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Meret Oppenheim
Translated from the French & German by Kathleen Heil
The forest and fields are no longer visible, nearly,
the mist hides the meadows where forgotten crops
drop their seeds. The evening sun reposes
on a honey-colored cloud,
dangling its skeletal hand as shadowy
waves pass through its fingers. At the edge of the woods
a lost hunter asks the deer for a glass of water.
Stillness abounds.



Les prés et la forêt ne sont presque plus visibles,
la brume cache les champs où des moissons oubliées
laissent tomber leurs graines. Le soleil de la nuit s’allonge
sur un nuage couleur de miel.
Sa main de squelette pend et les ondes
de l’ombre passent par ses doigts. A la lisière du bois
un chasseur égaré demande aux cerfs un verre d’eau.
Tout est si calme.

__

Die Wiesen und der Wald sind fast nicht mehr sichtbar,
der Nebel verbirgt die Felder, wo vergessene Ernten
ihre Körner fallen lassen. Die Nachtsonne legt sich auf
eine honigfarbene Wolke.
Ihre Skeletthand hängt herab, und durch ihre Finger
fließen die Wellen des Schattens. Am Waldrand bittet
ein verirrter Jäger die Hirsche um ein Glas Wasser.
Alles ist so still.
from the book THE LOVELIEST VOWEL EMPTIES / World Poetry Books
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Translation, for me, must be embodied to be fully realized, capturing not only signification but also resonance, mouthfeel. This poem numbers among the handful Oppenheim wrote in French and then translated herself into German. Tout est si calme. The vowel and consonantal sounds both soothe and delineate. Here, I chose to avoid the descriptive clumsiness of “everything is calm” and instead create a four-syllable echo of that wave of vowels contained by consonants. Stillness abounds.

Kathleen Heil on "[The forest and fields are no longer visible, nearly,]"
A Review of Jorie Graham's To 2040

"Graham’s latest collection, To 2040 (Copper Canyon Press, 2023), also grapples with the concerns of digital infiltration and environmental loss, although it is distinctly embroiled in the prophetic impulse of post-calamitous worldbuilding. Graham’s speakers undulate in the stark maelstrom of bodily loss and evasion, awash with disorientation."  

via THE ADROIT JOURNAL
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Cover image of Sara Nicholson's book, April
What Sparks Poetry:
Michael Joseph Walsh on Sara Nicholson's April


"Maybe what Nature and Art have in common is their amenability to being read—the fact that both can be the object of lectio divina, the contemplation of the 'living word.' In April the gods have left us, but Nature, like poetry, is being written, and can be read. The world is a poem, or a painting, and a poem, in turn, is the world, or at least a world (an 'imaginary garden with real toads in [it],' if you will)."
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