Revel in the sensuous yearning of “Chemistry Lesson” this Translation Tuesday, a poem by the pansexual Hebrew poet Hagit Zohara Mendrowski’s that itself enacts a pedagogy of queer desire. In Dana G. Peleg’s translation, the linguistic aspects of gender between Hebrew and English unfold in poetic time to elongate and stretch the modes of desire latent in Mendrowski’s poem. Read this poem today and hear from the translator on the choices she made: 

“The love poems of Hagit Zohara Mendrowski, a pansexual Hebrew poet, reflect a great yearning. In many of her poems, the lover she yearns for is non-existent or a fantasy male or female lover. In this poem, the female lover is real, tangible. Furthermore, the gendered conjugation of verbs and prepositions in Hebrew does not leave any doubt regarding the type of the lovemaking depicted here. When using second person singular in Hebrew poets are forced to choose a gender. English, on the other hand, allows room for interpretation. I took the liberty of leaving readers with a question mark for a while. That question mark becomes an exclamation point when Mendrowski writes “pigeons” in the feminine. This is a grammatical error, or a children’s word, since “pigeon” in proper Hebrew is pluralized in the masculine. This usage adds another layer to the yearning expressed in this poem, for turning lesbian lovemaking into an act of procreation, of recreating.” 

—Dana G. Peleg

Brilliant formulae you have developed
Insist on impregnating me

When you squat on all six
my tongue draws infinite figures of eight
inside you. The whole room is lit. I drop into
The world of my childhood, scared
to sprout
but your obstinate womb pushes away—

Outside people continue to
Spit, swear, drag their heavy baskets.
Honk their limping cars.

In our room we are delivering
each other. Wander READ MORE…