Here is a bonus poem for the week. It was today's Poem-a-Day from Poets.org.
Poem of September 24
By Samira Negrouche
translated from the French by the author
Who crosses into you when you cross
Who crosses when you don’t cross
Who doesn’t cross when you cross
Who crosses when you can’t cross
Who doesn’t cross when you don’t cross
Who doesn’t want to cross
Who thinks they’re crossing
Who doesn’t look at you while crossing
Who might take the time to look at you.
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Poème du 24 septembre
Qui traverse en toi quand tu traverses
Qui traverse quand tu ne traverses pas
Qui ne traverse pas quand tu traverses
Qui traverse quand tu ne peux pas traverser
Qui ne traverse pas quand tu ne traverses pas
Qui ne veut pas traverser
Qui croit traverser
Qui ne te regarde pas en traversant
Qui prendra peut-être le temps de te regarder.
About This Poem
“Written with eight other [poems], forming nine poems of nine lines, this poem is part of a public installation called Signs/Promises. It can be read as a geopolitical statement or as an intimate whisper to yourself or to someone else. It is an invitation to question and envision all the layers of displacement that are required to be able to cross a border—real or symbolic—to meet another. It reminds us how fragile the understanding of another reality can be and why we should keep remembering it, especially when we think we are aware.”—Samira Negrouche
About the Poet
Samira Negrouche is a writer, poet, and translator whose work has been translated into more than twenty languages. She is the author of several collections of poetry, including Pente Raide [Steep Slope] (Actes Sud, 2025), cowritten with Marin Fouqué. Negrouche’s book Le Jazz de oliviers [The Olive Trees’ Jazz] (Pleiades Press, 2020), translated by Marilyn Hacker, was short-listed for the 2021 National Translation Award, as well as the Derek Walcott Prize that same year. A translator from Arabic and English to French, as well as a medical doctor, Negrouche lives in Algiers.
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