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

Taciturn bird gripping my fingers
Lamp swollen with wine and blood.
I descend
Towards the tomb of the kings
Astonished
Scarcely born

What Ariadne-thread 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 fascinated slave?)

The maker of the dream
Squeezes the thread
And the bare footsteps fall
One by one
Like the first drops of rain
At the bottom of wells.

Already the odour stirs in swollen storms
Oozes under doorsills
Of the rooms, secret and round,
Where the confined beds are stiffly erect.

The motionless desire of the recumbent dead draws me
I gaze with astonishment
On the black bones gleam
Shine among black bones.

A few tragedies, patiently wrought,
Couched on the breast of kings
As if they were jewels
Like jewels
Without tears or regret.

In a single rank arrayed:
The smoke of incense, dried rice cakes
And my trembling flesh:
Ritual and dutiful offering.

The golden mask on my absent face
Violet flowers for pupils
The shade of love paints me in small sharp strokes;
And this bird I have breathes
And cries strangely.

A long tremor
Like a wind sweeping from tree to tree,
Stirs seven great ebony pharaohs
In their solemn ornate casings.

It is only the profundity of death which persists,
Simulating the final agony
Seeking its appeasement
And its eternity
In a light tinkling of bracelets,
Vain hoops, alien games
Around the sacrificed flesh.

Craving the brotherly source of evil in me
They lay me down and drink me;
Seven times I’ve known the vise of bones
And the dry hand seeking my heart to crush it.

Livid and satiated with foul dreams,
My limbs unfettered
And the dead outside of me, murdered,
What glimmer of dawn is this, wandering lost?
Wherefore does this bird quiver
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