Two Newly Translated Poems by Sargon Boulus

There can be no series on Iraqi poetry without an engagement with Sargon Boulos. It’s coming. In the meantime, poet-novelist-translator Sinan Antoon has published two newly translated Boulus poems in Jadaliyya:

They are “Times” and “A Pebble.” The second is where Boulus’s gifts really shine through Antoon’s translation, Boulus’s talent for the sweep of imagery alongside the terribly small, for seriousness and humor:

There it is under your foot. Step on it if you wish. Step hard.

Then cross over. Fear not.
Among pebbles, it is no more than
a pebble.

Boulus’s collection Knife Sharpener  was published by Banipal Books, and Antoon has been working on a new collection of Boulus’s work. Many of the translations below are by Antoon.

Until the new collection is ready:

Two translations of “The Refugee Tells,” trans. Youssef Rakha and Kees Nijland

The Child of War, trans. Antoon

A Portrait of an Iraqi Person at the End of Time, trans. Antoon

To Imru’ al-Qays on his Way to the Inferno, trans. Suneela Mubayi (with commentary)

To the Master of the Banquet, trans. Antoon

The Meaning of My Prayer,  trans. Antoon

Two Poems: Railroad and A Pouch of Dirt, trans. Antoon

The Corpse, trans. Antoon

Siege, trans. Sargon Boulus and Alistair Elliot

Tea with Mouayed al-Rawi in a Turkish café in Berlin, The Letter Arrived, The Refugee Tells, and more, trans. Youssef Rakha.

A Butterfly’s Dream, trans. Kees Nijland (Arabic side-by-side)

A Man Fell On His Knees, trans. Kees Nijland (Arabic side-by-side)

A Refugee Talking, trans. Kees Nijland (Arabic side-by-side)

An Elegy for Sindbad Cinema, trans. Kees Nijland (Arabic side-by-side)

How Eastern Singing Was Born, trans. Kees Nijland (Arabic side-by-side)

I Came from There, trans. Kees Nijland (Arabic side-by-side)

Tu Fu in Exile, trans. Kees Nijland (Arabic side-by-side)

Four Poems: The Siege, The Borders, The Letter Arrived, and Incident in a Mountain Village, trans. Sargon Boulus

Four Poems: The Ziggurat Builders and O Player in the Shadows, The Legend of al-Sayyab and the Silt and A Key to the House, trans. Boulus