translated by Marine Cornuet

Like a mute bird wrath thrusts itself 
Into my throat Wrath color of the sea 
Color of curdled blood color of high tide 
Wrath color of rails thrashing marshes 

Like a whip cracking on the eyes  
Red wrath cuts my breath cuts 
My arms and legs – Fire knifes Stone throws 
In the body – Wrath beats over my wounds 

Like an old wind from across the world  
Cold wrath makes my head roll into the stars 
Where hoisted upon my high horse I trouble 
The night and its procession of circular cries 

Spurting from veins merciless wrath 
Takes me at full speed down forbidden paths 
I am beside myself in a kingdom of chopped cries 
Where insults injure reason 

I am beside myself and I shiver like a forest 
Loaded with olive trees when I get out of line 
With my bad education Beside myself 
In a kingdom where hearts don’t have sullen shadows 

And words no other faces than the one they use 
Since nothing heavy weighs on the heart 
Nothing implied in resounding words 
In this kingdom that knows neither half measure nor bile 

Familiar wrath I know you by heart 
I see you coming from afar I know your means 
The ways you have to get into heads 
When you have it out with walls and beasts 

When you say love to those who answer to hate 
When you say reason to those who talk passion 

When bad faith rots in the house 
Of the friend whose eyes turn away from my pain 

Then to me violence is sweeter than honey 
And the rising day is a day of anger 
Mad-horizon-color, unparalleled color 
Wrath that flows where nothing quenches me 

I’ve got my head on my shoulders and I see clearly 
I’m well aware that I shouldn’t let wrath in me 
I’m well aware that I shouldn’t take seriously 
This gnawing desire to beat up the sky 

When I raise my voice more than its usual pitch 
I’m well aware that I shouldn’t But who will heal me 
From this stubborn desire wherein I demand 
Blooms before the month of May who will see them 

These pathetic orchards whose naked earth 
Is barely burned My hunger for new flowers 
Is greater than my patience I’ve always known 
The right to speak is a comradely right 

---

Anna Gréki (1931–1966) was an Algerian poet of French descent. Her poetry was deeply influenced by the landscapes of the Aurès Mountains, where she was born, and by the memories and friendships formed there during her childhood. As a young adult, Gréki joined the struggle for Algerian independence and was subsequently arrested, tortured, and incarcerated for her activism. The poems she wrote in prison in 1957–58 were smuggled out and published in her first collection, Algérie, capitale Alger, in 1963 (S.N.E.D), while Gréki was in exile in Tunis. Her second collection, Temps forts (Présence Africaine) has been recently published in English as The Streets of Algiers and other poems (trans. Souheila Haïmiche and Cristina Viti, Smokestack Books, 2020). The English translation of Algérie, capitale Alger (co-published by Pinspo and Lost & Found) is forthcoming in the fall of 2024. A prolific writer and thinker, Gréki wrote many essays on language, power, politics, and the role of the artist in Algeria, and left behind an unfinished novel. 

Marine Cornuet is a Brooklyn-based translator and poet. Her translation of French-Algerian poet Anna Gréki’s 1963 collection, Algérie, capitale Alger, is forthcoming with Pinsapo Press and Lost & Found: the CUNY Poetics Document Initiative. Her translation of Kaveh Akbar’s collection Pilgrim Bell into French is forthcoming with Le Castor Astral in the spring of 2024. She holds an MFA from Queens College, CUNY, and is a co-founder of the literary journal Clotheslines.