I Hear America Singing
I loved a pricey device
for igniting a bomb,
free of purpose,
intent, more just
winging it, feathery
accessory, accessory, accessory.
Yes, they’re trendy.
Yes, they’re made
of gold. Unparalleled, they are
that too.
________________
América carols mechanics singing plank máson
leaves boatman boat steamboat sínging sits on bench
sínging song delicious or of young singing party songs
I, Too
Yeah, I know money
tucks away
the muzzle, money
swallows
the moan. I know—
I loved a loaded woman.
________________
síng sénd company comes well Tomorrow
company comes Say sée ashaméd America
Danse Russe
I already gave you
my supper
& the abortion
& my jiggle
of egg, milk & sweet.
________________
baby and white disc mists dance naked, grotesquely
lonely was born to lonely admire flanks
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
I know that mansion
& I know
she laid out
in the sun. It was
an inelegant tow rope
I wore & I know
she derided me, a thousand
times she jeered.
________________
Whosé these village My horsé queer To stóp
farmhousé To ask Of easy downy promisés
miles befóre miles befóre
The Day Lady Died
You’re only half
here, I submit.
Your cough, adorable
as a bullet, walking
like fending off
a bull. A bird
the accidental inmate
of a cardboard box.
I spun no feathers
around your neck.
________________
York and I go shoeshine I don’t sun to see these Linda
balance quandariness store and Avenue Theatre and
casually cartón cartón now whilé keyboard
The Road Not Taken
I pray to see
the possum
before it sees me. It prays
to see me
like this—buckled
and gasping for breath.
________________
Two roads diverged far as wanted same leaves
for another ever come a sígh hence has made
These poems were created through a process of experimental translation. I start by finding Spanish words living within well-known poems written in English. For instance, a Spanish river (río) runs through the middle of the word serious and the word darkness begins with the Spanish verb to give (dar). I then gather a constellation of these unintended Spanish words and translate them into English to compose new works.
The erasure-palimpsests that appear below each poem carry echoes of the original poems while also showing these two languages coexisting within the same lines, the same words. This is my own small way of trying to unbuild the wall between us and our neighbors to the south.
These poems retain the original titles of the source texts, poems by Walt Whitman, Langston Hughes, William Carlos Williams, Frank O’Hara and Robert Frost.
Kelly Nelson’s experimental translations have appeared in
Anomaly, Interim, Seattle Review, Best American Experimental Writing and elsewhere. She teaches Interdisciplinary Studies at Arizona State University and is the author of two chapbooks. More at
kelly-nelson.com.