A light split the room where Rubén Darío was trying to write. On that side, a copy of Don Quixote; on this side, the untrimmed sheets of paper with words crossed out and the unread letter from a young poet in search of guidance and assistance. —from Mark Schafer’s translation of David . . .
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I greet an ancient refrigerator,once my father, now reduced to bare bones, yetit remains unbearably heavy. —from Jack Saebyok Jung’s translation of Heeum’s “The Use of a Window” (Volume 66, issue 3) Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.One of the earliest pieces I translated was a poem by . . .
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“Brianna80.” I like the round number, eighty. 4s, 8s, multiples of 10, a number I would have written as a child on and on, practicing my numbers: 8 then 0 then 8 then 0, looping like kids holding hands in a playground. The number eighty, attached to the temporary name Bri-anna, was . . .
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The sun has coppered his brownas it has the mud on which we walk.Palms banana trees grow against the whitewall we barely see. Blue finches singin the wire cage he carries. Its greenperch is the same green as his trunks. —from Myronn Hardy’s “The Cage” (Volume 66, issue 3) Tell us about . . .
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MISS TANG was a plump woman in her thirties and our seventh-grade homeroom teacher. She had a kind, matronly smile but sprung into tantrums over trifles. Her punishment of choice was meditation. After school, we’d sit at our desks with straight backs, knee-bound palms, and closed-tight eyes while Miss Tang surveilled us . . .
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I have touched those cold seedswaiting to sprout, to reach toward whatis sun. North & South did taste different. But I don’t trust my memory. —from Elizabeth Bradfield’s “#73” (Volume 66 Issue 3) What writer(s) or works have influenced the way you write now?Everything I read influences me, but some of my . . .
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HE IS A MAN of stories, and of music. He would scoff to hear me say he has an artistic bent; his verdict on himself is that he lacks imagination. In other matters, too, he has the habit of self-effacement. And yet he’s bold, on the verge of overbearing, when marshaling evidence. He . . .
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Photo credit: Rebekkah Drake “Help!” I yell, because I am clearly not qualified to deal with an unresponsive Tony Robbins. I am qualified to bring in hummus and in a couple, maybe three, years to teach high school social studies or history or whatever, if I can get back and finish my . . .
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***My goldfinch, I’ll throw back my head—let’s look at the world together:A winter’s day, prickly as chaff,isn’t it hard on your eyes? —from The Voronezh Notebooks by Osip Mandelstam, translated by Margaree Little, Volume 66 issue 3 (Fall 2025) Tell us about one of the first pieces you translated.One of the first . . .
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OUR BARRIO SITS on the borders between Bukidnon province and Cagayan de Oro city, a half-forgotten hinterland. Cross the last sitio’s bridge, and you’ve left the city behind. Bukidnon’s roads are the end of asphalt dreams, where concrete gives way to earth: a bumpy quagmire in the season of rains, a dusty . . .
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