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 have my heart on my fist
Like a blind falcon.

The taciturn bird clutching my fingers
A lamp swollen with wine and blood,
I descend
Towards the tomb of the kings
Amazed
Scarcely born.

What thread of Ariadne
Along the muted labyrinths?
Echoes of footsteps are swallowed as they fall.

(In what dream
Was this child tied by the ankle
Like a fascinated slave?)

The maker of the dream
Tugs at the thread
And the bare footsteps fall
One by one
Like the first drops of rain
On the floor of wells.

Already the odor stirs in swollen storms
Oozes under the doorsills
Of chambers secret and round,
Where the enclosed resting-places rise.

The motionless desire of the sculpted dead draws me.
I gaze with astonishment
As set on the black bones
The blue stones gleaming.

A few tragedies, patiently carved out
On the breasts of the kings, laid out
As if they were jewels
In the guise of jewels
Without regret or tears.

In a single rank arrayed:
Smoke of the incense, rice-cakes dried
And my flesh, which trembles:
A humble ritual offering.

The golden mask on my absent face
Violet flowers for eyes,
The shadow of love makes up my face
With accurate little strokes;
And this bird I have
Breathes
And sobs strangely.

A long shudder
Like the wind catching from tree to tree
Moves the seven great ebony pharaohs
In the solemn bejeweled cases.

It is only the depth of death that persists
Miming a final torment
Looking for appeasement
And her eternity
In a faint tinkle of bracelets
Vain rings, alien games
Circling the sacrificed flesh.

Avid for the fraternal source of evil in me
Avid for the fraternal source of evil in me;
Seven times I know the tight grip of bones
And the withered hand that seeks out the heart
So it may break it.

Livid and satiated with foul dreams,
My limbs freed
And the dead out of me, assassinated,
What reflection of dawn wanders here?
Why does this bird shiver
Trembles and turns towards 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