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World Poetry Translation Project


Submit Human Translation | Discuss Poem | Post Poetry | Listen McGill Live

Searching For Pittsburgh

by Jack Gilbert

The fox pushes softly, blindly through me at night,
between the liver and the stomach. Comes to the heart
and hesitates. Considers and then goes around it.
Trying to escape the mildness of our violent world.
Goes deeper, searching for what remains of Pittsburgh
in me. The rusting mills sprawled gigantically
along three rivers. The authority of them.
The gritty alleys where we played every evening were
stained pink by the inferno always surging in the sky,
as though Christ and the Father were still fashioning the Earth.
Locomotives driving through the cold rain,
lordly and bestial in their strength. Massive water
flowing morning and night throughout a city
girded with ninety bridges. Sumptuous-shouldered,
sleek-thighed, obstinate and majestic, unquenchable.
All grip and flood, mighty sucking and deep-rooted grace.
A city of brick and tired wood. Ox and sovereign spirit.
Primitive Pittsburgh. Winter month after month telling
of death. The beauty forcing us as much as harshness.
Our spirits forged in that wilderness, our minds forged
by the heart. Making together a consequence of America.
The fox watched me build my Pittsburgh again and again.
In Paris afternoons on Buttes-Chaumont. On Greek islands
with their fields of stone. In beds with women, sometimes,
amid their gentleness. Now the fox will live in our ruined
house. My tomatoes grow ripe among weeds and the sound
of water. In this happy place my serious heart has made.


American Review | www.PaperLyon.com | McGill Live Radio | Publish
 

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

  Poems by Jack Gilbert
  1. Divorce
  2. In Dispraise Of Poetry
  3. In Umbria
  4. Poetry Is A Kind Of Lying
  5. Portrait Number Five Against A New Yo
  6. Rain
  7. Recovering Amid The Farms
  8. Searching For Pittsburgh
  9. Tear It Down
  10. The Abnormal Is Not Courage
  11. The Forgotten Dialect Of The Heart
  12. The Great Fires
 
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPRSTVWY[ALL] 
  Jack Gilbert 
  Jack Kerouac 
  Jack Prelutsky 
  Jack Spicer 
  James A. Emanuel 
  James Schuyler 
  James Tate 
  James Wright 
  Jane Kenyon 
  Jean Cocteau 
  Jean Toomer 
  Jim Carroll 
  John Betjeman 
  John Clare 
  John Donne 
  John Dryden 
  John Keats 
  John Masefield 
  John Milton 
  John Wilmot 
  Jon Anderson 
  Jonathan Swift 
  Jorge Luis Borges 
  Jorie Graham 
  Joseph Brodsky 
  Joseph Warton 
  Judy Grahn 

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.
 



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