Paul Celan
Translated from the German by Pierre Joris
Forested, bellowed by stags’ roars,
the world now besets the word
that, lingering, seams your lips,
annealed by an eked out summer.

It lifts it away and you follow it,
you follow it and stumble—you feel,
that a wind you had trusted so long,
bends your arm around the heather:

who came from sleep
and turned sleepward
may cradle the enchanted.

You cradle it down to the waters
where the kingfisher’s mirrored,
close to the Nowhere of nests.

You cradle it down through the firebreak,
that deep in treeheat hungers for snow,
you cradle it over to the word,
that names what of you is already white.


Waldig

Waldig, von Hirschen georgelt,
umdrängt die Welt nun das Wort,
das auf den Lippen dir säumt,
durchglüht von gefristetem Sommer.

Sie hebt es hinweg und du folgst ihm,
du folgst ihm und strauchelst – du spürst,
wie ein Wind, dem du lange vertrautest,
dir den Arm ums Heidekraut biegt:

wer schlafher kam
und schlafhin sich wandte,
darf das Verwunschene wiegen.

Du wiegst es hinab zu den Wassern,
darin sich der Eisvogel spiegelt,
nahe am Nirgends der Nester.

Du wiegst es hinab durch die Schneise,
die tief in der Baumglut nach Schnee giert,
du wiegst es hinüber zum Wort,
das dort nennt, was schon weiß ist an dir.
from the book MEMORY ROSE INTO THRESHOLD SPEECH: THE COLLECTED EARLIER POETRY / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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TO P.C.

Paul,
if I may,
I brought you
here, to another
blacksoil earth,
cousin to, I
hope, 
the black soil
of Czernowitz.

The meridians of,
because in,
us
humans never
travel in
straight
lines,
                 they stutter,
wander off the
straight and narrow,
bending
sans breaking,
into tomorrow’s
blood rich
marrow.
Color portrait of John Keats by William Hilton, 1822
"A Joy Forever"

February 23 marks the bicentenary of John Keats' death in Rome at 25. “Over the 200 years Keats’s reputation has continued to soar, while that of some of his contemporaries have risen and fallen. His early death, doomed love, appealing personality, handsome looks and approachable and luxuriant poetry have caught the imaginations of generations."
 
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Cover of Yi Lei's book, My Name Will Grow Wide Like a Tree, translated by Tracy K. Smith and Changtai Bi
What Sparks Poetry:
Tracy K. Smith on "Black Hair"

"Working on the poem, I saw clearly how the recurring image of black hair signifies within the specific context of Asian femininity, and yet in my hands—in my mouth—the phrase 'black hair' began to make space for a second set of values and vulnerabilities as informed by my racially specific experience." 
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