ‘Antico Adagio’ from
Archeophonics (Wesleyan University Press, 2016), used by permission of the publisher (© Peter Gizzi 2016). BILL GRIFFITHS: ‘The Hornsman’ from The Lion Man and Others (Veer Books, 2008), reprinted by permission of The Estate of Bill Griffiths. BARBARA GUEST: ‘The Cough’ from Collected Poems, ed. by Hadley Haden Guest (Wesleyan University Press, 1999), used by permission of the publisher (© The Estate of Barbara Guest 2008). JEN HADFIELD: ‘The Wren’ from Nigh-No-Place (Bloodaxe, 2008), reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. GOLAN HAJI: ‘The End of Days’, trans. by the author and Stephen Watts, from A Tree Whose Name I Don’t Know (A Midsummer Night’s Press, 2017), reprinted by permission of the author and translator. JOY HARJO: ‘Deer Dancer’ from In Mad Love and War (Wesleyan University Press, 1990), used by permission of the publisher (© Joy Harjo 1990). LEE HARWOOD: ‘The Land of Counterpane’ from Collected Poems (Shearsman, 1985) reprinted by permission of the publisher and author. ROBERT HASS: ‘Human Wishes’ from The Apple Trees at Olema: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins/Ecco, 2010), reprinted by permission of the author. SEAMUS HEANEY: ‘Cloistered’ from Opened Ground: Poems 1966–1996 (Faber & Faber, 2002) and ‘Fiddleheads’ from District and Circle (Faber & Faber, 2006), reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. LYN HEJINIAN: ‘One begins as a student but becomes a friend of clouds’ from My Life, in My Life and My Life in the Nineties (Wesleyan University Press, 1987), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ZBIGNIEW HERBERT: ‘Hermes, Dog and Star’ (© The Estate of Zbigniew Herbert 2007), trans. by Alyssa Valles, from The Collected Poems 1956–1998 (Atlantic Books, 2008), reprinted by permission of Atlantic Books Ltd. and The Wylie Agency. GEOFFREY HILL: Mercian Hymns, parts I–V, XXV, XXVII and XVIII, from Broken Hierarchies (Oxford University Press, 2013), reprinted by permission of the publisher. JEFF HILSON: ‘Troglodytes troglodytes (wren)’, ‘Apus apus (swift)’ and ‘Coccothraustes coccothraustes (hawfinch)’ from Bird bird (Landfill, 2008), reprinted by permission of the author. MIROSLAV HOLUB: ‘Meeting Ezra Pound’, trans. by Dana Hábova and Stuart Friebert, from Saggital Section: Poems, New and Selected (Oberlin College Press, 1980), reprinted by permission of the publisher. CATHY PARK HONG: ‘Of Lucky Highrise Apartment 88’ and ‘Of the Millennial Promenade Along the River’ from Engine Empire (W. W. Norton, 2013), reprinted by permission of the publisher. SARAH HOWE: ‘There were barnacles …’ from Loop of Jade (Chatto & Windus, 2015), reprinted by permission of The Random House Group. KIM HYESOON: ‘Seoul’s Dinner’, trans. by Don Mee Choi, from I’m OK, I’m Pig! (Bloodaxe, 2014), reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. MAX JACOB: ‘Hell is Graduated’, trans. by Elizabeth Bishop, from Elizabeth Bishop, Poems: The Centenary Edition (Chatto & Windus, 2011), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ESTHER JANSMA: ‘Thought (1)’, trans. by Scott Rollins, published in Modern Poetry in Translation (Winter 1997), reprinted by permission of the author and translator. LISA JARNOT: ‘Ode’ from Ring of Fire (Zoland Books, 2001), reprinted by permission of the author. ELIZABETH JENNINGS: ‘Catherine of Siena’ from Collected Poems, ed. by Emma Mason (Carcanet, 2012), reprinted by permission of David Higham Associates. JUAN RAMÓN JIMÉNEZ: ‘The Moon’, trans. by H. R. Hays, from Selected Writings of Juan Ramón Jiménez (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1957), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ANTHONY JOSEPH: ‘Folkways’ from Bird Head Son (Salt, 2009), reprinted by permission of the author. BHANU KAPIL: ‘Notes Towards a Race Riot Scene’ from Ban en Banlieue (Nightboat Books, 2015), reprinted by permission of the publisher. LAURA KASISCHKE: ‘O elegant giant’ (© Laura Kasischke 2011) from Space, in Chains (Copper Canyon Press, 2011), reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org. LUKE KENNARD: ‘Blue Dog’ from The Harbour Beyond the Movie (Salt, 2007), reprinted by permission of the author. DANIIL KHARMS: ‘Blue Notebook, No. 10’, trans. by Robert Chandler, from The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry (Penguin Books, 2015), reprinted by permission of the translator. VELIMIR KHLEBNIKOV: ‘Menagerie’, trans. by James Womack, from The Penguin Book of Russian Poetry (Penguin, 2015), reprinted by permission of the translator. DAVID KINLOCH: ‘Dustie-Fute’ from Dustie-Fute (Vennel Press, 1992), reprinted by permission of the author. WULF KIRSTEN: ‘abglanz/reflected gleam’, trans. by Andrew Duncan, from Depart, Kaspar: Modern German Poems (Equipage, 1992), reprinted by permission of the publisher. MASAYO KOIKE: ‘The Most Sensual Room’, trans. by Hiroaki Sato, from Japanese Women Poets: An Anthology, (Routledge, 2015), reprinted by permission of the Taylor & Francis Group. YUSEF KOMUNYAKAA: ‘The Hanoi Market’ from Pleasure Dome: New and Collected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1988), used by permission of the publisher (© Yusef Komunyakaa 2001). ABDELLATIF LABI: ‘The Word-Gulag’, trans. by André Naffis-Sahely, from Beyond the Barbed Wire (Carcanet, 2016), reprinted by permission of the publisher. JOHN LEHMANN: ‘Vigils’, part 1, from Collected Poems 1930–1963 (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1963), reprinted by permission of David Hingham Associates. ÁGNES LEHÓCZKY: ‘Photographs, Undeveloped’ from Budapest to Babel (Eggbox Press, 2008), reprinted by permission of the publisher. BEN LERNER: ‘The first gaming system …’ from Angle of Yaw, in No Art: Poems (Granta Books, 2016), reprinted by permission of the publisher. PATRICIA LOCKWOOD: ‘Rape Joke’ from Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals (Penguin Books, 2017), reprinted by permission of the publisher. DULCE MARÍA LOYNAZ: ‘Love Letter to King Tutankamun’, trans. by James O’Connor, from Absolute Solitude (Brooklyn, NY: Archipelago Books, 2016), reprinted by permission of the publisher. CHARLES MADGE: ‘Bourgeois News’ from Of Love, Time and Place: Selected Poems (Anvil Press, 1994), reprinted by permission of Carcanet. STÉPHANE MALLARMÉ: ‘The Pipe’, trans. by Henry Weinfeld, from Collected Poems of Stéphane Mallarmé (University of California Press, 1995), reprinted by permission of the publisher. PETER MANSON: ‘My Funeral’ from Poems of Frank Rupture (Sancho Panza Press, 2014), reprinted by permission of the publisher and author. D. S. MARRIOTT: ‘Black Sunlight’ from The Bloods (Shearsman, 2011), reprinted by permission of the publisher. BERNADETTE MAYER: ‘Gay Full Story’ from A Bernadette Mayer Reader (New Directions, 1992), reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp (© Bernadette Mayer 1964). CHRIS MCCABE: ‘Birthweights’ from The Restructure (Salt, 2012), reprinted by permission of the author. IAN MCMILLAN: ‘The Ice House’ from To Fold the Evening Star: New and Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2016), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ROD MENGHAM: ‘Knife’, published in PN Review, 222 (March–April 2015), reprinted by permission of the author. HENRI MICHAUX: ‘My Pastimes’, trans. by Richard Ellmann, from Selected Writings (New Directions, 1968), reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp (© New Directions Publishing Corp 1964). CHRISTOPHER MIDDLETON: ‘Or Else’ from Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2008), reprinted by permission of the publisher. KEI MILLER: ‘Place Name: Flog Man’ from The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion (Carcanet, 2014), reprinted by permission of the publisher. CZESŁAW MIŁOSZ: ‘Christopher Robin’, trans. by the author and Robert Hass, from New and Collected Poems 1931–2001 (Allen Lane, 2001; HarperCollins/Ecco 2001), reprinted by permission of The Random House Group and HarperCollins Publishers (© Czesław Miłosz Royalties Inc. 1988, 1991, 1995, 2001). CHELSEY MINNIS: ‘The Skull Ring’ from Zirconia (Fence Books, 2001), reprinted by permission of the publisher. GABRIELA MISTRAL: ‘In Praise of Glass’, trans. by Stephen Tapscott, Selected Prose and Prose Poems (University of Texas Press, 2002), reprinted by permission of the publisher. N. SCOTT MOMADAY: ‘The Colors of Night’, from Again the Far Morning: New and Selected Poems (University of New Mexico Press, 2011), reprinted by permission of the publisher. JANE MONSON: ‘Via Negativa’ from The Line’s Not for Turning (Cinnamon Press, 2010), reprinted by permission of the publisher. EUGENIO MONTALE: ‘Where the Tennis Court Was …’, trans. by Charles Wright, from Eugenio Montale, Poems (Penguin Modern Classics, 2002), reprinted by permission of the publisher and Mondadori Editore. THYLIAS MOSS: ‘An Anointing’ from Rainbow Remnants in Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky (Pers
ea Books, 1991), reprinted by permission of the publisher. HARRYETTE MULLEN: ‘Denigration’ from Sleeping with the Dictionary (University of California Press, 1995), reprinted by permission of the publisher. TOGARA MUZANENHAMO: ‘Captain of the Lighthouse’ from Spirit Brides (Carcanet, 2006), reprinted by permission of the publisher. EILEEN MYLES: ‘The Poet’ from I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems 1975–2014 (Ecco, 2016), reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. ÁGNES NEMES NAGY: ‘A Walk Through the Museum’, trans. by George Szirtes, from The Night of Akhenaton (Bloodaxe, 2004), reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. VIVEK NARYANAN: ‘Short Prayer to Sound’ from Life & Times of Mr Subramaniam (HarperCollins India, 2012), reprinted by permission of the author. AMJAD NASSER: ‘The Phases of the Moon in London’ from A Map of Signs and Scents: New and Selected Poems, 1979–2014, trans. by Fady Joudah and Khaled Mattawa (Northwestern University Press, 2016), reprinted by permission of the publisher. PABLO NERUDA: ‘The Flag’, trans. by Nathaniel Tarn, from Selected Poems (Jonathan Cape, 1970), reprinted by permission of The Random House Group. BINK NOLL: ‘Many Musicians Practice Their Mysteries While I Am Cooking’ from Selected Poems, ed. by David R. Slavitt (Little Island Press, 2017), reprinted by permission of the publisher. NAOMI SHIHAB NYE: ‘Hammer and Nail’ from Mint Snowball (Anhinga Press, 2001), reprinted by permission of the publisher. FRANK O’HARA: ‘Meditations in an Emergency’ from Collected Poems, ed. by Donald Allen (University of California Press, 1995), reprinted by permission of the publisher. KRISTÍN ÓMARSDÓTTIR: ‘Neglected Knives’, trans. by Vala Thorodds, from Waitress in Fall: Selected Poems (Carcanet, 2018), reprinted by permission of the author and publisher. OTTÓ ORBÁN: ‘Chile’, trans. by Edwin Morgan, from Collected Translations (Carcanet, 1996), reprinted by permission of the publisher. RON PADGETT: ‘Prose Poem’ from New and Selected Poems (Godine, 1995), reprinted by permission of Coffee House Press. DAN PAGIS: ‘The Souvenir’, trans. by Stephen Mitchell, from The Selected Poetry of Dan Pagis (University of California Press, 1996), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ALVIN PANG: ‘Other Things’, from When the Barbarians Arrive (Arc, 2013), reprinted by permission of the publisher. DON PATERSON: ‘Little Corona’ from God’s Gift to Women (Faber & Faber, 1997), reprinted by permission of the publisher. OCTAVIO PAZ: ‘The Clerk’s Vision’, trans. by Eliot Weinberger, from The Collected Poems (Carcanet, 1988), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ELENA PENGA: ‘Nightmare Pink’, trans. by Karen Van Dyck, from Austerity Measures: The New Greek Poetry (Penguin Books, 2016), reprinted by permission of the author. SAINT-JOHN PERSE: ‘Song’, trans. by T. S. Eliot, from Poems of T. S. Eliot, Vol. II: Practical Cats & Further Verses, ed. by Christopher Ricks and Jim McCue (Faber & Faber, 2015), reprinted by permission of the publisher. FRANCIS PONGE: ‘The Pleasures of the Door’, trans. by C. K. Williams, from Selected Poems, ed. by Margaret Guiton (Faber & Faber, 1998), reprinted by permission of the publisher; ‘Rain’, trans. by Beverley Bie Brahic, from Unfinished Ode to Mud (CB Editions, 2008), reprinted by permission of the publisher; ‘Crate’, trans. by Joshua Corey and Jean-Luc Garneau, from Partisan of Things (Kenning Editions, 2016). SHANG QIN: ‘The First Week of Mourning’, trans. by Steve Bradbury, from Feelings Above Sea Level (Zephyr Press, 2006), reprinted by permission of The Permissions Company, on behalf of Zephyr Press. SINA QUEYRAS: ‘If’ from Lemon Hound (Coach House Books, 2006), reprinted by permission of the publisher. NATHALIE QUINTANE: Extract from Joan of Arc, trans. by Cynthia Hogue and Sylvain Gallais, from Joan Darc (La Presse, 2018), reprinted by permission of the publisher and translators. CLAUDIA RANKINE: ‘When you are alone and too tired …’, ‘The new therapist specializes in trauma counseling …’ and ‘A friend writes of the numbing effects …’ from Citizen: An American Lyric (Penguin Books, 2015), reprinted by permission of The Random House Group. MANI RAO: Extract from echolocation (Math Paper Press, 2014), reprinted by permission of the publisher and author. TOM RAWORTH: ‘Logbook’, pages 106, 291, 298 and 253, from Collected Poems (Carcanet, 2003), reprinted by permission of the publisher. PETER READING: Extract from C, in Collected Poems 1: Poems 1970–1984 (Bloodaxe, 1995), reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. SRIKANTH REDDY: ‘Corruption’ from Facts for Visitors (University of California Press, 2004), reprinted by permission of the publisher. PIERRE REVERDY: ‘Clock’, trans. by Lydia Davis, from Pierre Reverdy, ed. by Mary Ann Caws (NYRB Poets, 2013), reprinted by permission of NYRB Books and Flammarion; ‘Street Circus’, trans. by Ron Padgett, from Pierre Reverdy, ed. by Mary Ann Caws (NYRB Poets, 2013), reprinted by permission of NYRB Books and Flammarion. ADRIENNE RICH: ‘Shooting Script’, part 14, from Collected Poems: 1950–2012 (W. W. Norton, 2016), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ARTHUR RIMBAUD: ‘After the Flood’, ‘Sideshow’ and ‘Genie’, trans. by John Ashbery, from Illuminations (Carcanet, 2011), reprinted by permission of the publisher. MAURICE RIORDAN: ‘The Idylls’, part 1, from The Holy Land (Faber & Faber, 2007), reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. LISA ROBERTSON: ‘Monday’ from The Weather (Reality Street / New Star Books, 2002), reprinted by permission of the publisher. SOPHIE ROBINSON: ‘Edith’, reprinted by permission of the author. CAROL RUMENS: ‘Inflation’ from From Berlin to Heaven (Bloodaxe, 1989), reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. JAMES SCHUYLER: ‘Milk’ from Collected Poems, 1993 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995), reprinted by permission of the publisher. GEORGE SEFERIS: ‘Nijinski’, trans. by Edmund Keeley and Phillip Sherrard, from Complete Poems (Anvil Press, 1995), reprinted by permission of Carcanet. WARSAN SHIRE: ‘Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre)’ from Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth (Flipped Eye, 2011), reprinted by permission of the publisher. CHARLES SIMIC: Extract from The World Doesn’t End: Prose Poems (Houghton Mifflin, 1987), reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company (© Charles Simic 1987). KEN SMITH: ‘The Wild Rose’, parts I and VII, from Collected Poems (Bloodaxe, 1973), reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. ROD SMITH: ‘Ted’s Head’ from Deed (University of Iowa Press, 2007), reprinted by permission of the author. ANDRZEJ SOSNOWSKI: ‘In the Off-Season’, trans. by Rod Mengham, from Speedometry (Contraband, 2014), reprinted by permission of the publisher and author. WOLE SOYINKA: ‘Chimes of Silence’ from A Shuttle in the Crypt (Methuen, 1972), reprinted by permission of the publisher. JACK SPICER: ‘Dear James, It is absolutely clear and absolutely sunny …’ from ‘Letters to James Alexander’, in My Vocabulary Did This to Me: The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer, ed. by Peter Gizzi and Kevin Killian (Wesleyan University Press, 2010), used by permission of the publisher (© The Estate of Jack Spicer 2008). MARK STRAND: ‘Chekhov’ and ‘The Mysterious Arrival of an Unusual Letter’ from Collected Poems (Knopf, 2014), reprinted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, and by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited (© Mark Strand 2012). ÉRIC SUCHÈRE: ‘24’, trans. by Sandra Doller, from Mystérieuse (Anomalous Press, 2007), reprinted by permission of the publisher. KESTON SUTHERLAND: Extract from Odes to TL61P, 5 (I.i) (Enitharmon, 2013), reprinted by permission of the publisher. WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA: ‘Vocabulary’, trans. by Stansisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh, from View with a Grain of Sand (Faber & Faber, 1996), reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd. RABINDRANATH TAGORE: ‘A Day’, trans. by Aurobindo Bose, from Lipika (Peter Owen, 1977), reprinted by permission of the publisher. SHUNTARŌ TANIKAWA: ‘Scissors’ from New Selected Poems, trans. by William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura (Carcanet, 2015), reprinted by permission of the publisher. JAMES TATE: ‘Goodtime Jesus’ from Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1991), used by permission of the publisher (© James Tate 1991). ROSEMARY TONKS: ‘An Old-Fashioned Traveller on the Trade Routes’ from Bedouin of the London Evening: Collected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2014), reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. GEORG TRAKL: ‘Winter Night’, trans. by James Wright, from James Wright, Collected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2007), reprinted by permission o
f the publisher. TOMAS TRANSTRÖMER: ‘The Bookcase’, trans. by Robert Fulton, from New Collected Poems (Bloodaxe, 2011), reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. GAEL TURNBULL: ‘A Case’ from There Are Words: Collected Poems (Shearsman Books, 2006), reprinted by permission of the publisher and The Estate of Gael Turnbull. UDAYAN VAJPEYI: ‘The Well’ and ‘Sari’ from Kuchh Vakya (Vani Prakashan, 1995), trans. by Alok Bhalla, reprinted by permission of the publisher and translator. CÉSAR VALLEJO: ‘The Right Meaning’, trans. by Robert Bly, from Models of the Universe (Oberlin College Press, 1995), reprinted by permission of the publisher. CATHY WAGNER: ‘Chicken’ from Nervous Device (City Lights, 2012), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ROSMARIE WALDROP: Lawn of Excluded Middle, parts 1–6, from Curves to the Apple (New Directions, 2006), reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp (© Rosmarie Waldrop 1993). MATTHEW WELTON: ‘Virtual Airport’, parts 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 11, 13, 14, 17, 18, 21 and 24, from ‘We needed coffee but …’ (Carcanet, 2009), reprinted by permission of the publisher. JOE WENDEROTH: ‘September 2, 1996’, ‘September 5, 1996’, ‘September 21, 1996’, ‘February 8, 1997’, ‘June 3, 1997’ and ‘June 28, 1997’ from Letters to Wendy’s (Verse Press, 2000), reprinted by permission of Wave Books. WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS: Kora in Hell: Improvisations, part II, from Imaginations (New Directions, 1971), reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp (© Florence H. Williams 1970). C. D. WRIGHT: ‘What No One Could Have Told Them’ from Like Something Flying Backwards (Bloodaxe, 2007), reprinted by permission of Bloodaxe Books. JAMES WRIGHT: ‘Honey’ from Collected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2007), reprinted by permission of the publisher. ZHOU YAPING: ‘dropped on the ground • the small coin’, trans. by Jeff Twitchell-Waas, reprinted by permission of the translator.