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

My heart’s on my fist
Like a blind falcon.

The taciturn bird caught in my fingers
A swollen lamp of wine and blood
I go down
Towards the tomb of 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
Was this child tied by her ankle
Like a spellbound slave?)

The maker of the dream
Presses on the thread,
And naked steps come
One by one
Like the first drops of rain
In a well’s depth.

Already the odour stirs in swollen storms
Sweats under the doorsteps
In the round, secret chambers
Where the confined beds are stiffly erect.

The motionless desire of effigies moves me.
I watch with astonishment
As set on the black bones
The blue stones gleaming.

Several tragedies patiently wrought,
Laid on the breast of kings
As if they were jewels
Are offered me
Without tears or regrets.

In a single rank arrayed:
The smoke of incense, the cake of dried rice
And my flesh which trembles:
A ceremonial and submissive offering.

A gold mask on my absent face
Purple flowers like the pupils of my eyes,
The shadow of love makes up my face
With accurate little strokes;
And this bird I have breathes
Raising its strange complaint.

A long tremor
Like a wind sweeping from tree to tree,
Shakes the seven tall ebony Pharaohs
In their solemn and ornate coverings.

It is but the last fathom of death persisting
Simulating the last torment
Seeking relief
And its eternity
In a faint tinkle of bracelets
Vain ring games of elsewhere
Around the sacrificed flesh

Craving the brotherly source of evil in me
They lay me down and drink me;
Seven times I know the tight grip of the bones
And the withered hand that seeks out the heart
So it may break it.

Livid and satiated with the horrible dream
My limbs unfettered
And the dead thrown out of me, assassinated,
What reflection of dawn wanders in here?
How comes it that this bird
And turns toward morning
Its blinded 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