Magazine Stand – Poetry May 2022

The May 2022 issue of Poetry Magazine begins with Guest Editor Srikanth Eddy’s final Editor’s Note, providing context for the theme “Make It Old,” with “old” being a “comparative measure.” The issue features “old” works in contemporary translations, and this is one time where the online version may rival the print publication. The print issue features English-only versions whereas online, readers can view the original text, the translation, and translators’ notes on their poems. Some works include “an avant-garde Brazilian poem from 1912, a Mayan creation myth, fragments of a pre-Socratic cosmology, the first circle of Dante’s Inferno stripped down to couplets, Medieval rune poems excavated after a fire in the harbor district of Bergen, Norway, a Nahuatl drinking song, a late Tang dynasty love letter, Osage talk, what might e the first Japanese tanka about baby diapers, and many more contributions.”