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

Perched on my wrist, my heart,
Like a blind falcon.

Taciturn bird gripping my fingers
A swollen lamp of wine and blood
I go down
Toward the tomb of Kings
Astonished
Scarcely born.

What Ariadne’s thread leads me
Through the muffled labyrinths?
The echo of my steps fades away as they fall.

(In what dream
What this child tied by the ankle
Like an entranced slave?)

The author of the dream
Draws on the thread
And naked steps start coming
One by one
Like the first drops of rain
At the bottom of wells.

Already the odour stirs in swollen storms
Sweats under door-sills
Into rooms, secret and round.
Where the enclosed resting-places rise.

The still desire of the stone sleepers draws me on.
I behold with astonishment
On the black bones gleam
The blue stones gleaming

A few tragedies, patiently carved out
Lying on the breasts of kings
In place of jewels
These are offered me
Without tears or regrets.

In a single rank arrayed:
The smoke of incense, the cake of dried rice,
And my quivering flesh:
Ritual and submissive offering.

A gold mask on my absent face
Violet flowers for eyes,
The shade of love paints me in small sharp strokes
And this bird I have breathes
And complains strangely.

A long tremor
Like the wind catching tree after tree
Shakes the seven tall ebony Pharoahs
In their solemn ornate casings.

It is only the profundity of death that persists,
Miming a final torment
Seeking her appeasement
And its eternity
In a slight clinking of bracelets
Vain hoops, alien games
Circling 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 that seeks my heart to break it.

Livid and satiated with the horrible dream
My limbs unfettered
And the dead out of me, assassinated,
What reflection of dawn wanders in here?
Why does this bird tremble
And turn toward morning
Its burst pupils?

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