Two Lines 4: Possession
Fall 1997
Out of Print
There is another and he takes you while I sleep.
I am wakened by his rasping moans,
verses written to you ringing in his ear,
the cascade rushing down your throat
to seek the wasp’s nest of the heart.
—from “Scardanelli Speaks” by Francisco Hernández, translated from the Spanish by Elizabeth Bell
Yet who are our countrymen? Languages do not locate us. In this issue, we were interested in issues of colonization and domination. We expected tales of occupied nations, and the resulting narratives of personal dispossession and social unrest, but we didn’t expect what now seems inevitable: a preponderance of colonization at the very level of language. Clearly, the colonized write in the colonial tongues, even centuries after the marauders have been chased out or have moved on (or moved in.) […] While the many languages of the world are learned out of the desire to express desires, all people speak in tongues, incomprehensibly, when possessed. —THE EDITORS
Table of Contents
Fiction
A St. Petersburg Childhood
Translated from French by Carol Cosman
Poetry
Song of the Khori Taisha Rinchin Darzhin
By Anonymous
Gold
Translated from French by Gary Gach
Two Haitian Poets
Translated from Haitian by Jack Hirschman and Boadiba
Scardanelli Speaks: Poems
Translated from Spanish by Elizabeth Bell