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EDITORIAL
Clare Pollard Last year, Modern Poetry in Translation was very pleased to be invited to participate in the British Council’s ambitious Majaaz project, focusing on ten emerging poets from the Maghreb region, who write in Arabic, Arabic dialect and Tamazight. The poets met in Tunisia in September, along with five emerging UK poets and various translators and facilitators including myself, for a chance to make connections and collaborate. Every day we were driven to the whitewashed Villa Ma’amoura, a working organic farm, decorated with rugs and cacti
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Other Banks
Fatma Krouma I love you more in temperate climates
away from the killing sun
and the long and boring Sundays.
I see us here, on the other banks of life
on the sands of the coastlines
among the grasses of the gardens.
We plant roses in the illuminated paths
and cultivate kisses on the trains arriving
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Translated by Victoria Adukwei Bulley
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To Err
Toon Tellegen Is erring human,
isn’t it divine?
And shame,
shouldn’t that be the only truly divine emotion –
heavenly shame,
the reason why the divine makes itself small,
conceals itself
and pulls its immortal grey hairs out of its
grey immanence, in the dark
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Translated by Judith Wilkinson
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I Once Met a Man
Volha Hapeyeva I once met a man
who thought he was a cake
I didn’t identify what type – wedding or birthday
his faith was so strong
that I succumbed
and began to want him
on my plate
but life moved in my way
...Translated by Kim Moore
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Polina
Nene Giorgadze Polina, 3 years old, lives in an orphanage.
In her blue eyes, it’s a black and white world.
She wants to colour everything.
But children are not allowed crayons at the orphanage.
Polina does not see, yet, that the world is unfair,
the odds are stacked against her. She is not worried. Yet
she asks all her possible mothers
for a box of crayons. They promise but
...Translated by Ryan Van Winkle
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