Two Lines 5: Ages
Fall 1998
Out of Print
This beach
Human footprints have completely disappeared
With the footprints of crows and dogs
the mouth and the anus become a permanent circle
The secretion of the dreams of the mollusks
become opaque sea shells
—from “The Rainbow Colored Beach” by Ryuichi Tamura, translated from the Japanese by Samuel Grolmes & Rumiko Tsumura
Time-keeping systems were originally based on cycles of nature. The Mayans used the cycle of rains. Ancient Egyptians based their on the rising of the star Sirius, an event that coincided with the annual flooding of the Nile. […] Two Lines tries to create its own ages, emerging anew each spring to mark the year in translation. As the journal matures, it too ages and ferments. At the ripe age of five, we are now planning a new era for the journal: we are creating a non-profit organization: The Center for the Art of Translation. We hope you will follow us into our new era. —THE EDITORS
Table of Contents
Poetry
Political History into Poetry: An Essay
Translated from German by Gerald Chapple
Our Bearings at Sea
Translated from Hungarian by Jascha Kessler
Poems
Translated from Japanese by Samuel Grolmes and Yumiko Tsumura
Alternating Reigns: Seven Against Thebes
Translated from Latin by Charles Ross
In the Land of Wolves
Translated from Spanish by Elizabeth Gamble Miller
Januaraeneid
Translated from Spanish by Rebecca Seiferle
Two Ariels: Two Young Latin American Poets
Translated from Spanish by John Oliver Simon
Fiction
Virtual Translations: An Interpolation
Translated from Russian by Mark Halperin and Dinara Georgeoliani