The opening poem of Poland/1931 has been translated into a number of languages, some of which I’ve been able to read or perform in during various travels. The availability of Poems and Poetics gives me a chance to bring a few of these translations together — in the present instance, from Spanish, from French, from German, and most particularly from Yiddish. Others — from Polish, Swedish, Chinese, and Dutch — may follow in the near future. Performances in English and Yiddish can be found on PennSound. (J.R.)
[The opening poem of Poland/1931 has been translated into a number of languages, some of which I’ve been able to read or perform in during various travels. The availability of Poems and Poetics gives me a chance to bring a few of these translations together — in the present instance, from Spanish, from French, from German, and most particularly from Yiddish. Others — from Polish, Swedish, Chinese, and Dutch — may follow in the near future.
Suntree’s many years of writing, performing, and activism inform her work. So it is in part her cumulative wisdom and insight that makes this book so strong. Here we have a model for a much larger project: indigenous and Western poets and scientists swapping stories, singing their best songs around the same fire, working hard to keep the world in balance. That is going to take every song we’ve got.
Book Two:The Origins of Southern California: Indigenous Myths and Songs
The book’s title itself starts us off with just such a seen silence. The waters of. Of what? Of Babylon where we wept, remembering? Of Siloe, where we hold our tongues and meditate? The Housatonic that flows through her neighbor fields? Sea that washes all away? That of makes us see something, a place or word, just as so often the line will end, startling as a knock on the door. We hurry to open it to see who’s there.
[Reprinted from the original 2016 publication by Lunar Chandelier Collective]
Poems and poetics