šalḫanti-/šalḫiyanti- lexical filing card, with this paragraph from the Disappearance of Telipinu in the Chicago Hittite Dictionary. Courtesy of the author.

For our series Making of a Poem, we’re asking poets and translators to dissect the poems they’ve published in our pages. Naomi Harris’s translations of three Hittite poems appear in our new Fall issue, no. 253. Here, we asked Harris to reflect on her translation “Telipinu went.”

The Hittites spoke an Indo-European language and ruled a major empire during the Late Bronze Age, in what is now Turkey. Their capital was multicultural and multilingual. Their language, which we call Hittite, they called Nešili, the language of Neša. “Telipinu went” translates a paragraph from the Hittite text that we call The Disappearance of Telipinu. The text was written in cuneiform script on a clay tablet, found at the Hittite capital Ḫattuša, near modern-day Boğazkale in Çorum, Türkiye. There are several versions, and it was copied again and again over the course of Hittite history; this one dates from about 1450–1350 B.C.

“Telipinu went” is an extract from a longer manuscript. Can you tell us about that?

In the full manuscript, the god Telipinu, son of the Stormgod, becomes angry and leaves, taking all the good things away with him. Famine and disaster ensue in both the mortal and divine realms. The waters, mountains, and woods dry up. Cows no longer recognize their calves. Ewes no longer recognize their lambs. The world is twisted and out of joint. No one can become pregnant, and those who are pregnant cannot give birth. The Sungod throws a party, and although the gods eat and drink as usual, they find that they are still hungry. When the Stormgod realizes that his son has left, the great gods and the small gods search everywhere for Telipinu but do not find him. The Sungod, host of the party, sends a swiftly flying eagle, but the eagle doesn’t find him. The Stormgod makes a pathetic effort to find his son and gives up far too quickly. Finally, the grandmother goddess, Ḫannaḫanna, sends a bee that finds Telipinu and stings him awake. The bee returns Telipinu, and they perform a ritual brimming with exquisite similes to remove his anger and reconcile him with the world again. Read More

Roque Dalton in exile in Havana, Cuba, 1967. Casa de las Américas, via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

For our series Making of a Poem, we’re asking poets and translators to dissect the poems they’ve published in our pages. Natasha Wimmer’s translation of Roque Dalton’s poem “I Wasn’t Always This Ugly” appears in our new Fall issue, no. 253. Here, we asked Wimmer to reflect on her work.

Can you tell us a little about Roque Dalton and your interest in him? Where was this poem originally published?

Dalton was born in El Salvador in 1935 and is generally considered one of the greatest Latin American poets of the twentieth century. He was very politically engaged—he lived in exile from El Salvador for most of his life, including some crucial years spent in Cuba. In his thirties, he became increasingly committed to the armed struggle and joined a guerrilla group to fight in El Salvador. Four days before his fortieth birthday, he was shot by his comrades in an incident that has never been fully explained.

I first encountered Dalton through my translations of Roberto Bolaño. Bolaño claimed to have met Dalton shortly before he was shot, and The Savage Detectives was clearly influenced by Dalton’s autobiographical novel Pobrecito poeta que era yo … (as yet untranslated). Over the course of translating him, I’ve fallen victim to his considerable charms—as seems to have been the case with everyone who met him.

This poem was originally published as part of the collection Un libro levemente odioso (A Slightly Nasty Book, forthcoming), which I’ve been translating along with another work called Taberna y otros lugares (Tavern and Other Places, forthcoming). Both are part of a larger project by Seven Stories Press to bring Dalton into English. Until now, English-language readers have had only an anthology, Small Hours of the Night, and Dalton’s final collection, Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle.

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“This was my desk. Below the window is a children’s playground.”

For our series Making of a Poem, we’re asking poets and translators to dissect the poems they’ve contributed to our pages. Yongyu Chen’s “Outpost” appears in our new Summer issue, no. 252.

How did this poem start for you? Was it with an image, an idea, a phrase, or something else?

I started this poem in late September in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I came back from a long trip in Asia and was waking early because of the time difference. I felt good! I was writing a lot.

I wrote the first draft after a sequence of experiences that felt like experiences already while I was inside them—starting with meeting, for the first time, a friend’s close friend and ending with a walk home on a gray day, after rain, looking at the oak branches on the ground.

It felt like the feeling of wanting to pick up the oak pieces—and noticing it, then making myself do so—did something to the previous experiences. When I came home, I started writing the poem.

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The second draft of “Falling Sonnet XI.”

For our series Making of a Poem, we’re asking poets and translators to dissect the poems they’ve contributed to our pages. Eugene Ostashevsky’s “Falling Sonnet XI” appears in our new Summer issue, no. 252.

How did you come up with the title for this poem?

This is the eleventh poem in a series called Falling Sonnets. They are “sonnets” in the sense that each has fourteen lines with a Petrarchan logical structure, although without meter or rhyme. Right now, there are twelve, although I would prefer to have fourteen. The series reacts to one of the wars currently being fought. I’d prefer not to name which one—as soon as you do, the poem’s reception depends on how readers feel about the war rather than on anything having to do with the poem. Four other poems from the series have recently appeared in n+1.

My most recent book is called The Feeling Sonnets, and sections in it are called “Fooling Sonnets,” “Feeding Sonnets,” and even “Leafing Sonnets.” When I finished, I wanted to stop writing these sonnets, which aren’t real sonnets, anyway. But I was too busy to lay aside enough time to develop a new form for a new book, so I kept writing them, much to my chagrin. This is why I call my new sonnet book “The Failing Sonnets,” and a part of it is a cycle called “The Falling Sonnets,” because it reacts to a war that feels as if it had my name on it and that destabilizes my sense of self in unpleasant ways. Read More