Poetical Quill Souls

Poetical Quill Souls

This blog contains a collection of renowned and young authors from around the world poems in the languages in which they were originally written. Each file includes author’s photo or portrait and brief biography. We offer news and announcements of interest to professional and amateur writers (writing competitions, poetry press, etc) too.

Este blog recoge una selección de poemas de reputados autores y jóvenes promesas de todo el mundo en las lenguas en las que fueron escritos originalmente. Se incluye en cada ficha una breve reseña biográfica del autor y fotos o cuadros de éste. Se complementa el grueso del material con datos de interés para escritores profesionales o aficionados a la literatura (como información sobre certámenes literarios, editoriales dedicadas a la poesía, etc).

Karen Solie

All that is certain is night lasts longer than the day

Look at your past, how it’s grown.
You’ve known it since it was yea high. Still, you,
as you stand now, have never been there. Parts worn out,
renewed, replaced. Though you may bear the same name.
You’re like the joke about the axe.

In time you’ve learned that to behave badly isn’t
necessarily to behave out of character. To thine own self
be true. In script above the nation’s chalkboards,
the nation’s talkshows. And not a great idea,
depending. It’s too much for you, I know.

One day your life will be a lake in the high country
no one will ever see, and it will also be the animals
of that place. Its figures indistinguishable from ground.
All of time will flow into it.

Leave the child you were alone. The wish to comfort her
is a desire to be comforted. Would you have
her recognize herself buried alive
in the memories of a stranger? Avoideth the backroads,
doublewides of friends, and friends of friends. . . .
Some of what you would warn against
has not yet entered her vernacular.

She travels unerringly toward you, as if you are the North.
Between you, a valley has opened.
In this valley a river,
on this river an obscuring mist.

A mist not unlike it walks the morning streets, comments on
the distinction of Ottawa from Hull, Buda
from Pest, what used to be Estuary from what used to be
Empress and the ferry that once ran between them.


Karen Solie (Moose Jaw, Canadá, 1966). Poeta y autora de relatos.