Check it out! Ugly Duckling Presse is digitizing their out-of-print chapbooks, including my own Novelty Act. Each poem in the chapbook is a homophonically-inspired translation of a poem in a language I don't actually know.
A sample poem --
Too Late Now
Overly flashy, that’s what a mermaid declaiming poetry is.
She hangs out during morning’s cardamom hours,
Snapping pods. She looks like a Berliner.
She’s got a black heart and a good dress.
In her eyes there’s something either ancient or too young,
A yellow fleck or so.
Her eyes are a visual form of Tourette’s;
They keep speaking indecently to me.
O, God of my wishes, God of all power,
Can’t you listen to this one wish of mine
And get rid of this mermaid? That’s all I want:
Not to listen to her dress, see her words,
Or stop to talk to her when I should be working.
That little black dress is a torment,
Those eyes trip me up like a burnt-out light
Crowned with rays of color.
Even at home, there she is, waiting for me.
I can’t escape her white skin.
I can’t believe you’d let me marry a mermaid!
Now every day, all I do is drown.