From Nepal to South Africa, from Italy to Lebanon, here's our selection of ten inspiring poets from different countries worth discovering.
1. Wisława Szymborska - Poland
The late Polish poet, Szymborska was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature "for poetry that, with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality".
Her poetry addressed existential questions and is characterized by a simplified, personal language, with a striking combination of spirituality, ingenuity, and empathy.
The Three Oddest Words
(translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh)
When I pronounce the word Future,
When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.
When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.
When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no non-being can hold.
2. Nazim Hikmet - Turkey
He was a Turkish poet, playwright, novelist and screenwriter. Hikmet was acclaimed for the "lyrical flow of his statements". Described as a romantic communist and romantic revolutionary, he was repeatedly arrested for his political beliefs and spent much of his adult life in prison or in exile. His poetry has been translated into more than fifty languages.
Loving you
(translated by R. Blasing and M. Konuk)
Loving you is like eating bread dipped in salt,
like waking feverish at night
and putting my mouth to the water faucet,
like opening a heavy unlabeled parcel
eagerly, happily, cautiously.
Loving you is like flying over the sea
for the first time, like feeling dusk settle
softly over Istanbul.
Loving you is like saying “I’m alive.”
3. Antjie Krog - South Africa
She was born in South Africa in 1952 and much of her poetry deals with love, apartheid, the role of women, and the politics of gender. Krog’s poetry is strongly metaphorical, intensely lyrical and passionate in its engagement with both the private and the political spheres of life.
What The Stars Say
(fragment - translated by Richard Jürgens)
The stars take your heart
because the stars aren’t the least bit hungry for you!
the stars exchange your heart for the heart of a star
the stars take your heart and feed you the heart of a star
then you’ll never be hungry again
because the stars say: ‘Tsau! Tsau!’
and the bushmen say the stars curse the springbok’s eyes
the stars say: ‘Tsau!’ they say: ‘Tsau! Tsau!’
they curse the springbok’s eyes
I grew up listening to the stars
the stars say: ‘Tsau! Tsau!’
it’s always summer when you hear the stars saying Tsau
because the stars aren’t the least bit hungry for you!
the stars exchange your heart for the heart of a star
the stars take your heart and feed you the heart of a star
then you’ll never be hungry again
because the stars say: ‘Tsau! Tsau!’
and the bushmen say the stars curse the springbok’s eyes
the stars say: ‘Tsau!’ they say: ‘Tsau! Tsau!’
they curse the springbok’s eyes
I grew up listening to the stars
the stars say: ‘Tsau! Tsau!’
it’s always summer when you hear the stars saying Tsau
4. Charles Baudelaire - France
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet. He gained notoriety for his 1857 volume of poems, Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil). His themes of sex, death, lesbianism, metamorphosis, depression, urban corruption, lost innocence and alcohol not only gained him loyal followers, but also garnered controversy. Baudelaire, his publisher and the book's printer were prosecuted for creating an offense against public morality and six of the poems were suppressed.
Be Drunk
(translated by Louis Simpson)
You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking... ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.”
5. Alda Merini - Italy
She was an Italian writer and poet. Her writing style is described as intense, passionate and mystic. Some of her poems concern her time in a mental home and are often of a dramatic nature. She explores the "otherness" of madness as part of creative expression.
When The Anguish
(translated by Susan Stewart)
When the anguish spreads its color
inside the dark soul
like revenge’s brushstroke,
I feel the budding shoot of an ancient hunger
becoming shy and gray
and the light of tomorrow dying.
And, up against me, the inanimate things
that I created earlier
come to die again within the breast
of my intelligence
eager for my shelter and my fruits,
begging again for riches from a beggar.
6. Federico García Lorca - Spain
He was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. He achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27, a group consisting of mostly poets who introduced the tenets of European movements (such as symbolism, futurism, and surrealism) into Spanish literature.
City That Does Not Sleep
(fragment translated by Robert Bly)
Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.
7. Joumana Haddad - Lebanon
Born in Beirut in 1970 she is a Lebanese poet, translator, journalist and women's rights activist. She is founder of Jasad, a quarterly Arabic-language magazine.
Devil
When I sit before you, stranger,
I know how much time you'll need
to bury the distance between us.
You are at the peak of your intelligence
and I am at the peak of my banquet.
You are deliberating how to begin flirting with me,
and I,
under the curtain of my seriousness,
am already done devouring you.
8. Hermann Hesse - Switzerland
He was a German-born Swiss poet, novelist, and painter. His writing explores an individual's search for authenticity, self-knowledge and spirituality. In 1946 he received the Nobel Prize in Literature "for his inspired writings, which while growing in boldness and penetration, exemplify the classical humanitarian ideals and high qualities of style".
How Heavy The Days
(translated by James Wright)
How heavy the days are.
There's not a fire that can warm me,
Not a sun to laugh with me,
Everything bare,
Everything cold and merciless,
And even the beloved, clear
Stars look desolately down,
Since I learned in my heart that
Love can die.
There's not a fire that can warm me,
Not a sun to laugh with me,
Everything bare,
Everything cold and merciless,
And even the beloved, clear
Stars look desolately down,
Since I learned in my heart that
Love can die.
9. Emily Dickinson - US
Emily Dickinson is one of America’s greatest poets of all time. She published only a few poems during her lifetime and today her nearly 2,000 succinct, profound meditations on life and death, nature, love, and art make her one of the most original and important poets in English.
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
10. Laxmi Prasad Devkota - Nepal
He was a Nepali poet, playwright, and novelist. Devkota is considered the greatest poet in the history of Nepal and contributed to Nepali literature by starting a modern Nepali language romantic movement in the country. Most of his poetry shows an influence of English Romantic Poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge.
Crazy
(translated by David Rubin)
Oh yes, friend! I'm crazy-
that's just the way I am.
I see sounds,
I hear sights,
I taste smells,
I touch not heaven but things from the underworld,
things people do not believe exist,
whose shapes the world does not suspect.
Stones I see as flowers
lying water-smoothed by the water's edge,
rocks of tender forms
in the moonlight
when the heavenly sorceress smiles at me,
putting out leaves, softening, glistening,
throbbing, they rise up like mute maniacs,
like flowers, a kind of moon-bird's flowers.
I talk to them the way they talk to me,
a language, friend,
that can't be written or printed or spoken,
can't be understood, can't be heard.
Their language comes in ripples to the moonlit Ganges banks,
ripple by ripple-
oh yes, friend! I'm crazy-
that's just the way I am.
(translated by David Rubin)
Oh yes, friend! I'm crazy-
that's just the way I am.
I see sounds,
I hear sights,
I taste smells,
I touch not heaven but things from the underworld,
things people do not believe exist,
whose shapes the world does not suspect.
Stones I see as flowers
lying water-smoothed by the water's edge,
rocks of tender forms
in the moonlight
when the heavenly sorceress smiles at me,
putting out leaves, softening, glistening,
throbbing, they rise up like mute maniacs,
like flowers, a kind of moon-bird's flowers.
I talk to them the way they talk to me,
a language, friend,
that can't be written or printed or spoken,
can't be understood, can't be heard.
Their language comes in ripples to the moonlit Ganges banks,
ripple by ripple-
oh yes, friend! I'm crazy-
that's just the way I am.
"Poetry reaffirms our common humanity by revealing to us that individuals, everywhere in the world, share the same questions and feelings". - UNESCO World Poetry Day
