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  • foghar eile / another autumn

    original Gaelic poem with English translation by the author mo chasan a’ leughadhleabhar-cumha ruadh an fhoghair eòlas nan dùil sgrìobhteann an làmh rèimeil nan tùsag innse dhomh gu’n d’fhiachan sgeul ath-aithris,nach eil anns an lobhadh                              ach bruadar agus gu bheil guirme fàisna chuisle maireannach                              fo na buin an do mhothaich thu                              do sheann ghaol,mar a shaoil thu tuaineala…

  • Ysgol Gân y drudwns / Singing School for Starlings

    original Irish poem with English translation by Gillian Clarke ar ôl “Bird Watching” R. S. Thomas A daeth taith fawrddwsinau o ddrudwnsi ben.          Nid sbienddrycho bell yn gorwelioeu plu sy.               Ond heddiwseicdreiddwyr eu cof               sy’n nodi sain                    eu hen ganiadau. Wedi clwydodeffro wnant,                         ehedanti bedwar ban, cydganant,hymian mewn ffurfafenfel taflen Ysgol Gân,llond galeri yn oedfa’r nos,a’r Gymanfa yn agosáu.      Altos…

  • Bóithre / Chaos Theory

    original Irish poem with English translation by the author faiteadhsúile feithidei bhforaois fearthainnei mBorneó the blinkof an insect’seye in the rainforest of Borneo chuir gála gaoitheag réabadh na tíre,ag pleancadhscioból tuí set gale forcewinds rippingthe country,battering tin sheds is monarchan iata,scoileanna réamhdhéantais tithe taibhsíó Cheann Mhalainnego Carn Uí Néid and shut factories,prefabricated schoolsand ghost housesfrom…

  • Introduction

    While it is only possible for this Ploughshares transatlantic issue to offer a snapshot of current British and Irish poetry, I have tried to make it as representative as possible. Most of the poets I’ve been able to solicit work from are included in one or other of the three most recent generational anthologies published…

  • About Neil Astley

    Poets love a revolution. Many poets I met, in the years I spent running the Poetry Society in London, seemed to foster secret fantasies of living in a time when samizdat pamphlets, typed on hidden typewriters and smuggled to readers who treated them as if they were stone tablets, could change the world. Most poetry,…

  • Summer Poem #3

    In the middle of my life I had the most marvelous piece of luck I entered a hotel and among golfers pregnant with beautiful minor worries watched the cheerleaders gallop as James Wright said terribly against each other’s bodies but really it was not except for their cries of happiness bouncing off the mountains surrounding…

  • Of Ownership

    after Joy Harjo The verb has a long history of violence: to takeis to grab, seize or capture, esp. by force; noteits hard k set against the long vowel, a sign ofintent, this cave of sound. He took her by the throat and shook her is one in a proliferationof examples. To enter into possession…

  • Etching, Drypoint

    it starts in rage not anger or rancor or a bitch corneredwhose fear-fuelled snarl turns fit nor the politesse of somepale Ramon screaming         no         more of a jonesing more veins stretched as pig gutover sphincter mince more a thumbnail that breaks theskin to pull a strip or length of rind to find         neither         plasma nor…