This Translation Tuesday, celebrated activist Zmira Poran Zion vividly conveys the silencing and marginalization she has faced as a Mizrahi Jew born to Iraqi-Jewish parents. In imagistic, concise verse, translated by Yoni Hammer-Kossoy, we see a voiceless existence ‘cast aside just because’. Read and recognize.
Mixed Media on Galvanized Tin
Bright ocher tin thick black stain
center of a wide rectangle
thin wordless bird wire-perched over mouth
she cannot sleep.
Dark ocher tin wine-red stain
rectangle like a leash with a yellow bird at its end
she cannot touch.
Her horizon is far
she hangs
over nothingness.
Clear ocher without stain
bird with no walls no windowsill
cast aside just because.
Translated from the Hebrew by Yoni Hammer-Kossoy.
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