World Poetry Translation Project

Submit Human Translation | Discuss Poem | Post Poetry | Listen McGill Live Cockroach by Anne Sexton Roach, foulest of creatures, who attacks with yellow teeth and an army of cousins big as shoes, you are lumps of coal that are mechanized and when I turn on the light you scuttle into the corners and there is this hiss upon the land. Yet I know you are only the common angel turned into, by way of enchantment, the ugliest. Your uncle was made into an apple. Your aunt was made into a Siamese cat, all the rest were made into butterflies but because you lied to God outrightly-- told him that all things on earth were in order-- He turned his wrath upon you and said, I will make you the most loathsome, I will make you into God's lie, and never will a little girl fondle you or hold your dark wings cupped in her palm. But that was not true. Once in New Orleans with a group of students a roach fled across the floor and I shrieked and she picked it up in her hands and held it from my fear for one hour. And held it like a diamond ring that should not escape. These days even the devil is getting overturned and held up to the light like a glass of water. 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 Anne Sexton 45 Mercy Street Admonitions To A Special Person After Auschwitz Again And Again And Again And One For My Dame Angels Of The Love Affair Anna Who Was Mad An Obsessive Combination Of Onotologic As It Was Written August 17th August 8th A Curse Against Elegies A Story For Rose On The Midnight Fligh Baby Picture Barefoot Bat Bayonet Briar Rose Sleeping Beauty Buying The Whore Christmas Eve Cigarettes And Whiskey And Wild Wild W Cinderella Clothes Cockroach Consorting With Angels Courage Cripples And Other Stories Crossing The Atlantic Daddy Warbucks Demon Despair Doctors Doors Doors Doors Dreaming The Breasts Earthworm Elegy In The Classroom Elizabeth Gone End Middle Beginning Flee On Your Donkey For God While Sleeping For Johnny Pole On The Forgotten Beach For John Who Begs Me Not To Enquire Fu Frenzy For My Lover Returning To His Wife For The Year Of The Insane Ghosts Gods Going Gone Her Kind Hornet Housewife Hurry Up Please Its Time In Excelsis In The Deep Museum It Is A Spring Afternoon I Remember Just Once Killing The Love Knee Song Lessons In Hunger Live Locked Doors Love Letter Written In A Burning Build Lullaby More Than Myself Mr Mine Music Swims Back To Me My Friend My Friend Noon Walk On The Asylum Lawn Oh Old Portrait Of An Old Woman On The Colleg Raccoon Rapunzel Red Roses Rowing Rumpelstiltskin Said The Poet To The Analyst Small Wire Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs Some Foreign Letters Suicide Note Sylvias Death That Day The Abortion The Addict The Ambition Bird The Angel Food Dogs The Assassin The Bells The Author Of The Jesus Papers Speaks The Balance Wheel The Ballad Of The Lonely Masturbator The Big Boots Of Pain The Big Heart The Black Art The Break The Break Away The Breast The Children The Child Bearers The Civil War The Consecrating Mother The Dead Heart The Death Baby The Death King The Division Of Parts The Doctor Of The Heart The Double Image The Earth The Earth Falls Down The Errand The Evil Eye The Evil Seekers The Exorcists The Expatriates The Fallen Angels The Firebombers The Frog Prince The Fury Of Abandonment The Fury Of Beautiful Bones The Fury Of Cocks The Fury Of Cooks The Fury Of Earth The Fury Of Flowers And Worms The Fury Of Gods Good-bye The Fury Of Gods Goodbye The Fury Of Guitars And Sopranos The Fury Of Hating Eyes The Fury Of Jewels And Coal The Fury Of Overshoes The Fury Of Rainstorms The Fury Of Sundays The Fury Of Sunrises The Fury Of Sunsets The Gold Key The Interrogation Of The Man Of Many H The Inventory Of Goodbye The Kiss The Legend Of The One-Eyed Man The Lost Ingredient The Moss Of His Skin The Nude Swim The Other The Play The Poet Of Ignorance The Red Dance The Room Of My Life The Stand-Ins The Starry Night The Touch The Truth The Dead Know The Twelve Dancing Princesses The Wedding Ring Dance The Wifebeater The Witchs Life To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Tri Unknown Girl In A Maternity Ward Us Wallflower Wanting To Die When Man Enters Woman Where It Was At Back Then With Mercy For The Greedy Words Young You Doctor Martin

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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

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