World Poetry Translation Project

Submit Human Translation | Discuss Poem | Post Poetry | Listen McGill Live Shattered Head by Adrienne Rich A life hauls itself uphill through hoar-mist steaming the sun's tongue licking leaf upon leaf into stricken liquid When? When? cry the soothseekers but time is a bloodshot eye seeing its last of beauty its own foreclosure a bloodshot mind finding itself unspeakable What is the last thought? Now I will let you know? or, Now I know? (porridge of skull-splinters, brain tissue mouth and throat membrane, cranial fluid) Shattered head on the breast of a wooded hill Laid down there endlessly so tendrils soaked into matted compose became a root torqued over the faint springhead groin whence illegible matter leaches: worm-borings, spurts of silt volumes of sporic changes hair long blown into far follicles blasted into a chosen place Revenge on the head (genitals, breast, untouched) revenge on the mouth packed with its inarticulate confessions revenge on the eyes green-gray and restless revenge on the big and searching lips the tender tongue revenge on the sensual, on the nose the carrier of history revenge on the life devoured in another incineration You can walk by such a place, the earth is made of them where the stretched tissue of a field or woods is humid with beloved matter the soothseekers have withdrawn you feel no ghost, only a sporic chorus when that place utters its worn sigh let us have peace And the shattered head answers back And I believed I was loved, I believed I loved Who did this to us? American Review | www.PaperLyon.com | McGill Live Radio | Publish

Translations for this Poem  English  Spanish  French  German  Italian  Portuguese  Korean  Russian  Chinese  Japanese

Poems by Adrienne Rich Aunt Jennifers Tigers A Valediction Forbidding Mourning Diving Into The Wreck For The Dead For The Record From An Atlas Of The Difficult World From A Survivor Implosions Integrity In A Classroom In Those Years Living In Sin Miracle Ice Cream Moving In Winter November 1968 Orion Our Whole Life Paula Becker To Clara Westhoff Planetarium Power Prospective Immigrants Please Note Rural Reflections Shattered Head Snapshots Of A Daughter-In-Law Stepping Backward Two Songs Victory

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A.E. Housman	A.R. Ammons	A.S.J. Tessimond
Abraham Cowley	Adam Zagajewski	Adrienne Rich
Ai	Alan Dugan	Alan Seeger
Alden Nowlan	Alexander Pope	Alfred Lord Tennyson
Alfred Noyes	Algernon Swinburne	Alice Duer Miller
Alice Walker	Allen Ginsberg	Amy Clampitt
Amy Lowell	Andrew Marvell	Andrew Paterson
Anna Akhmatova	Anne Bradstreet	Anne Carson
Anne Sexton	Annie Dillard	Anthony Hecht
Antonio Machado	Archibald MacLeish	Arthur Hugh Clough
Audre Lorde	Austin Clarke

Volunteers needed to translate poetry into different languages. Please help us correct the translation of these poems. We currently have 79,663 translations and are trying to create the largest and most accurate database of world poetry translations. We have started with machine translations which are very inaccurate. Please translate your favorite poem on this site. You will be given credit for your translation and a link to your site if desired. COPYRIGHT NOTICE: These poems have been gathered and submitted by many of people, and from many sources. Most have no copyright. However, some may may have copyrights. We have tried to collect poems that appear on many external sites where the author seems to want to disseminate. If you are an author and do not want your poetry translated into other languages then send a removal request and it will be promptly removed.