I want to fold this day into paper ships and load all my heavy thoughts into them, so it would sink. I want to drive away this whitenessm that pretends to be snow. I want to fold this day into paper airplanes, but I know they won't fly. I simply know that
By Inga Pizāne
Translated by Jayde Will
From HAVING NEVER MET
by Inga Pizāne
Translated from the Latvian by Jayde Will
Published by Periscope / A Midsummer Night’s Press (2018)
Inga Pizāne (1986, Krāslava) is a Latvian poet whose first collection Tu neesi sniegs (You are No Snow) was published in 2016 by Jānis Roze. She has performed at the Poetry Days events, the “The Blood of a Poet” festival and other international workshops and festivals, and her work has appeared in theatre and radio. Her poems have been translated into English, Welsh and Russian. She is currently preparing both her second book of poems and her first book of short stories.
Jayde Will is a literary translator from Latvian, Lithuanian, Latgalian, and Estonian. Recent translations include Latvian poet Arvis Viguls’s poetry collection They (Valley Press, 2020) Latvian writer Alberts Bels’s novel Insomnia (Parthian 2020), Estonian poet Maarja Pärtna’s poetry collection Vivarium (The Emma Press, 2020), and an anthology of Latgalian poetry entitled The Last Model (Francis Boutle Press, 2020).
Photo by Lisa Kalloo
Check out the Poetry Travels book list on bookshop.org.
Read previous poems from Poetry Travels:
THE SIEGE by Marcin Świetlicki, translated by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese
FISH by Jana Putrle Srdić, translated by Barbara Jurša
THE WELL by Maarja Pärtna, translated by Jayde Will
THE SHADOW by Pentti Saarikoski, translated by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah
A FAREWELL TO MY DEAD CLASS by Irit Amiel, translated by Anna Blasiak and Marta Dziurosz
THE GIRLS IN BERGEN-BELSEN by Nora Gomringer, translated by Annie Rutherford
DECEMBER, by Jaume Subirana, translated by Christopher Whyte
ROSE RED, by Ulrike Almut Sandig, translated by Karen Leeder
*** (I D[R]IPPED MY PEN…) by Mario Martín Gijón, translated by Terence Dooley
WHAT COMES by Magda Cârneci, translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mădălina Bănucu
TRANSLATION by Justyna Bargielska, translated by Maria Jastrzębska
*** (MY EYES, DENSE NIGHT…) by Gëzim Hajdari, translated by Ian Seed