In My Craft or Sullen Art
by Dylan Thomas
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.
The three books pictured came to my attention again totally by happenstance, I wasn’t seeking them out: the two novels, translated into English from in one instance Spanish and in the other Mandarin Chinese. (Doubly curious: the Mandarin Chinese novel is about translators.)
I source my books from friends, from the media, from the public library, the friends of the library, the little free libraries, and the random book sale here and there.
Reservoir Bitches is kick-ass hilarious and furious; Taiwan Travelogue is languorous, delicate; (How did the translators do it? What must the original have been like to them!); Things as It Is is clear and enchanting in all its original English.
Reservoir
Bitches, by Dahlia de la Cerda, 2022
English translation
from the Spanish by Heather Cleary and Julia Sanches, 2024
Things As It
Is, by Chase Twichell, 2018
Taiwan
Travelogue, by Yang Shuang-Zi, 2020
English
translation from the Mandarin Chinese by Lin King, 2024
