This is a random poetry generator based on nine different translations of Anne Hébert’s celebrated poem, “The Tomb of Kings.” The code was written by Kris Shaffer and available on GitHub (minus the poetry files). Consider this site a companion piece to my larger research project, A Journey in Translation: Anne Hébert’s Poetry in English, to be published in August by University of Ottawa Press. See below for references.

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The Tomb of Kings

I bear my heart on my fist
Like a blind falcon

The taciturn bird clutching my fingers
Lamp swollen with wine and blood
I go down
Toward the tomb of kings
Astonished
Barely born.

What thread of Ariadne leads me
Along the muted labyrinths?
The echo of footsteps is devoured there
As I proceed

(In what dream
What this child tied by the ankle
Like a spellbound slave?)

The maker of the dream
Presses on the cord,
And the bare footsteps fall
One by one
Like the first drops of rain
In the hold of the well

Already the odour stirs in swollen storms
Seeps under the edges of the doors
Of chambers secret and round
Where the closed beds are laid out.

The still desire of the stone sleepers draws me on.
Astounded I watch
The blue encrusted stones
Shine among black bones.

A few tragedies, patiently carved out
On the breasts of reclining kings
In place of jewels
Are offered me
Without tears or regrets.

Ranged in a single row:
The smoke of incense, the cake of dried rice
And my trembling flesh:
Ritual and submissive offering.

A gold mask on my absent face
Violet flowers for my eyes,
The shadow of love makes up my face
With accurate little strokes;
And this bird I’ve inhaled
And cries strangely.

A long shiver
Like a wind rising, from tree to tree,
Shakes seven ebony pharaohs
In the solemn bejeweled cases.

It is but the last fathom of death persisting
Simulating the ultimate torment
Seeks its appeasement
And her eternity
In a light tinkling of bracelets
Vain rings, alien games
Circling the sacrificed flesh.

Avid for the fraternal source of evil in me
They lay me down and drink me;
Seven times I know the tight grip of bones
And the dry hand seeking my heart to crush it.

Livid and satiated with the horrible dream
My limbs unlocked
The dead outside of me, assassinated,
What faint glint of dawn strays here?
Why does this bird tremble
And turn toward morning
Its gouged eyes?

The poems are from the following publications:

F.R. Scott, translator, St-Denys Garneau and Anne Hébert, Klanak Press, 1962
Peter Miller, translator, The Tomb of Kings, Contact Press, 1967
F.R. Scott, translator, Dialogue sur la traduction, HMH, 1970
Alan Brown, translator, Poems by Anne Hébert, Musson, 1975
F.R. Scott, translator, Poems of French Canada, Blackfish Press, 1977
Kathleen Weaver, translator, The Penguin Book of Women Poets, 1979
Willis Barnstone, translator, A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now, 1980
Janis L. Pallister, translator, Sinuous Laces, 1986
Alfred Poulin Jr., translator, Anne Hébert: Selected Poems, 1987