Arjan Hut was the RIXT poet of the month January 2022. You can read his original Frisian poems of that month here. The translation of one of them – ‘Pop-up store’ – is published here.
Pop-up store It looks as if she’s sitting there alone, a young woman on the floor of the pop-up store with her back to the window drawing, deep in a field of paper she traces black lines across black lines Charcoal Forest. Twilight Woods. Wolf appears Daylight reflects off of the glass – what percentage of the light bounds back to the sun immediately? Is it her back turned to me, her posture, delicate and fragile like vinyl, or her isolation that grabs my attention? Bend over paper. When I get closer to the glass, balancing on the edge of a word, I’m caught, from behind the counter, by another set of eyes – they’re sizing me up That’s when I move on. Around us the city creaks, and lonely I’ve never been The city creaks and skids through a frozen dream Old is the dusk and full of poetry I’m looking for a wolf and find a rifle. © Arjan Hut Translation: Trevor Scarse