Reflections (Vol. 12, Term Issue 2)

JoLT

Volume 12, Term Issue II

Vanity of vanities! All is vanity. What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?

- Ecclesiastes 1:2-3

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Volume 12, Term Issue II “Reflections”

I’ve often been told: “You’re not paid to think”. I dream of a day I may be paid to ponder. So in the meantime, I’ll just reflect. Reflections can often be alluring, contemplative, even hideous or revealing.

What one wishes to see and the truth they experience may oftentimes be at odds with each other. Yet in this gap, the ineffable can arise. That said, reflections are indispensable. They make us look back at the tradition that formed us, the modernity that shapes us and the present that mirrors us.

The pages that follow exhibit what reflections mean to our contributors.

To all the editorial team, your dedication and professionalism has been second to none. Lara, your artistic flair makes this issue stand out for all to see. Ayushmaan, the past three issues couldn’t have gone to print without you. I am eternally indebted to your design-driven eye and aptitude. Caroline, I’m highly grateful for all your assistance, support and backing over the past year.

To whoever takes up the mantle of JoLT next year, I wish you all the best and pass on all the pleasures of this publication. Finally, to all contributors, both published and unpublished, this journal would not exist nor can it flourish without you. Go raibh maith agaibh.

Eoghan Conway

Editorial Staff 2023/24

Editor-in-Chief

Eoghan Conway

Deputy Editor

Caroline Loughlin

General Assistant Editor

Oonagh Delargy

Alex Payne

Art Editor

Lara Prideaux

Language Editors

Ilaria Lico

Ioana Răducu

Ailis Halligan

Nicole Battù

Eduardo Pinheiro

Michelle Chan Schmidt

Sinéad Ní Cheallaigh

Layout & Design Editor

Ayushmaan Kumar Yadav

Naemi Victoria

Contents

Cover Art by Lara Prideaux

3 Editorial

4 Art by Naemi Victoria

7 Ei ole Jumalat

Estonian To English transl. by Eduardo Torres

9 Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi

Italian To English transl. by Giulia Nati

11 Un extrait de “La Tentation de saint Antoine”

French To English transl. by Seoirse Swanton

17 Ο Νάρκισσος

και η Ηχώ

Greek To English transl. by Aimilia Varla

21 Narcissus art by Greta Chies

22 Da Burn

Modern Shetlandic Scots to Irish transl. by Ruairí Goodwin

23 Reflections

English To Polish transl. by Tomasz Balcerkiewicz

25 Extractos de “La Dentadura”

Spanish To English transl. by Helena Gelman

31 Liebestote Körper

German To English transl. by Theresa Wiesweg

Contents

33 Fivefourthreetwoone art by Penny Stuart

34

Disintegrating Memories art by PIGSY

35 The War Prayer

English To Russian transl. by Oliver Fisk

39 Two Ivory Swans

English To Irish transl. by Adam Dunbar

41 I Am A Cameraman

English To Italian transl. by Liam Frabetti

43 Into my heart an air that kills

English To French transl. by Hazel Scott

44 Draw Your Sword II art by Penny Stuart

45 yasmeen

English To Spanish transl. by Sam Priego

47 Reflexion

German To English transl. by Aimilia Varla

49 trouble with spain

English To Portuguese transl. by Vicente Velasques

51 Harlem

English To Irish transl. by Alanah Kennedy

53 L’infinito

Italian To English transl. by Aurora Ventoruzzo

55 From Baleas e Baleas

Galician To English

Featured translations by Keith Payne

61 Contributors

63 Artists

Estonian

Ei ole Jumalat

Reflection both as a mental and a physical event; the mind as a mirror that casts light back to our own thoughts and reveals a terrible image that ultimately proves a reassuring picture: there is no God, but it is fine, this world does not need one.

Ei ole Jumalat, ei ole lavastajat, ei ole dirigenti.

Maailm toimub ise, näidend mängib ise, orkester mängib ise, ja kui kellelgi

kukub viiul käest ja süda jääb seisma, ei saa inimene ja surm kunagi kokku – klaasi taga

ei ole midagi, teispoolsus on peegel, milles mulle vaatab otsa

mu oma hirm oma suurte silmadega ja selle hirmu taga, kui ainult hoolega vaadata, on rohi ja õunapuud ja päevalill, mis tasapisi pöörab end päikese poole Jumalata, lavastajata, dirigendita.

There is no God

transl. by Eduardo Torres

There is no God, there is no director, there is no conductor. The world itself happens, the play performs itself, the orchestra plays itself, and when the violin falls from someone’s hand and the heart stops, man and death do not ever meet – behind the glass, there is nothing, the afterlife is a mirror, in which I am stared at by my own fear with its big eyes, and behind that fear, if one only looked carefully, there is grass and apple trees and a sunflower which little-by-little turns itself towards the sun without God, without director, without conductor.

Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi

Cesare Pavese

In the poem “Verrà la notte e avrà i tuoi occhi”, Cesare Pavese suggests that Death holds a gaze for everyone, implying that when Death arrives, people will witness their own failures reflected in its eyes. The poet specifically envisions the eyes of his beloved, who had rejected him.

Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi questa morte che ci accompagna dal mattino alla sera, insonne, sorda, come un vecchio rimorso O un vizio assurdo. I tuoi occhi saranno una vana parola, un grido taciuto, un silenzio. Così li vedi ogni mattina quando su te sola ti pieghi nello specchio. O cara speranza, quel giorno sapremo anche noi che sei la vita e sei il nulla.

Per tutti la morte ha uno sguardo. Verrà la morte e avrà i tuoi occhi. Sarà come smettere un vizio, come vedere nello specchio riemergere un viso morto, come ascoltare un labbro chiuso. Scenderemo nel gorgo muti.

Death will come and she will bear your eyes

transl. by Giulia Nati

Death will come and she will bear your eyes this death who walks us from morning until eve, tireless, deaf, like an old remorse, or an absurd vice. Your eyes Shall be a futile word, a withheld scream, a silence. Thus you see them every morning when, in solitude, you bend in the mirror. O dear hope, that day we too will know that you are the life and you are the naught.

For everyone death holds a gaze. Death will come and she will bear your eyes. It will be as if abandoning a habit, like watching reemerging in the mirror a dead visage, like listening to a shut lip. We will descend in the whirlpool mute.

French

Un extrait de “La Tentation de saint Antoine”

Gustave Flaubert

Flaubert’s phantasmagoria of distorted mirrors; Saint Anthony in the wilderness is confronted with hallucinatory temptations and visions whose content reflects his spiritual life and past. The extract ends with a mise-en-abyme of the whole work; Anthony, alone, transfixed by a reflection which compounds image upon image in profusion.

…Tout l’entourage a disparu.

Il se croit à Alexandrie sur le Paneum, montagne artificielle qu’entoure un escalier en limaçon et dressée au centre de la ville.

En face de lui s’étend le lac Mareotis, à droite la mer, à gauche la campagne, et, immédiatement sous ses yeux, une confusion de toits plats, traversée du sud au nord et de l’est à l’ouest par deux rues qui s’entrecroisent et forment, dans toute leur longueur, une file de portiques à chapiteaux corinthiens. Les maisons surplombant cette double colonnade ont des fenêtres à vitres coloriées. Quelques-unes portent extérieurement d’énormes cages en bois, où l’air du dehors s’engouffre.

Des monuments d’architecture différente se tassent les uns près des autres. Des pylônes égyptiens dominent des temples grecs. Des obélisques apparaissent comme des lances entre des créneaux de briques rouges. Au milieu des places, il y a des Hermès à oreilles pointues et des Anubis à tête de chien. Antoine distingue des mosaïques dans les cours, et aux poutrelles des plafonds des tapis accrochés.

Il embrasse, d’un seul coup d’œil, les deux ports (le Grand-Port et l’Eunoste), ronds tous les deux comme deux cirques, et que sépare un môle joignant Alexandrie à l’îlot escarpé sur lequel se lève la tour du Phare, quadrangulaire, haute de cinq cents coudées et à neuf étages, avec un amas de charbons noirs fumant à son sommet.

De petits ports intérieurs découpent les ports principaux. Le môle, à chaque bout, est terminé par un pont établi sur des colonnes de marbre plantées dans la mer. Des voiles passent dessous ; et de lourdes gabares débordantes de marchandises, des barques thalamèges à incrustations d’ivoire, des gondoles couvertes d’un tendelet, des trirèmes et des birèmes, toutes sortes de bateaux, circulent ou stationnent contre les quais.

English

An extract from “The Temptation of Saint Anthony”

transl. by Seoirse Swanton

…All the surrounds have disappeared.

He believes himself to be in Alexandria on the Paneum, an artificial mountain standing in the centre of the city and surrounded by a spiral stairway.

In front of him stretches the lake of Mareotis; to his right, the sea, to the left, the countryside, and, immediately below his eyes, a confusion of flat roofs, traversed from north to south and from east to west by two intersecting streets that form in all their length a row of porticoes with Corinthian capitals. The houses overlooking this double colonnade have windows of coloured glass. Some of them sport outwardly enormous wooden casings, where the outside air enters.

Monuments of different architectural styles are piled up together. Egyptian gateways dominate Greek temples. Obelisks upjut like lances between crenels of red brick. In the middle of the squares, there are statues of Hermes with pointed ears, Anubis with a dog’s head. Anthony makes out mosaics in the courtyards, and tapestries hanging from the roofbeams.

His view embraces the two ports in a single glance—the Portus Magnus and the Portus Eunostus—both rounded like arenas and separated by a breakwater joining Alexandria to the raised island where the tower of Pharos stands, four-sided, five hundred cubits high, nine storeys tall, a mass of black coals smoking at its summit.

Small interior ports subdivide the two greater ones. The breakwater is bordered at either end by bridges founded on marble columns planted into the sea. Sailboats pass below, and heavy barges overflowing with cargo, Thalamegoi inlaid with ivory, canopycovered gondolas, triremes, and biremes: boats of every variety circle the waters or dock against the quays.

French

Autour du Grand-Port, c’est une suite ininterrompue de constructions royales : le palais des Ptolémées, le Museum, le Posidium, le Cesareum, le Timonium où se réfugia Marc-Antoine, le Soma qui contient le tombeau d’Alexandre ; tandis qu’à l’autre extrémité de la ville, après l’Eunoste, on aperçoit dans un faubourg des fabriques de verre, de parfums et de papyrus.

Des vendeurs ambulants, des portefaix, des âniers, courent, se heurtent. Çà et là, un prêtre d’Osiris avec une peau de panthère sur l’épaule, un soldat romain à casque de bronze, beaucoup de nègres. Au seuil des boutiques des femmes s’arrêtent, des artisans travaillent ; et le grincement des chars fait s’envoler des oiseaux qui mangent par terre les détritus des boucheries et des restes de poisson.

Sur l’uniformité des maisons blanches, le dessin des rues jette comme un réseau noir. Les marchés pleins d’herbes y font des bouquets verts, les sécheries des teinturiers des plaques de couleurs, les ornements d’or au fronton des temples des points lumineux, tout cela compris dans l’enceinte ovale des murs grisâtres, sous la voûte du ciel bleu, près de la mer immobile.

Mais la foule s’arrête, et regarde du côté de l’Occident, d’où s’avancent d’énormes tourbillons de poussière.

Ce sont les moines de la Thébaïde, vêtus de peaux de chèvre, armés de gourdins, et hurlant un cantique de guerre et de religion avec ce refrain : « Où sont-ils ? où sont-ils ? ». Antoine comprend qu’ils viennent pour tuer les Ariens. Tout à coup les rues se vident, et l’on ne voit plus que des pieds levés. Les Solitaires maintenant sont dans la ville. Leurs formidables bâtons, garnis de clous, tournent comme des soleils d’acier. On entend le fracas des choses brisées dans les maisons. Il y a des intervalles de silence. Puis de grands cris s’élèvent.

D’un bout à l’autre des rues, c’est un remous continuel de peuple effaré. Plusieurs tiennent des piques. Quelquefois, deux groupes se rencontrent, n’en font qu’un ; et cette masse glisse sur les dalles, se disjoint, s’abat. Mais toujours les hommes à longs cheveux reparaissent.

Des filets de fumée s’échappent du coin des édifices. Les battants des portes éclatent. Des pans de murs s’écroulent. Des architraves tombent.

Around the Portus Magnus, there is an uninterrupted succession of royal buildings: the Palace of the Ptolemies, the Museum, the Posidium, the Caesareum, the Timonium where Mark-Antony sought refuge, the Soma containing the tomb of Alexander, while at the other extremity of the city, beyond the Portus Eunostus, there is an outlying quarter of glassworks, perfumeries and papyrus-makers.

Streetsellers, porters, and donkeydrovers run around and shout. Dotted here and there are a priest of Osiris, a pantherpelt about his shoulders, a Roman soldier wearing a bronze helmet, and many Africans. Women stop at shopfronts. Artisans ply their trade. The birds which pick butcherscraps and fishscraps from the ground are sent flying by the creaking of chariots.

The pattern of the roads is cast upon the uniformity of white houses like a black interlace. The markets arrange their abundant herbs in verdant bouquets, the drying works of the dyers are slabs of colour, the gold ornaments on temple pediments are glimmers of light. All this is bounded by the oval greyish walls, under the blue vault of the sky, by the motionless sea.

But the crowd stops and looks to the west, from where great spiralling dustclouds are advancing.

It is the monks of the Thebaid, dressed in goatskins, armed with clubs, howling a canticle of war and faith with the refrain:

-Where are they? Where are they?

Anthony knows that they have come to kill the Arians.

All at once, the streets empty. Nothing visible save feet raised in flight. The anchorites are in the city now. Their great clubs, studded with nails, turn like suns of steel. There is a cacophony of bric-a-brac being shattered in the houses. Intervals of silence. Great cries rise.

From one end of the streets to another, a continual torrent of people in terror.

Many hold pikes. Sometimes, two groups meet and unite, and this mass glides along the cobbles, splits, and strikes, but always the men with long hair reappear.

Threads of smoke arise from the corners of buildings. Doors break open. Patches of walls crumble. Architraves fall.

French

Antoine retrouve tous ses ennemis l’un après l’autre. Il en reconnaît qu’il avait oubliés ; avant de les tuer, il les outrage. Il éventre, égorge, assomme, traîne les vieillards par la barbe, écrase les enfants, frappe les blessés. Et on se venge du luxe ; ceux qui ne savent pas lire déchirent les livres ; d’autres cassent, abîment les statues, les peintures, les meubles, les coffrets, mille délicatesses dont ils ignorent l’usage et qui, à cause de cela, les exaspèrent. De temps à autre, ils s’arrêtent tout hors d’haleine, puis recommencent.

Les habitants, réfugiés dans les cours, gémissent.

Les femmes lèvent au ciel leurs yeux en pleurs et leurs bras nus. Pour fléchir les Solitaires, elles embrassent leurs genoux ; ils les renversent ; et le sang jaillit jusqu’aux plafonds, retombe en nappes le long des murs, ruisselle du tronc des cadavres décapités, emplit les aqueducs, fait par terre de larges flaques rouges.

Antoine en a jusqu’aux jarrets. Il marche dedans ; il en hume les gouttelettes sur ses lèvres, et tressaille de joie à le sentir contre ses membres, sous sa tunique de poils, qui en est trempée.

La nuit vient. L’immense clameur s’apaise.

Les Solitaires ont disparu.

Tout à coup, sur les galeries extérieures bordant les neuf étages du Phare, Antoine aperçoit de grosses lignes noires comme seraient des corbeaux arrêtés. Il y court, et il se trouve au sommet.

Un grand miroir de cuivre, tourné vers la haute mer, reflète les navires qui sont au large.

Antoine s’amuse à les regarder ; et à mesure qu’il les regarde, leur nombre augmente.

Anthony finds his enemies once more, one after the other. He recognises those he had forgotten. Before killing them, he taunts them. He disembowels them, slits their throats, slaughters them. He pulls the old ones by the beard, crushes the children, strikes the wounded. They take excessive vengeance: those who cannot read tear apart the books; others break and tear down the statues, paintings, furnishings, coffers, a thousand delicacies whose use they are ignorant of, and because of this, enrage them. From time to time they stop, out of breath, and then begin again.

The citizens wail, sheltered in the courtyards.

The women raise their weeping eyes and unclad arms to the sky. To beg mercy of the anchorites, they fall at their feet. They are thrown back, blood spurts to the ceiling, falling in long sheets across the walls, flowing from the trunks of headless corpses, filling the aqueducts, forming large red puddles upon the ground.

Anthony is up to his knees in it. He wades into it. He savours drops of it on his lips, shivers with joy to feel it against his limbs, under his tunic of skins, which is soaked in it.

Night falls. The great clamour is quieted.

The anchorites have disappeared.

All at once, on the exterior galleries fringing the nine storeys of the tower of Pharos, Anthony perceives thick black lines that could be perched crows. He runs towards them, finding himself at the summit of the tower.

A great copper mirror, turned towards the open sea, reflects ships at sail. Anthony revels in watching them, and as he watches them, their numbers grow.

Ο Νάρκισσος και η Ηχώ

Anna Sofou

The translation is an extract of the children’s adaptation of the ancient myth “Narcissus and Echo”, originally narrated by Obedius and adapted by Anna Sofou. The myth investigates themes of self-image, self-love, and narcissism. Through the allegory of Narcissus, the story reveals to us new possibilities in the ways we perceive ourselves.

O Νάρκισσος ήταν γιός του ποταμού Κηφισού και της νύμφης Λειριώπης. Περνούσε τη ζωή του μέσα στα δάση και τις ρεματιές. Ήταν ένας πανέμορφος νέος και όλες οι νύμφες τον αγαπούσαν μέσα στο δάσος. Όμως ο Νάρκισσος ποτέ δεν ανταποκρινόταν στην αγάπη καμίας νύμφης. Ήταν πάντα ασυγκίνητος.

Μια μέρα βρέθηκε σε ένα τρίστρατο και σταμάτησε να δει που θα πάει. Τότε άκουσε κοντά του έναν θόρυβο μέσα από τους θάμνους. Ήταν η νύμφη Ηχώ που και αυτή με τη σειρά της τον αγάπησε μόλις τον είδε.

Η Ηχώ όμως δεν μπορούσε να μιλήσει. Επαναλάμβανε μόνο τις τελευταίες λέξεις των άλλων, εξαιτίας μιας κατάρας της Ήρας και περίμενε την ευκαιρία να μιλήσει πρώτος ο Νάρκισσος για να ακουστεί στη συνέχεια η δική της φωνή.

Και να, ο Νάρκισσος ρωτάει γεμάτος έκπληξη! Ποιός κρύβεται στους θάμνους; Ποιά είσαι εσύ που γελάς και κλαις μέσα στα φύλλα;

Ηχώ: Στα φύλλα;

Νάρκισσος: Σου αρέσει η φωνή μου; Ποιά είσαι;

Η: Ποιός είσαι;

Ν: Με λένε Νάρκισσο

Η: Ηχώ…ω…

Ν: Είσαι όμορφη;

Η: Όμορφη

Ν: Ήθελα να δώ τα μάτια σου

Η: Τα μάτια σου…

Ν: Θέλω να σε ρωτήσω Ηχώ αν περνάει η στράτα δώθε

Η: δωθε…

Ν: Και που θα φτάσω αν την πάρω από εδωνά

Η: πουθενά

Ν: πουθενά, παράξενο. Τρεις μέρες περπατάω και τώρα εσύ μου λές πως σταματάει η στράτα εδώ και δεν μπορώ να πάω…

Η: Σαγαπώ

English

Narcissus and Echo

transl. by Aimilia Varla

Narcissus was the son of the river Kifissos and the nymph Leiriopi. He spent his life in the woods and ravines. He was a very beautiful young man and all the nymphs loved him in the forest. But Narcissus never reciprocated the love of any nymph. He was always unmoved by it.

One day he found himself in a crossing and stopped to see where he was going. Then he heard a noise coming from near the bushes. It was the nymph Echo who had also fallen in love with him the moment she saw him.

But Echo could not speak. She only repeated the last words of others, as she had been cursed by Hera. So she waited for the opportunity for Narcissus to speak first so that her own voice could be heard afterwards.

And here, Narcissus asks full of surprise! Who is hiding in the bushes? Who are you, and why are you laughing and crying between the leaves?

Echo: The leaves?

Narcissus: Do you like my voice? Who are you?

E: Who are you?

N: My name is Narcissus

E: Echo…oh…

N: Are you beautiful?

E: Beautiful

N: I want to see your eyes

E: Your eyes...

N: I want to ask you, Echo, where the crossing leads

E: Leads...

N: And where will I get if I take it from here?

E: nowhere

N: nowhere, strange. I’ve been walking for three days and now you tell me that the road stops here and I can’t carry on ...

E: I love you

Ν: Είπες μ αγαπάς και που με ξέρεις;

Εγώ σε ξέρω μονάχα απο τη φωνή σου.

Η: τη φωνή σου…

Ν: χθες το βράδυ τραγούδησα μακριά στις φτέρες.

Η: στις φτέρες…

Ν: Είμαι πολύ λυπημένος

Η: λυπημένος…

Ν: θέλω να βρω κάτι που να το αγαπάω

Η: Σαγαπάω

Ν: κανείς δε νιώθει μέσα μου τι νιώθω.

Η: νιώθω…

Ν: Ό,τι αγγίξω χάνεται

Η: χάνεται…

Ν: Η πρώτη μου αγάπη ήταν ένα πουλί. Μα σαν έμαθα το τραγούδι του το βαρέθηκα. Ύστερα αγάπησα μια όμορφη, μα κι αυτή τη βαρέθηκα. Έλα να ανταμώσουμε.

Η: Ν’ ανταμώσουμε!

Με χέρια απλωμένα βγήκε από το δάσος η νύμφη και έτρεξε στον Νάρκισσο.

Μα το όμορφο παλικάρι την απόδιωξε θυμωμένο και χάθηκε μέσα στο πυκνό δάσος…. Η Ηχώ τον ακολούθησε αν και εκείνος την έδιωξε. Η Ηχώ δεν μπορούσε ούτε να φάει, ούτε να πιεί…έλιωνε απ τον καημό της. Και απο την Ηχώ απέμεινε μόνο η φωνή της που αντιλαλεί μέσα στα δάση.

Βαθιά στο δάσος ήταν μια μικρή λίμνη, σαν ένας ασημένιος καθρέφτης, ανέγγιχτη και αρυτίδωτη. Τα νερά της ούτε ζώο ούτε πουλί πείραξε ποτέ. Ο υδάτινος αυτός καθρέφτης του φανέρωσε μια ομορφιά θεική. Ήταν το είδωλό του. Καθρεφτιζόταν ο ίδιος μέσα στο νερό. Τότε ο Νάρκισσος φώναξε δυνατά:

“Είσαι πανέμορφος”.

Τρελός από αγάπη απλώνει τα χέρια του για να αγκαλιάσει αυτό που έβλεπε στα νερά της λίμνης αλλά ξαφνικά χάθηκε η μορφή που έβλεπε.

“Μη μ’ αφήνεις” φώναξε τότε ο Νάρκισσος και αυτοθαυμαζόμενος στο νερό της λίμνης, έφτασε σε απόγνωση, υπέστη μαρασμό και κατέληξε. Τότε μαζεύτηκαν οι νύμφες κι έψαχναν τον Νάρκισσο για να τον κηδέψουν με τιμές. Όμως δεν βρήκαν πουθενά το σώμα του. Είχε μεταμορφωθεί σε αρωματικό λουλούδι με έξι κιτρινολευκα πέταλα, όπως εξιστορεί ο Οβίδιος στις μεταμορφώσεις του. Η ομορφιά του Νάρκισσου έγινε λουλούδι που στόλισε τις όχθες και τις ρεματιές.

N: You said you love me and how do you know me?

I only know you by your voice.

E: your voice…

N: last night I sang away in the ferns.

E: in the ferns...

N: I am very sad

E: sad…

N: I want to find something that I love

E: I love you

N: no one feels what I feel inside me.

E: I feel …

N: Everything I touch is lost

E: lost…

N: My first love was a bird. But when I learned its song I got tired of it. Then I fell in love with a beautiful woman, but I got tired of her too. Let’s meet.

E: Meet!

With arms outstretched the nymph came out of the forest and ran towards Narcissus. But the handsome boy pushed her away in anger and disappeared into the dense forest…. Echo followed him though he rejected her. Echo could neither eat nor drink...she was withering away in her misery. And from Echo, only her voice that echoes through the woods remained.

Deep in the forest there was a small lake, like a silver mirror, untouched and unwrinkled. Neither animal nor bird has ever disturbed its waters. This water mirror revealed to him a divine beauty. He became his own idol, his image mirrored by the water. Then Narcissus cried aloud: “You are gorgeous”.

Madly in love, he stretched out his arms to hold what he saw in the waters of the lake but suddenly that figure disappeared.

“Don’t leave me” cried Narcissus then, and admiring himself in the water of the lake, he sank into despair, and suffering until he withered and died. Then the nymphs gathered and looked for Narcissus to bury him with honors. But they could not find his body anywhere. He had been transformed into a fragrant flower with six yellow-white petals, as recounted by Ovidius in his metamorphoses. The beauty of Narcissus became a flower that adorned the banks and ravines.

Greta Chies - Narcissus

Da Burn

Christie Williamson

Da Burn is an early poem by Scottish poet Christie Williamson, written in Shetland dialect. The speaker reflects on a moment of stupidity, a shot and a miss, when he attempted to jump over a stream, but instead plunged into the water and was washed out to the sea.

A dim simmer hit wis dat year I towt I’d try an jump da burn aisy twice as wide as I could ivvir hop ta clear. Hit baptised me in naewhaarness an dragged me wi hit’s currents deep alang a bank I didna keen an coulda conquer Dat’s whan I kent at I wis lost an widna keen a bit o sense until I saa da shingly beach an taesit saat

An Sruth

transl. by Ruairí Goodwin

Samhradh breacdhorcha a bhí ann an bhliain sin Cheapas go dtriallfainn an sruth a léimt é gan amhras dhá oiread an leithead a d’fhéadfainn riamh trasnú de phreab Do bhaist sé mé i ndalladhchas is do tharraing sé mé lena fheachtaí domhain thar bruach nár aithin mé is nár éirigh liom a bhaint amach Bhí a fhios agam ansin go raibh mé caillte is nach mbeadh aon fheasacht agam go dtí go bhfeicfinn an trá dhuirlinge is go mblasfainn salann

English

Reflections

Ronald Stuart Thomas

Mirrors are a core image throughout Thomas’ poetry, which later on becomes increasingly psychologised and mirrors lose their role as tools of theological exploration and become a tool to catch a glimpse of one’s true self. This becomes a source of anxiety, the furies hidden under its surface threaten to consume the unwitting investigator.

The furies are at home in the mirror; it is their address. Even the clearest water, if deep enough can drown.

Never think to surprise them. Your face approaching ever so friendly is the white flag they ignore. There is no truce

with the furies. A mirror’s temperature is always at zero. It is ice in the veins. Its camera is an X-ray. It is a chalice

held out to you in silent communion, where gaspingly you partake of a shifting identity never your own.

Polish

Odbicia

transl. by Tomasz Balcerkiewicz

Furie zamieszkują w lustrze; oto ich adres. Nawet najczystsza woda, dostatecznie głęboka, potrafi utopić.

Nie myśl ich zaskakiwaç. Twoja twarz zbliżająca się, pełna życzliwości jest biała flagą, którą znieważają. Nie może być rozejmu

z furiami. Temperatura lustra tkwi na zerze. Jest lodem w żyłach. Jego kamera prześwietleniem. Jest kielichem

wyciągniętym ku tobie w cichej komunii, gdzie o ciężkim oddechu uczestniczysz w niestałej tożsamości, nigdy twojej własnej.

Extractos de “La Dentadura”

Emilia Pardo Bazán

This excerpted short story is about the tyranny of reflection, the contradictions of seeing yourself in the mirror and in other people’s eyes. It also reflects the double standard of feminine beauty that even in this tragi-comic portrayal from the 1880s arguably still has resonance. NB: The ellipses between paragraphs denote omissions for length.

…

Los amoríos entre Fausto y Águeda, al principio, fueron un dúo en que ella cantaba con toda su voz y su entusiasmo, y él, «reservándose» como los grandes tenores, en momentos dados emitía una nota que arrebataba. Águeda se sentía vivir y morir. Su alma, palacio mágico siempre iluminado para solemne fiesta nupcial, resplandecía y se abrasaba, y una plenitud inmensa de sentimiento le hacía olvidarse de las realidades y de cuanto no fuese su dicha, sus pláticas inocentes con Fausto, su carteo, su ventaneo, su idilio, en fin.

…

Un día estrechó a Fausto con preguntas apremiantes:

—¿Me quieres de veras, de veras? ¿Te gusto? ¿Soy yo la mujer que más te gusta? Háblame claro, francamente... Prometo no enfadarme ni afligirme. Fausto, sonriente, halagador, galante al pronto, acabó por soltar parte de la verdad en una aseveración exactísima:

—Guedita: eres muy mona..., muy guapa, sin adulación... Tienes una tez de leche y rosas, unas facciones torneadas, unos ojos de terciopelo negro, un talle que se puede abarcar con un brazalete... Lo único que te desmerece..., así..., un poquito..., es la pícara dentadura. Es que a no ser por la dentadura..., chica, un cuadro de Murillo.

Calló Águeda, contrita y avergonzada; pero apenas se hubo despedido Fausto, corrió al espejo. ¡Exactísimo! los dientes de Águeda, aunque sanos y blancos, eran salientes, anchos a guisa de paletas, y su defectuosa colocación imponía a la boca un gesto empalagoso y bobín. ¿Cómo no había advertido Águeda tan notable falta? Creía ver ahora por primera vez la fea caja de su dentadura, y un pesar intenso, cruel la abrumaba... Lágrimas ardientes fluyeron por sus mejillas, y aquella noche no pegó ojo dando vueltas, entre el ardor de la fiebre a la triste idea... «Fausto ni me quiere ni puede quererme. ¡Con unos dientes así!»

Excerpts from “The Set of Teeth”

transl. by Helena Gelman

…

From the beginning of the love affair between Fausto and Águeda they were a duo where she sang with all her voice and enthusiasm and he, “holding himself back” like a great tenor, at given moments would emit one violently enchanting note. Águeda felt she was both gloriously alive and dying of despair. Her soul, a magic palace always lit for solemn wedding feast, shone resplendent and smouldered, and her immense abundance of feeling made her forget reality and ultimately whatever wasn’t her happiness, her innocent chats with Fausto, their correspondence, their windowgazing, her idyll.

…

One day she embraced Fausto with pressing questions:

“Do you really, really love me? Do I please you? Am I the woman you like the most? Tell me straight, honestly… I promise I won’t be angry or upset.” Fausto, smiling, flattering, suddenly gallant, let out part of the truth in one very exact observation:

“Guedita: you are very pretty – beautiful, truly – you have a milk-and-roses complexion, delicate features, black-velvet eyes, a waist you could fit a bracelet around. The only thing that mars you… that is… only a little… are your crooked teeth. If it weren’t for your teeth, sweetheart, you’d be a Murillo.”

Águeda fell silent, embarrassed and contrite; but as soon as she had bid Fausto goodbye, she ran to the mirror. It was exactly so! Águeda’s teeth, though white and healthy, were protruding, wide like spades, and their defective placement gave her mouth a sentimental, idiotic look. How had Águeda never considered such a notable fault? She felt she was seeing now for the first time the ugly cavity of her jaw, and as though she was being crushed by a cruel, intense burden. Burning tears flowed down her cheeks and that night she couldn’t sleep as she feverishly turned over and over in her mind that idea: “Fausto does not love me nor could he love me. Not with these teeth!”

Desde el instante en que Águeda se dio cuenta de que en realidad tenía una dentadura mal encajada y deforme, acabóse su alegría y vinieron a tierra los castillos de naipes de sus ensueños. Rota la gasa dorada del amor, veía confirmados sus temores relativos a la frialdad de Fausto; mas como el espíritu no quiere abandonar sus quimeras, y un corazón enamorado y noble no se aviene a creer que su mismo exceso de ternura puede engendrar indiferencia, dio en achacar su desgracia a los dientes malditos. «Con otros dientes, Fausto sería mío quizá». Y germinó en su mente un extraño y atrevido propósito.

…

Iba resuelta a arrancarse todos los dientes y ponerse una dentadura ideal, perfecta.

…

Desviados, salientes y grandes eran sus dientes todos. Había que desarraigarlos uno por uno. Águeda, cerrando los ojos, fijó el pensamiento en Fausto. Temblorosa, yerta de pavor, abrió la boca y sufrió la primera tortura, la segunda, la tercera... A la cuarta, como se viese cubierta de sangre, cayó con un síncope mortal.

…

Apenas cicatrizadas las encías, ajustáronle la dentadura nueva, menuda, fina, igual, divinamente colocada: dos hileritas de perlas. Se miró al espejo de la fonda; se sonrió; estaba realmente transformada con aquellos dientes, sus labios ahora tenían expresión, dulzura, morbidez, una voluptuosa turgencia y gracias que se comunicaba a toda la fisonomía... Águeda, en medio de su regocijo, sentía mortal cansancio; apresuróse a volver a su pueblo, y a los dos días de llegar, violenta fiebre nerviosa ponía en riesgo su vida.

From the instant that Águeda realised that she did really have a deformed and badly framed set of teeth, her happiness ended and her house of cards came crashing down to earth. The golden gauze of love was torn, and she saw her fears about Fausto’s coldness confirmed; but as the spirit does not want to abandon its chimeras, a noble heart in love cannot come to believe its own excess of tenderness can engender indifference, and she attributed her disgrace to the cursed teeth. “With other teeth, Fausto could be mine.” And so was planted in her mind a strange and daring idea.

…

She became resolved to pull out all her teeth and put in their place an ideal, perfect set.

…

All her teeth were gapped, protruding and large. They had to be uprooted one by one. Águeda, eyes closed, fixed her thoughts on Fausto. Trembling, petrified with fright, she opened her mouth and suffered the first tor ture, then the second, the third… at the fourth, feeling herself covered with blood, she fell into a horrible death-like faint.

…

She adjusted her still very scarred gums to the new set of teeth, even, fine, equal, divinely placed: two little lines of pearls. She looked in the mirror of the inn; she smiled; she was really transformed with those teeth, her lips now had expression, sweetness, softness, a voluptuous fullness and graces that the rest of her features communicated. Águeda, despite her delight, was overcome by deathly fatigue; forced to return to her village, two days after arrival a violent nervous fever threatened her life.

Desde el instante en que Águeda se dio cuenta de que en realidad tenía una dentadura mal encajada y deforme, acabóse su alegría y vinieron a tierra los castillos de naipes de sus ensueños. Rota la gasa dorada del amor, veía confirmados sus temores relativos a la frialdad de Fausto; mas como el espíritu no quiere abandonar sus quimeras, y un corazón enamorado y noble no se aviene a creer que su mismo exceso de ternura puede engendrar indiferencia, dio en achacar su desgracia a los dientes malditos. «Con otros dientes, Fausto sería mío quizá». Y germinó en su mente un extraño y atrevido propósito.

…

Iba resuelta a arrancarse todos los dientes y ponerse una dentadura ideal, perfecta.

Desviados, salientes y grandes eran sus dientes todos. Había que desar- raigarlos uno por uno. Águeda, cerrando los ojos, fijó el pensamiento en Fausto. Temblorosa, yerta de pavor, abrió la boca y sufrió la primera tortura, la segunda, la tercera... A la cuarta, como se viese cubierta de sangre, cayó con un síncope mortal.

…

Apenas cicatrizadas las encías, ajustáronle la dentadura nueva, menuda, fina, igual, divinamente colocada: dos hileritas de perlas. Se miró al espejo de la fonda; se sonrió; estaba realmente transformada con aquellos dientes, sus labios ahora tenían expresión, dulzura, morbidez, una voluptuosa turgencia y gracias que se comunicaba a toda la fisonomía... Águeda, en medio de su regocijo, sentía mortal cansancio; apresuróse a volver a su pueblo, y a los dos días de llegar, violenta fiebre nerviosa ponía en riesgo su vida.

From the instant that Águeda realised that she did really have a deformed and badly framed set of teeth, her happiness ended and her house of cards came crashing down to earth. The golden gauze of love was torn, and she saw her fears about Fausto’s coldness confirmed; but as the spirit does not want to abandon its chimeras, a noble heart in love cannot come to believe its own excess of tenderness can engender indifference, and she attributed her disgrace to the cursed teeth. “With other teeth, Fausto could be mine.” And so was planted in her mind a strange and daring idea.

…

She became resolved to pull out all her teeth and put in their place an ideal, perfect set.

…

All her teeth were gapped, protruding and large. They had to be uprooted one by one. Águeda, eyes closed, fixed her thoughts on Fausto. Trembling, petrified with fright, she opened her mouth and suffered the first tor ture, then the second, the third… at the fourth, feeling herself covered with blood, she fell into a horrible death-like faint.

…

She adjusted her still very scarred gums to the new set of teeth, even, fine, equal, divinely placed: two little lines of pearls. She looked in the mirror of the inn; she smiled; she was really transformed with those teeth, her lips now had expression, sweetness, softness, a voluptuous fullness and graces that the rest of her features communicated. Águeda, despite her delight, was overcome by deathly fatigue; forced to return to her village, two days after arrival a violent nervous fever threatened her life.

German

Liebestote Körper

(Ein Auszug aus “Mein Name sei Gantenbein”)

Max Frisch

Max Frisch´s novel “Mein Name sei Gantenbein”/”Let my name be Gantenbein” (1964) deals with a narrator who imagines and reimages himself living the lives of a great number of fictional people. Trying their “stories on like clothes”, he uses them to reflect on the (im)possibilities of life.

Ich stelle mir vor:

Da ruht Ihr nun also, ein Paar mit liebestoten Körpern allnächtlich im gemeinsamen Zimmer, ausgenommen die kurzen Reisen wie jetzt. Da wohnt Ihr nun also. Ob es eine Wohnung ist oder ein Haus, eingerichtet so oder so, wahrscheinlich antik-modern mit der üblichen Lampe japanischer Konfektion, jedenfalls ist da ein gemeinsames Bad, der tägliche Anblick von Utensilien für die unterschiedliche Pflege zweier Körper, eines weiblichen, eines männlichen. Da sehnt Ihr euch manchmal. Keines von euch hat einen vertrauteren Menschen, nein, nicht einmal in der Erinnerung; nicht einmal in der Hoffnung. Kann man sich verbundener sein als Ihr? Man kann’s nicht. Aber manchmal sehnt Ihr euch also. Wonach? Da schaudert es euch. Was eigentlich? Da lebt Ihr die endlos-raschen Jahre liebevoll, ein Paar, zärtlich, ohne es vor Gästen zu zeigen, denn Ihr seid es wirklich, ein wirkliches Paar mit zwei liebestoten Körpern, die einander nur selten nochmals suchen. Nur nach einer Reise etwa, einer Trennung von der Dauer eines Kongresses, kommt es vor, daß Ihr am hellichten Tag, kurz nach der Ankunft, ehe die Koffer ausgepackt und das Nötige berichtet ist, einander umarmt. Was soll das mit andern! Es erfrischt, aber es ist keines Geständnisses wert. Da habt Ihr noch einmal, wie einst, einen stundenlosen Tag im Morgenrock und mit Platten. Dann wieder der sanfte Schwund aller Neugierde beiderseits, nicht ausgesprochen und kaum gezeigt; nur getarnt hinter den Forderungen des Tages. Da lebt Ihr so hin. Eure Briefe, wenn Ihr einmal getrennt seid, erschrecken euch fast, beseligen euch selbst, indem Ihr schreibt mit einem Sturm vergessener Worte, mit einer Sprache, die Ihr verlernt habt. Aus einem Hotelzimmer mit leerem Doppelbett ruft Ihr an, Kosten nicht scheuend, aus London oder Hamburg oder Sils, um zu plaudern mitten in der Nacht, dringlich vor Liebe. Da hört Ihr eure vergangenen Stimmen noch einmal, da zittert Ihr. Bis zum Wiedersehen zuhaus. Was bleibt, ist die Neigung, die stille und tiefe und fast unerschütterliche Neigung. Ist das vielleicht nichts? Ihr habt schon fast alles überstanden, ausgenommen das Ende, es ist euch nicht neu, daß eins von euch davonläuft in die Nacht, daß Zorn sich wieder gibt, daß es nichts hilft, wenn Ihr zwei Tage schweigt, Ihr seid ein Paar, jederzeit frei, aber ein Paar. Da ist nicht viel zu machen. Manchmal der Gedanke: Wieso gerade du? Ihr seht euch nach anderen Männern um, nach anderen Frauen. Da kommt ja nicht viel in Frage oder alles. Nichts wird wilder sein als eure Liebe damals, bestenfalls ebenso. War sie wild? Davon sprecht Ihr nicht. In zärtlicher Schonung der Gegenwart. Oder es sei denn mit Vorwurf, der falsch ist wie jeder Vorwurf an das Leben. Wer kann denn etwas für die Gewöhnung? Wie es einmal war, davon weiß nur ein Spiegel in einem unmöglichen Hotelzimmer, ein rostig-silbrig-rauchiger Spiegel, der nicht aufhört ein Liebespaar zu zeigen, vielarmig, Mann und Frau, namenlos, zwei liebestrunkene Körper. Wer von euch es gesehen hat, bleibt Geheimnis. Beide? Das wart nicht Ihr im besondern. Warum verfolgt es euch, was jener Spiegel zeigt?

Two bodies, dead to love

(an excerpt from “Let my name be Gantenbein”) transl. by

Theresa Wiesweg

I imagine:

There you rest now, a couple with bodies dead to love, in your shared room, nightly, apart from short trips like this. There you live now. Whether in an apartment or a house, styled this way or that, quite probably antique and modern with those common Japanese lamps, either way there is a shared bathroom, with the daily sight of utensils for the different care necessitated by two bodies, a female, a male. Occasionally, you feel a longing. Neither of you has anyone they could trust more, no, not even in memory; not even in hope. Could there be a more intimate relationship than yours? There could not. But occasionally, you feel a longing. For what? It makes you shudder. What does? There you live those endless, swift-passing years lovingly, as a couple, tenderly, without demonstrating it to guests, for you truly are loving and tender, a true couple with two bodies, dead to love, who only seek each other occasionally. Only after a trip, a separation that lasts the length of a congress, it happens that, in broad daylight, just after returning, before the luggage is unpacked and the most important news is exchanged, you make love. What is the point in sharing that with anyone else? It’s refreshing, yet not worth confessing. Then you have one more day like those that were, hourless, with morning robes and records. Then, once more, the gentle dwindling of all curiosity, never spoken about, barely shown; hidden behind the demands of each day. There you live now. Your letters, written while separated, nearly frighten you, fill you with bliss, as you write with a storm of lost words, in a language you have unlearned. From a hotel room with an empty double bed you call, not minding the cost, from London or Hamburg or Sils, to speak in the middle of the night, urgent with love. You hear your past voices once more, you´re tembling. Until you reunite, at home. Affection is all that is left, a silent and deep, nearly unwavering affection. Does that count for nothing? You have made it through nearly everything, apart from the end, it is nothing new to you that one of you runs off into the night, that anger will subside, that it doesn´t help for you to keep silent for two days, you are a couple, free at all times, but a couple. Nothing to be done about that. Occasionally the thought: why you, exactly? You look to other men, other women. No one comes into consideration, or everyone. Nothing will be wilder than your love back then, at best it would be the same. Was it wild? You do not speak about it. In tender care for the present. If you do, it is with reproach, as wrong as any other reproach against life is. Who can help habituation? Only a mirror in an impossible hotel room knows the way it used to be, a rusty, silvery-smoky mirror that never stops showing a pair of lovers, many-armed, man and woman, nameless, two bodies, drunk with love. Which of you saw it will remain a secret. Both? It need not have been you two in particular. Why are you haunted by what that mirror shows?

The War Prayer

Mark Twain

As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, the Russian Orthodox Church continues to stand beside the Kremlin, giving the Russian military’s offensive actions its unambiguous blessing. Absent is any deeper spiritual reflection upon the conflict’s human toll; forgotten are Tolstoy’s famous pacifistic warnings from the 19th century, echoed by this Mark Twain composition.

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism … on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun … nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. … Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! … The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said …

…

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work….

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. … he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting.

…

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” …

The War Prayer

transl.

by Oliver

Dónal Fisk

Это было время великого и возвышающего волнения. Страна была во всеоружии, шла война, в каждой груди горел священный огонь патриотизма… отражая на каждую руку и вдоль теряющихся вдали крыш и балконов, развевающаяся чаща флагов блестела на солнце… еженочно массовые переполненные митинги слушали, задыхаясь, патриотические ораторские речи, вызвавшие волнение самых глубоких глубин их души, и которые они прерывали циклонами рукоплескания в самые короткие интервалы, слезы текли вниз по их щекам всё то время; в церквях священники проповедовали преданность флагу и родине и взывали к Богу Битв, умоляя Его помогать нашему справедливому делу в излияниях пылкого красноречия, которые тронули каждого слушателя. Наступило воскресное утро — на следующий день батальоны отправлялись на фронт; церковь заполняли; там были волонтеры, их юные лица сияли мечтами о сражениях — грёзами грозного продвижения, набирающего обороты, стремительного атака, сверкающих сабель, бегства врага, суматохи, окутывающего дыма, напряженной погони, капитуляции! А затем домой с войны, хвалёные герои, желанные, обожаемые, погруженные в золотые моря славы! … Продолжилась служба; читалась военная глава из Ветхого Завета; произносилась первая молитва …

… Потом началась “длинная” молитва. Никто не мог вспомнить ничего такого, с её страстной, просительной, трогательной и красивой речью. Молились о том, чтобы вечно милостивый и благорасположенный Отец берёг как зеницу ока и смотрел за ними; чтобы помог, утешил и поощрял их в их патриотической работе....

Престарелый незнакомец вошел и медленным и бесшумным шагом двинулся по главному проходу, его взгляд, прикованный к священнику, его длинное тело, завернутое в халат, доходивший ему до пят, его голова голая, седые волосы пенистым водопадом падали на плечи, его потасканное лицо неестественно бледное, бледное вплоть до мертвенности. … он подошел к священнику и стоял там, будто в ожидании.

Незнакомец коснулся его руки, жестом попросил отойти в

сторону — что священник и сделал в оцепенении — и занял свое место. Некоторое время он сделал обзор очарованной аудитории торжественными глазами, в которых горел необычный свет; затем глубоким голосом провозгласил: “Я пришел от Престола — неся послание от Всемогущего Бога!”…

English

“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ … When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–must follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

(After a pause.) “Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

“Слуга Божий, слуга ваш молился. Остановился ли он, чтобы призадуматься? Одна ли это молитва? Нет, это две - одна произнесена, другая нет. Оба достигли ушей, Того, Кто слышит все мольбы, высказанные или невысказанные. Обдумывайте это — имейте в виду. Если вы просите укланять благословение для вас, берегитесь! чтобы в то же время без умысла не навлечь проклятие на ближнего. Если вы молитесь о благословении дождя на ваш урожай, который в нем нуждается, тем самым возможно, вы молитесь о проклятии ближнего урожая, который, возможно, не нуждается в дожде и может портиться от него.

“Вы услышали молитву слуги вашего — произнесенную часть молитвы. От имени Бога, обязан выражать словами другую часть — ту часть, о которой священник — и вы в своих сердцах — безмолвно но ревностно молились. Было ли по неведению или рассеянности?

Дай Бог было так! Вы слышали эти слова: ‘Дай нам победу, Господи, Боже наш!’ … Когда вы молились о победе, вы молились о многих неупоминаемых последствиях, которые следуют за победой –неизбежно следуют, не могут не следует. До слушающего духа Бога дошла тоже невысказанная часть молитвы. Он приказывает мне облечь её в слова. Слушайте!

“Господи, Отче наш, наши юные патриоты, идолы наших сердец, отправляются в бой — Будьте рядом с ними! Вместе с ними - в душемы также выходим из сладкого покоя наших любимых очагов, чтобы поразить врага. Господи, Отче наш, помогите нам разорвать их солдат в кровавые клочья нашими стаканами; помогите нам покрыть их счастливые поля бледными фигурами погибших патриотов; помогите нам заглушить грохот пушек криками раненых, корчащихся от боли; помогите нам втоптать в землю их скромные дома огненным ураганом; помогите нам сокрушить сердца их ни в чем не повинных вдов вечной скорбью; помогите нам лишить маленьких детей крова, чтобы они бродили по своей опустевшей земле в одиночестве, в лохмотьях, страдая от голода и жажды, сгорая от солнечного пламени летом, замерзая от ледяных ветров зимой, унылыми и измождёнными духами, умоляя Вас об убежище в могиле, но не получая его — для нас, обожающих Вас, Господин, разрушьте их надежды, приносите вред в их жизнь, затяните их горькое паломничество, утяжелите их шаги, поливайте их путь слезами, пусть белый снег станет красным от крови их израненных ног! Мы просим вас в духе любви, у Того, Кто является Источником Любви; у Того, Кто является вечно верным убежищем и другом всех страждущих и удручённых, ищущих Его помощи со смиренными и сокрушенными сердцами. Аминь.”

(После паузы.) “Вы молились об этом; если вы все еще желаете этого, скажите! Посланник Всевышнего ждет вас!”

Позже, считали, что этот человек был сумасшедшим, в его словах не было никакого смысла.

English

Two Ivory Swans

Moya Cannon

This poem sticks out to me as a reflection of humanity’s journey through time and our eternal love of art. This need for art is what makes us human and what allows us to show the purest reflection of ourselves.

fly across a display case as they flew across Siberian tundra twenty thousand years ago, heralding thaw on an inland sea — their wings, their necks, stretched, vulnerable, magnificent.

Their whooping set off a harmonic in someone who looked up, registered the image of the journeying birds and, with a hunter-gatherer’s hand, carved tiny white likenesses from the tip of the tusk of the great land-mammal, wore them for a while, traded or gifted them before they were dropped down time’s echoing chute, to emerge, strong-winged, whooping, to fly across our time.

Irish

Dhá Eala Eabhair

transl. by Adam Dunbar

eitlíonn siad trasna cás taispeántais mar a d’eitil siad trasna tundra Sibéire fiche míle bliain ó shin, ag fógairt coscairt na mara intírea sciatháin, a muiníl, sínte, leochaileach, iontach.

Chuir a scréacha tús le harmónach i nduine a d’fhéach aníos, neadaíodh an íomhá de na héin aistreacha agus, le lámh fiagaí cnuasaitheora snoíodh macasamhlacha beaga bána as barr starrfhiacaile an mhamaigh talún móir, caitheadh iad ar feadh tamaill, babhtáladh nó bronnadh iad sular scaoileadh iad síos fánán macallaithe ama, chun aiséirí, le sciatháin láidre, ag scréachach, chun eitilt trasna ár n-ama.

English

I Am A Cameraman

Douglas Dunn

In this poem, Dunn ponders on the ability of film to capture tragic moments. He believes film can provide superficial ‘reflections’ of events. However, it can also rob the dignity of its subjects and fail to express the complexity of their existence.

They suffer, and I catch only the surface.

The rest is inexpressible, beyond

What can be recorded. You can’t be them.

If they’d talk to you, you might guess

What pain is like though they might spit on you.

Film is just a reflection

Of the matchless despair of the century.

There have been twenty centuries since charity began.

Indignation is day-to-day stuff;

It keeps us off the streets, it keeps us watching.

Film has no words of its own.

It is a silent waste of things happening.

Without us, when it is too late to help.

What of the dignity of those caught suffering?

It hurts me. I robbed them of privacy.

My young friends think Film will be all of Art. It will be revolutionary proof

Their films will not guess wrongly and will not lie.

They’ll film what is happening behind barbed wire.

They’ll always know the truth and be famous.

Politics softens everything.

Truth is known only to its victims.

All else is photographs– a documentary

The starving and the playboys perish in.

Life disguises itself with professionalism.

Life tells the biggest lies of all,

And draws wages from itself.

Truth is a landscape the saintly tribes live on, And all the lenses of Japan and Germany

Wouldn’t know how to focus on it.

Life flickers on the frame like beautiful hummingbirds.

That is the film that always comes out blank.

The painting the artist can’t get shapes to fit.

The poem that shrugs off every word you try.

The music no one has ever heard.

Io sono un Cameraman

transl. by Liam Frabetti

Soffrono, e catturo solo la superficie.

Il resto è inesprimibile, aldilá

di ció che puó essere registrato. Non puoi essere loro.

Se ti parlassero, potresti indovinare

Cos’è il dolore anche se potrebbero sputarti addosso.

Il film è soltanto un riflesso dell’ineguagliabile angoscia del secolo.

Sono passati venti secoli da quando ebbe inizio la caritá.

L’indignazione è cosa quotidiana.

Ci tiene lontani dalle strade, ci tiene a guardare.

Il film non ha parole proprie.

É uno spreco silenzioso di cose che accadono.

Senza di noi, quando è troppo tardi per aiutare.

E la dignità di coloro che vengono ripresi mentre soffrono?

Mi fá male. Gli ho rubato la privacy.

I miei amici piú giovani pensano che tutta l’arte sarà espressa in film.

Sará la prova rivoluzionaria

Che i loro film non mentiranno e non avranno torto.

Registreranno ciò che succede dietro il filo spinato.

Saranno sempre famosi e a conoscenza della veritá.

La politica ammorbidisce tutto.

Solo le vittime sono a conoscenza della veritá.

Il resto sono solo fotografie- un documentario

Dove soccombono gli affamati e i playboy.

La vita si traveste col professionalismo.

La vita racconta le bugie piú grosse, E si mantiene da sola.

La veritá é un paesaggio abitato dalle sacre tribú, E tutte le lenti del Giappone e della Germania

Non saprebbero metterla a fuoco.

La vita schizza sulla lente come un bellissimo colibrí.

È il film che viene sempre vuoto.

Il dipinto con sagome che l’artista non riesce a inquadrare.

La poesia che resiste tutte le parole che provi.

La musica che nessuno ha mai sentito.

Into my heart an air that kills

Alfred Edward Housman

Arguably his most popular poem, Housman recalls the “hills and spires” of his homeland, reflecting on its faraway allure. It is an expression of memory and loss, an understanding that one cannot always return to their native land.

Into my heart an air that kills

From yon far country blows: What are those blue remembered hills, What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content, I see it shining plain, The happy highways where I went And cannot come again.

Dans mon coeur un vent qui tue

transl. by Hazel Scott

Dans mon cœur un vent qui tue, Issu d’un pays lointain, souffle : Quelles sont les collines bleues de la mémoire, Quelles flèches, quelles fermes ?

C’est la terre du bonheur oublié, Je le vois briller clairement, Les routes joyeuses que j’ai suivies Et où je ne pourrai pas revenir.

English

yasmeen

Safia Elhillo

Elhillo reflects on her alternate self which she names “yasmeen” and the lives she could have lived. The poem’s bidirectional reading adds another layer to the poet’s multiple selves. Thus, I maintained the parallel structure of the poem as it embodies the poet’s meditation in a visual way.

i was born

at the rupture the root where

i split from my parallel self i split from the girl i also could have been

& her name / easy / i know the story

all her life / my mother wanted a girl named for a flower whose oil scents all our mothers / petals wrung for their perfume

i was planted

land became ocean became land anew its shape refusing root in my fallow mouth

cleaving my life neatly

& my name / taken from a dead woman to remember / to fill an aperture with cut jasmine in a bowl our longing

our mothers’

wilting

garlands hanging from our necks

yasmeen

transl. by Sam Priego

fui parida

en la fractura la raíz donde

me separé de mi otra yo me separé de la niña que pude ser

y su nombre / fácil / me sé la historia

toda su vida / mi madre ha querido

una niña llamada como una flor

su aceite perfuma

a nuestras madres /

/ pétalos exprimidos

alrededor de nuestros cuellos

fui plantada

la tierra se torna en océano y en tierra de nuevo

su forma negándose a echar raíz en mi boca baldía

cortando mi vida de manera precisa

y mi nombre / tomado de una mujer muerta para recordar / para llenar una abertura con trozos de jazmín en un tazón / nuestro anhelo / las guirnaldas marchitas de nuestras madres y sus aromas

German

Reflexion

Annegret Kronenberg

Annegret Kronenberg is a German poet born in 1939. Most of her poems reflect on her struggles in life and her grief from the early loss of her dad, whilst others constitute snapshots of her feelings. The chosen poem reflects upon the topics of grief, loss and self-discovery.

Als alles in mir dunkel war, die Finsternis mich zu erwürgen drohte, warst du es, der mir ein Streichholz reichte.

Jetzt brennt in mir ein knisterndes Feuer, das sich in deinen Augen widerspiegelt.

Reflection

transl. by Aimilia Varla

When everything inside me was dark, the darkness threatened to strangle me, it was you who handed me a match. Now there is a crackling fire inside me that is reflected in your eyes.

English

trouble with spain

Charles Bukowski

In this poem, Bukowski sardonically reflects on a time where he made a fool of himself at a party. His abrasive writing style fits perfectly with this arrogant yet self-deprecating introspection. My best friend once told me I reminded them of Bukowski. I often wonder what they meant by that.

I got in the shower and burned my balls last Wednesday.

met this painter called Spain, no, he was a cartoonist, well, I met him at a party and everybody got mad at me because I didn’t know who he was or what he did.

he was rather a handsome guy and I guess he was jealous because I was so ugly. they told me his name and he was leaning against the wall looking handsome, and I said: hey, Spain, I like that name: Spain. but I don’t like you. why don’t we step out in the garden and I’ll kick the shit out of your ass?

this made the hostess angry and she walked over and rubbed his pecker while I went to the crapper and heaved.

but everybody’s angry at me. Bukowski, he can’t write, he’s had it. washed-up. look at him drink. he never used to come to parties. now he comes to parties and drinks everything up and insults real talent.

I used to admire him when he cut his wrists and when he tried to kill himself with gas. look at him now leering at that 19 year old girl, and you know he can’t get it up.

I not only burnt my balls in that shower last Wednesday, I spun around to get out of the burning water and burnt my bunghole too.

conflito com espanha

transl. by Vicente Velasques

meti-me no duche e queimei os colhões quarta passada.

conheci este pintor chamado Espanha, não, cartoonista, bem, conheci-o numa festa e toda a gente se chateou comigo porque não sabia quem ele era ou o que é que fazia.

ele até que era um gajo jeitoso e eu acho que foi por isso que ele ficou com ciúmes de eu ser tão horroroso. disseram-me o nome dele enquanto ele lá estava encostado à parede, com o seu ar jeitoso, e eu disse: prazer Espanha, acho piada ao nome, Espanha. mas não te acho piada a ti. porque é que não vamos lá fora para o quintal e eu dou-te um enxerto de porrada?

isto irritou a anfitriã que foi ter com ele afagar-lhe o pincel enquanto eu fui à retrete arriar o calhau.

mas toda a gente se encaralhou comigo. o Bukowski, ele nem sabe escrever, é só um gajo passado. ultrapassado. olha pra ele a beber. nunca vinha às festas. agora vem para dar cabo do bar e insultar os verdadeiros artistas. eu admirava-o dantes quando ele se cortava e se tentava matar com fugas de gás. agora olha para ele, não tira os olhos da miúda de 19 anos, e tu sabes que aquilo já nem para mijar levanta.

não só queimei os colhões, quarta passada, ao virar-me para fugir à água a escaldar, queimei também o olho do cu.

English

Harlem

Langston Hughes

This poem highlights the harm caused when the theme of racial equality is delayed. Hughes and the translator personify the dream. Hughes looks back and forth. The final question weighs heavy in the mind of the reader and questions them to truly reflect- will this dream fail or succeed?

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore— And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over— like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Irish

transl. by Alanah Kennedy Harlem

Cad a tharlaíonn nuair a chuirtear aisling siar?

An dtriomaíonn sí? cosúil le rísín faoin ngrian? nó an ábhraíonn sí cosúil le cneáa shileann?

An mbíonn drochbholadh uaithi cosúil le feoil lofa?

An ndéantar screamh di nó siúcra a chur uirthicosúil le milseán síoróipeach?

B’fhéidir nach mbíonn sí ach ina lobar cosúil le hualach trom.

Nó an bpleáscann sí?

Italian

L’infinito

Giacomo Leopardi

In “L’Infinito”, the poet’s mind wanders beyond the physical limits that obstruct his view of the horizon. Through the use of numerous enjambments, extending the meaning of a sentence beyond the line’s end, his meditation enables him to grasp the unfathomable concept of “the infinite”.

Sempre caro mi fu quest’ermo colle,

E questa siepe, che da tanta parte

Dell’ultimo orizzonte il guardo esclude.

Ma sedendo e mirando, interminati

Spazi di là da quella, e sovrumani

Silenzi, e profondissima quiete

Io nel pensier mi fingo; ove per poco

Il cor non si spaura. E come il vento

Odo stormir tra queste piante, io quello

Infinito silenzio a questa voce

Vo comparando: e mi sovvien l’eterno, E le morte stagioni, e la presente

E viva, e il suon di lei. Così tra questa

Immensità s’annega il pensier mio:

E il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare.

The Infinite English

transl. by Aurora Ventoruzzo

Always dear to me was this lonesome hill,

And this hedge, that a great share

Of the vast horizon the sight impedes.

But sitting and gazing, boundless

Spaces beyond that, and extraordinary

Silence, and profound quiet

In my thoughts I envisage; while

My heart is almost frightened. And as I hear

The wind rustling through these shrubs, I

Compare that infinite silence

To this voice: and eternity comes to me,

And the dead seasons, and the one present

And alive, and its sound. Thus, among this immensity, my thoughts drown:

And the wreck is sweet to me in this sea.

Galician

From Baleas e Baleas

Luisa Castro

A selection of poems on the theme of ‘Reflections,’ whether the self-reflection of looking into one’s own past –‘lifting slates’ – or seeing oneself reflected in the eyes of another – ‘I know I’m your favourite, so desirable down here in the dirt’ – to reflecting on the place you find yourself in the world, and the realisation that you don’t belong there – ‘With surprising relief that at last I’m heading back to the hotel,/ Isolde says farewell.’

Hai tempo que non levanto lousas. Non cómpre que me baixe para apañar o musgo verde das casiñas naturais onde vive Isolda. Esquecın o seu número de teléfono. Agora teño os xeonllos brancos, uniformes, con certa aparencia de calvos tratados con láser, algunha pegada en forma de sete, a pequena operación a xeito de piragua, unha suma vermella.

from Whales and Whales *

featured translations by Keith Payne

Keith Payne is a poet, translator and editor of over a dozen collections of poetry. He is curator of the Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill Poetry Exchange Ireland-Galicia, and is Cork City Library Eco Poet in Residence 2022-23 where Building the Boat was recently published. Whales and Whales, from the Galician of Luisa Castro, is forthcoming from Skein Press, Dublin, April 2024.

It’s been ages since I tilted slates. I don’t need to bend down anymore to gather the green moss from the little stone houses where Isolde lives. I’ve forgotten her phone number. Now my knees are all white, both smooth with the look of having being treated with laser, a scar in the shape of a seven, a small, canoe-like operation, a red summation.

VI

Véxote

moi lonxe, desde a miña miopıa que saúda descoñecidos alegre como as pancartas, cartograficamente.

Os graderıos non son nada sen ti, loureiros, vida miña, que confundo.

Anda, dime que faga letras para os coristas, tu pulsas a lira, loureiros desde lonxe que confundo.

Sei que entre todos prefıresme, entre a area son un gran desaxable. Ti estás púrpura, esa color que odio, coroado como a primeira vez entre calvos que a miña miopıa descoñece.

Anda, dime que faga letras lıricas para a túa obesidade, que escriba petróglifos.

VIThere you are in the distance, and me half-blind waving at strangers, beaming like a banner across a map.

Without you, the stands are nothing; laurels, darling, I confuse.

Come on, tell me to write some of those lovely lyrics for the chorus while you pluck the lyre; laurels, darling, I confuse.

I know I’m your favourite, so desirable down here in the dirt. You’re wearing purple, a colour I detest, crowned just like the first time, among all those bald heads, and being half-blind I can’t make them out.

Come on, tell me to write a sweet song to your obesity, your largesse, to tap something out in petroglyphs.

Galician

III …

Con amor inusitado de que por fin me vou para o hotel, Isolda despıdese.

Coas mans nos petos, algo borracha, poderıa apuntar unhas poucas metáforas mentres non me ven, as mellores frases da noite tan dura caberıan nun poema que falase de min algo borracha. Isolda lamenta non levar encima nin unha servilleta do último bar.

Isolda non lamenta, bebe whisky para que anoiteza antes e non me son nada, nin primos, nin padres, nin ex noivos atopados, que pena de metáfora, Isolda lamenta.

Isolda despıdese.

Coas mans nos petos, sorprendida na frase, recibe un bico moi humano a cada lado da comparación.

Pola lentitude de reflexos retrotráese: non hai fórmula para todo isto?

NB: Original poems from Baleas e Baleas, Luisa Castro, Colección Esquıo de poesıa, 1988 / Galaxia, 2018

Luisa Castro is the author of nine collections of poetry and six novels. She has been awarded The Hiperión Prize and the Herralde Prize among others. She is currently Director of the Cervantes Institute in Dublin and is celebrated as one of the most important voices in contemporary Galician poetry.

III

…

With surprising relief that at last I’m heading back to the hotel, Isolde says farewell. Hands in my pockets, a little tipsy, I could manage a few lines while they’re not watching me; the best from a long night would fill a poem of me being a little tipsy.

Isolde regrets not lifting even one napkin from that last bar.

Isolde has no regrets, she drinks whiskey so it’ll get dark sooner and they’re nothing to me: not cousins, nor parents, nor random ex-boyfriends, what a terrible metaphor, Isolde laments.

Isolde says her goodbyes. Hands in her pockets, surprised by the sound of it, she takes a warm kiss either side of the comparison.

Being too slow she withdraws:

Is there no instruction manual for all this?

Contributors

Eduardo Torres is a 4th year PhD student in Philosophy, currently writing a thesis on the junction between ordinary language and metaphysics; he is deeply interested in the interplay between semantics and pragmatics, contemporary classical music, and the philosophy of literature.

Giulia Nati, or rather, Jules, as she loves to be called, is a first-year English Studies student. Her identity revolves around reading “Little Women” at the age of eight and being from Rome. Additionally, she enjoys listening to music with a melancholic touch, such as The Smiths.

Seoirse Swanton is a recent graduate of TCD, having studied a BA in English and French. Through channels obscure even to him, he has taken up a place on an MSc in Environmental Resource Management in UCD. Translating is a favourite form of procrastination (READ: delegation to future self).

Aimilia Varla is a literary translator from Greece, currently based in Dublin. She studied English Language and Literature and recently finished her masters at Literary Translation in Trinity College Dublin. She is very interested in language learning, cultural awareness and document adaptation.

Ruairí Goodwin is a second year biology student. He enjoys dialectology and long walks on the beach.

Tomasz Balcerkiewicz is a Junior Fresher English Literature / History of Art and Architecture student.

Helena Gelman is a 2nd year History and Spanish student from New York City. She is going on Erasmus to Salamanca next year and would appreciate any advice on gaining fluency and living in Spain.

Theresa Wiesweg is in her final year of studying English Literature and Film at Trinity. She is, at all times, looking for ways to distract herself from working on her Bachelor´s. “Yes’’, she confirms, “the search for distraction is going very well”. She thanks you for asking.

Oliver Fisk is a Senior Sophister student of European Studies at Trinity College Dublin. He is proud to have grown up in Edgar Allen Poe’s Richmond, Virginia, and is a voracious consumer of English-, Spanish-, and Russian-language literature.

Adam Dunbar is a 4th year student of Irish and German, and enjoys the challenge of finding the perfect balance between loyalty and creativity required for the perfect translation.

Liam Frabetti is a History/French TSM alumnus from 2021. He enjoys translating between English and Italian as it helps give meaning to his messy bilingual brain.

Hazel Scott is a third year English and French student at Trinity College Dublin.

Sam Priego is a Mexican translator currently working on a M. Phil. in Literary Translation by Trinity College Dublin. She is interested in translating fiction and poetry.

Vicente Velasques is a Portuguese translator doing an M. Phil. in Literary Translation in Trinity College Dublin. He enjoys translating speculative and ergodic fiction. He is also very passionate about minority languages and sequential art.

Alanah Ní Chinnéide is a final year English Literature and Modern Irish student. She writes in English and Irish, between poetry, essays and articles. Her favourite hobby is to read, her favourite authors being Yaa Gyasi and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She aspires to be a professional Irish language translator.

Aurora Ventoruzzo, a second-year student from Italy, pursues English Studies at TCD. Her primary interests lie in early medieval literature and manuscript culture. She is equally captivated by the works of Romantic poets, both English and Italian.

Artists

Greta Chies is an Italian translator, a candidate of Trinty’s MPhil in Literary Translation (2022-2023). She previously graduated in Interpreting and Translation (University of Trieste). She is also passionate about visual art: her main focus are portraits, and she has attended life-drawing classes and sessions in Italy and in Dublin.

PIGSY is a self-taught Irish artist, born in Dublin, Ireland, who creates energetic paintings and experimental sculptures. PIGSY uses gestural brush strokes, story telling, poetry and assemblage as part of the creative process, of which all borrow from his learnings and training as an architect.

Naemi Victoria loves art, cinema, and a good laugh. She holds a master’s degree in film studies and enjoys expressing herself through visual art. Naemi’s intuitive style weaves together line art and intricate detail into a mesmerizing and moody visual narrative. It opens an innovative dialogue between digital technology and traditional media, like acrylics on canvas or pencil on paper.

Penny Stuart is a regular art contributor to Trinity JoLT. She likes seeing which translations her art has been matched with by the editorial team. In December 2023 she had an idea to have an exhibition in a phone box in The Fair Play Cafe in Ringsend. It is now a brand-new gallery space for inner-city artists to exhibit their work. It is currently the smallest gallery in Ireland.

Featured Translator

Keith Payne is a poet, translator and editor of over a dozen collections of poetry. He is curator of the Aodh Ruadh Ó Domhnaill Poetry Exchange Ireland-Galicia, and is Cork City Library Eco Poet in Residence 2022-23 where Building the Boat was recently published. Whales and Whales, from the Galician of Luisa Castro, is forthcoming from Skein Press, Dublin, April 2024.

Barr gach díomhaointis! Is díomhaointeas an uile ní. Cad é an tairbhe don duine an saothar uile a dhéanann sé faoin ngrian?

- Ecclesiastes 1:2-3