Four Poems by Marie-Andrée Gill, translated by Kristen Renee Miller

Associate Maggie Finch on today’s bonus poems: These small poems by Marie-Andrée Gill—translated by Kristen Renee Miller—pack a powerful & emotional punch using images that seem to oppose one another, both uplifting and defeated. These poems hold vivid images (bingo cards, lakes, and kisses) that leap off the page for the reader; we feel it all, too. It's my pleasure to introduce this set of brilliant poems and translations to Passages North readers.

We have learned to avert our gaze, grow
beautiful as airplane graveyards

to grin at winning bingo cards

___

On a appris à contourner les regards à devenir
beaux comme des cimetières d'avions

à sourire en carte de bingo gagnante

---

the lake eats away a little more cement with bleeding gums

and I want this whole thing over with 
like that first french kiss on the rampart

(we are everywhere lost)

___

le lac gruge un peu plus ciment les gencives en sang

et j'ai envie que tout ça finisse au plus vite
comme ce premiere french sur le rempart

(nous sommes partout égarés)

---

who knows the color of a sore throat
cut loose

a lynx drags her claws
down the tender gullet walls
of the ones who drown
before birth

now voilà
we have these yellow-orange floats
and seal fins 
to open up our eyes

___

on se demande la couleur d'un mal de gorge 
lâché lousse

avant même sa naissance
un loup cervier faisait déjà ses griffes
sur les parois de l'œsophage tendre
des noyés d'avance 

maintenant voilà nous avons
des flottes jaune-orange
et des nageoires de phoque
pour ouvrir des yeux

---

The rampart

suspended in time
prams, drunk boys

day and night the dogs

day and night the dandelions push
through cracks in the cement

and before us, the lake
a luck
the lake.

___

Le rempart

un temps impossible, gelé
des poussettes, des gars chauds

jour et nuit les chiens

jour et nuit le pissenlit pousse
dans la craque du béton

et devant le lac,
une chance, 
le lac. 

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Marie-Andrée Gill is Pekuakamishkueu and identifies primarily as a poet. Mother, friend, lover, student, her research and creative work concern transpersonal and decolonial love. Bridging kitsch and existentialism, her writing is rooted in territory and interiority, combining her Quebec and Ilnu identities. She is the author of three books from La Peuplade: Béante, Frayer, and Chauffer le dehors. In 2018 she was the winner of an Indigenous Voices Award. She lives in L’Anse-Saint-Jean, Quebec.

Kristen Renee Miller's poems and translations have appeared in POETRY, The Kenyon Review, The Common, Guernica, and Best New Poets 2018. Her debut translation, Spawn, by Ilnu Nation poet Marie-Andrée Gill, will be published in 2020. A recipient of honors and fellowships from The Kennedy Center, The Humana Festival, The Kentucky Arts Council, and elsewhere, she lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where she is the managing editor for Sarabande.