Vénus Khoury-Ghata
Five Poems from She Says
5.
Between her two windows is a mirror
in which in times of mist and absent landscape
she captures the debris of faces which she glues back together
taking into account what’s leaked into the silvering
Ancient faces
she must look for their silhouettes in stelae
their voices in the plane-tree which knows the mirror from behind
and which isn’t done with watching their movements between the house
that’s standing and the toppled one
unable to clarify the ties that connect them
It holds its breath when it sees them stride over the fields
penetrate the mirror backwards
push and shove each other there
arguing over the polished surface that’s holding a bit of their souls
A revenge taken on cradles
reunions so often deferred with their odor
strategy for occupying space with emptiness
Vénus Khoury-Ghata is a Lebanese poet and novelist, resident in France and author of a dozen collections of poems and as many novels. She received the Prix Mallarmé in 1987, the Prix Apollinaire in 1980, and the Grand Prix de la Société des gens de lettres in 1992. Her most recent collection is Compassion des pierrex (La Différence, 2001). There Was Once a Country, translations of her work by Marilyn Hacker, was published in 2001 (Oberlin College Press).
Marilyn Hacker lives in New York and Paris and is the author of nine books, including Winter Numbers, which received a Lambda Literary Award and the Lenore Marshall Award of The Nation magazine and the Academy of American Poets in 1995. Her most recent book is Squares and Courtyards (W.W. Norton, 2001). A new collection, Desesperanto, is due in 2003.
Translated by Marilyn Hacker
Page(s) 95
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The