Bringing the World Together: A Poetry Project for Spreading Love

Published in

Lit Up

4 min readNov 5, 2018

Calling all Polyglots aka Multilinguals: A fun project for November

November poetry project of sharing and spreading love. Text by JkM. Photo on Unsplash

A survivor sister and writer friend of mine, Jhilmil Breckenridge was recently involved with a project that intrigued me. A poet sent out a poem that was successively translated into the languages of the poets receiving it, then was passed on to the next poet. Film was also involved at the conclusion of this. For my birthday this month, I am launching a similar project on Medium today that involves all.of.you!

I have posted a short 5 line poem in the original language alphabet-Hindi, transliterated it into the English alphabet so the reader can hear how it sounds read out loud, then translated it into English for all non-Hindi speaking readers (which will be almost everyone!). I have tagged some fellow writers who I already know speak other languages, and if they are willing in the midst of NaNoWriMo and the other obligations in their life, ask them to do the same. Transliterate and translate these five short lines into another language of your choice, more than one language if you’d like, identifying the language you have used. I would like to use this project to help erase borders, to find our common humanity, to connect with others across the globe in our writing and reading circles, and outside them. Joining virtual hands in love to overcome ignorance and distrust of each other. If I did not know that you are familiar with or fluid in another language, and have not tagged you, please let me know in comments and feel free to write the translation here or in a stand alone poem on your own profile, leaving a link to the original and any other language translations that spark your interest. I would love readers to be able to follow one link to the next, like a trail of loving breadcrumbs, sharing our diversity and unity. I am hoping that there will be many translations, and that eventually we might put it together in audio or film to share more widely. Perhaps this will become a round-robin with other writers starting a new poem circle…wouldn’t that be lovely! I already have a second poem ready for the next launch!!

आगे के अँधेरे में
इक किरण सी दिखी है
और देखूं या ना देखूं
यही सोचती सी
खड़ी हूँ गुमसुम सी

Aagey kay andherey mein
ik kiran si dikhee hai
aur dekhoon ya na dekhoon
yahi sochti si
khadi hoon gumsum si

In the darkness ahead
I have seen a ray of light
should I look or look away
wondering this
I stand here silent, undecided

DiAmaya Dawn: Greek Stephen M. Tomic: French Indira Reddy: Tamil Zev: Urdu or another language of choice Farida Haque: Urdu or another language of choice Georgia Lewitt: Romanian or another language of choice Ecem Yucel: Turkish or another language of your choice Steve B Howard: Nihongo Snippets: Nihongo Ifeanyi Omoike: Language of your choice yun corey chan: Mandarin or another language of choice Svani Parekh: Gujarati or another language of choice Unni Nambiar: Tamil, Telegu, Malayalam, Kannada or other language of choice Aditi Parikh: Language of your choice Bonnie Flach: Language of your choice. Tatiana Reuter Ferreira: Brazilian Portuguese

Zarina Dara 🥀💃🏻 A Maguire Julia Kantic Erika Burkhalter Kay Bolden Daphelba DeBeauvoir and everyone else I don’t know enough about to know what languages you can use to cuss in…Jump in anytime!!!

DiAmaya Dawn: Greek