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

With the taciturn bird taking my fingers
Lamp swollen with wine and blood.
I go down
Toward the tomb of Kings
Astonished
Scarcely born.

What thread of Ariadne leads me
Along the muted labyrinths?
The echo of my steps fades away as they fall

(In what dream
Was this child bound by her ankle
Like a spellbound slave?)

The maker of the dream
Presses on the thread,
And the bare footsteps fall
One by one
Like the first drops of rain
At the bottom of the well.

The smell already moves in bloated storms
Seeps from the sills of doors
Of chambers secret and round,
Where the closed beds are laid out

The still desire of reclining kings
Leads me
Astonished I watch
As set on the black bones
Shining blue encrusted stones.

A few tragedies patiently fashioned
Lying on the breasts of kings
As if they were jewels
Are offered to me
Without tears or regrets.

In a single rank arrayed:
Smoke of the incense, rice-cakes dried
And my flesh which trembles:
Ritual and submissive offering.

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 sobs strangely.

A long shudder
Like the wind catching tree after tree
Shakes seven ebony pharaohs
In their solemn, ornate encasings.

It is only the profundity of death which persists,
Simulating the ultimate torment
Seeking her appeasement
And its eternity
In a thin clash of bracelets,
Circle empty reflections of other places
Around 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 stated from a horrid dream
My limbs unraveled
And the dead thrust out of me, assassinated,
What reflection of dawn wanders in here?
Why does this bird tremble
And turn toward morning
His pupils put out?

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