poemimage

The visual & poetic become each the other but not always.

Month: December, 2015

Mizzle «Garúa» by Cristina Castello (Translated by Pierre L’Abbé)

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I immigrated to the Earth draped in silence
Written on a reflection, a path to the word
I brought my fertile voice, my thornless offering,
a calm mizzle in the depth of the eyes

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I found a shelter of swamp and nettles
A Power that ignited the blood of children,
I saw men like wolves, I saw angel wolves
And a brackish deluge of moribund dreams

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Each day, more beings broken and destroyed
Cut to size, torn up, broken, killed
While Goya, Beethoven and Balzac
Affirm that life is reinforced in each Being

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An immigrant in the potent kernel of art
I curse the cemeteries and the ashes, and I remain
I remain until the foliage of men
Nurtures the roots and reinvents the world

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Cristina Castello is an Argentinian poet and journalist now living in France. Her work is committed to peace and beauty against all social injustices. Her poems are always a commitment to the dignity of life, beauty and freedom. They have been translated into several languages. Her books include, Soif, (L’Harmattan 2004); Orage, (Bod 2009),Ombre (Trames 2010) and “Le chant des sirènes” / “El canto de las sirenas” (Chemins de plume, 2012).

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Translated by Pierre L’Abbé from the Spanish original and from the French translation of Pedro Vianna

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Pierre L’Abbe is a Toronto translator, publisher, ebook designer and author of both poetry and short story collections.

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Lost by Chris Pannell

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Every street was Italian

the inks on my map blotched and ran

the motorways rose and fell like roller coasters

singing choruses from I Pagliacci.

German and English signs

had been broken and tossed aside.

Gargoyles on buildings dressed in suits

money managers amok

commandeered red double-deck buses from

their streetcar tracks.

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I was driving a taxi full of hit-men

who were expecting me to get them quickly to

their destination

and to avoid the carabinieri.

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Chris Pannell’s latest poetry book is A Nervous City (Wolsak and Wynn, 2013). This title recently won the Kerry Schooley Book Award from the Hamilton Arts Council. In 2010, his book Drive won the Acorn-Plantos People’s Poetry Prize and the Arts Hamilton Poetry Book of the Year.

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From 1993 to 2005 he ran the new writing workshop and published two anthologies of work by that group.

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He has a book of poetry forthcoming in 2016 called How We Came to Pass. He is a former board member of the gritLIT Writers Festival and a former DARTS bus driver. He hosts and helps organize the monthly Hamilton reading series Lit Live.

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