Poems / December 28, 2023

an experimental translation of Marie-Andrée Gill

We are bathing1 in the pain of living2 hot asphalt3
while waiting to find habitable speech4
or win something at scratch5

1 we skinny dip in unhappiness / we shed our skins
& tumble in nus / the waters end
above our heads / we stew / we wallow

2 deep in apprehension / we submerge in gall / all of us
but founder / we descend sick / we wade
into the rotten bloom

3 of a newly paved lot / we bathe in new
tar / asphalt our merwe glance
out where it meets the sky

4 we coloration our eyes & scan
for safe location / safe
locution / unbroken
note / we retain out for a language
love landfall

5 we retain out for a windfall / a scratch-off
salvage / we tread pavement love water, waiting for
habitable speech / a language
to refuge inside

The lines in French are excerpted from Marie-Andrée Gill’s Spawn (La Peuplade, 2015), which examines the results of settler colonialism on her Pekuakamiulnuatsh neighborhood’s lands and language. Frayer’s English model, Spawntranslated by Kristen Renee Miller, used to be printed in 2020 by Book*hug Press.

Pekuakamishkueu poet Marie-Andrée Gill is the acclaimed author ofGaping,SpawnandHeat the outside(La Peuplade). A doctoral pupil in literature, her study and inventive work variety out the decolonial project of writing the intimate. Gill hosts the award-a success Radio-Canada podcast “Laissez-nous raconter: L’histoire crochie” (Telling Our Zigzag Histories), which “reclaims Indigenous historical past by exploring words whose meanings were bent by centuries of colonization.” She is the 2-time recipient of both the Salon du Livre Prize in Poetry and the Indigenous Voices Award. In 2020, Gill used to be named Artist of the 365 days by the Quebec Council of Arts and Letters.

Kristen Renee Miller is the director and editor-in-chief at Sarabande Books. A poet and translator, she is a 2023 NEA Fellow and the translator of two books from the French by Ilnu Nation poet Marie-Andrée Gill. She is the recipient of fellowships and awards from the Foundation for Up-to-the-minute Arts, AIGA, the John F. Kennedy Heart for the Performing Arts, the Gulf Fly Prize in Translation, and the American Literary Translators Association. Her work would be discovered broadly, in conjunction with inPoetry Journal,The Kenyon OverviewandMost attention-grabbing New Poets. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

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