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      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
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Anna Enquist

Translated by David Colmer

​ 

Drei Abhandlungen

My father comes to wake me up.
The barn’s on fire! He lets me watch
it through the window and I know:
this is for me. With such resolve
and rapture, I too will burn,
as unrestrained, as fierce as this.
My five-year-old body flares up
where later blood and fire will be.
Not knowing why, I start to cry
from fright and utter bliss.

It’s early when he calls me,
my son, responsive to the heavens.
He says the sky is funny. We go
outside, where rising from a slate-gray
foundation, there stands a dome
of clear heart-rending copper. His face is tight
with grave enthusiasm. The garden’s
deathly still. Together we stand there,
motionless in this cathedral
of enigmatic light. 



All at Once

All at once my ability
to retain warmth was
gone. Now the kids
have moved out, I sniffed,
funny that. I buried myself
under more blankets. The fire
roared. The warmer of us two
could no longer take the chill
off me. I shivered and 
shuddered as if facing death.

Which I was. Death and I
were standing on a bank.
Between us, nothing but
a considerable distance.



The Drum

We do hear it, the drum in the distance, 
but don’t listen. The rhythm of the sticks 
determines our steps. Even now. 

I want to linger by a waltz from before, 
a dance, a child in my arms. The tension 
between the past and present is unbearable. 

The march is inescapable. Furiously 
I dig into memory’s music box, trying 
to find her before I fall. But look,

the drummer brings us the grandchild, 
luring us into a new song, saddling us
with a final joy before the end.

​
Picture
Anna Enquist (b. 1945) is a musician, psychoanalyst, poet and best-selling novelist whose work has been translated into many languages. Since publishing her first collection in 1991, she has been one of the Netherlands most-loved poets. Much of her work is highly personal and drawn from the joys and tragedies of her own family life. The Fire Was Here, a thematic bilingual edition of ‘poems about mothers and children’, was published in 2003. Several of her novels have been translated into English.






‘Drei Abhandlungen’ is from The Fire Was Here, Toby Press, New Milford, London, 2003

The originals of ‘Drei Abhandlungen’ and ‘All at Once’ are in Alle gedichten, Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam, 2005

‘The Drum’ first appeared on Poetry International Web http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/22537/Anna-Enquist 
​

the original is from Een kooi van licht, CPNB & Poetry International, Amsterdam, 2013.


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​VerseVille (formerly The Enchanting Verses Literary Review) © 2008-2025    ISSN 0974-3057 Published from India. 

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  • Home
  • About Us
    • Contact
    • Media Coverages
    • Copyright Notice
    • VerseVille Blog
  • Submissions
    • Poetry and Essays Guidelines
    • Book Review Guidelines
    • Research Series Guidelines
  • Masthead
  • Editions
    • 2011 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XIV November 2011
    • 2012 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XV March 2012
      • ISSUE-XVI July 2012
      • ISSUE-XVII November 2012
    • 2013 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XVIII April 2013
      • ISSUE XIX November 2013
    • 2014 Issues >
      • ISSUE XX May 2014
    • 2015 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXI February 2015
      • Contemporary Indian English Poetry ISSUE XXII November 2015
    • 2016 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIII August 2016
      • Poetry From Ireland ISSUE XXIV December 2016
    • 2017 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXV August 2017
      • ISSUE XXVI December 2017
    • 2018 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXVII July 2018
      • ISSUE XXVIII November 2018
    • 2019 Issues >
      • ISSUE XXIX July 2019
    • 2020 ISSUES >
      • Issue XXX February 2020
      • ISSUE XXXI December 2020
    • 2021 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXII August 2021
    • 2022 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXIII June 2022
      • ISSUE XXXIV December 2022
    • 2023 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXV August 2023
      • ISSUE XXXVI December 2023 Indian Poetry
    • 2024 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXVII October 2024 Bengali Poetry
    • 2025 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXVIII January 2025 Balkan Poetry
  • Collaborations
    • Macedonian Collaboration
    • Collaboration with Dutch Foundation for Literature
  • Interviews
  • Prose on Poetry and Poets
    • 2010-2013 >
      • Sylvia Plath by Dr. Nidhi Mehta >
        • Chapter-1(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-2(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-3(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-4(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-5(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-6(Sylvia Plath)
      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
        • Chapter-1(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-2(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-3(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-4(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-5(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-6(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-7(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-8(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-9(Rabindranath Tagore)
      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 2(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 3(Nazrul Islam)
      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 2(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions