Better Lies

Two Poem Translations in World Literature Today

2025-10-29T13:59:00.000+01:00

The November issue of World Literature Today includes two poems in my translation of Mónica Ojeda's Historia de la leche (2nd edition @Candaya in December).

World Literature Today

#xl8women

Ways of Translating a Poem in The Somerville Times

2025-07-30T18:24:00.003+02:00

I have a new poem in today's Lyrical Somerville.

Thank you, Doug Holder!

Ways of Translating a Poem

Also on dversepoets

Day 8008 (Bloomsday)

2025-06-16T20:29:00.001+02:00

Day 8008

I roll off the same bed

–grandparents’ wool mattress-

you were carried from naked

in a long black box

the young men struggling

down the four long flights,

your absence still palpable

in the sticky Barcelona morning;

in the bookmarked

Cien años de soledad;

in the table I write on, scarred

in the long ago move, refinished

by the carpinter who replaced

the floor your chair scratched up,

whom I wave to on the street

every now and then.

2025-04-25T12:00:00.028+02:00

One of my very favorite online poetry journals, Atrium Poetry, has published a poem of mine today.

A Couple of Sundays

Thank you to editors Claire Walker and Holly McGill.

27 Years & Pájaros de Barro

2025-04-24T23:45:00.000+02:00

OR We Are Now in The 27 Club

Pájaros de Barro

Hoy son pájaros de barro que quieren volar –Manolo García

Our hands met in the thick clay

of providence’s two-tongued river.

We made a dam in our haste –

birds of clay from sanctified waters.

Our hands entwined and we carried

those clay birds to the sea; the beach

blew its white sand over us all –

a blessing, a bonding, a benediction.

Our hands wrenched apart – drought

in our two-tongued river drained

the sea, left you dry, me full of salt

water our clay birds could not drink.

Our hands turned into my hands which

have held our clay birds up to each

rising tide. I hold them again, feel

your touch as they empty my hands.

When I Was God - in Molecule issue 12

2025-03-16T18:06:00.000+01:00

I have a tiny poem in issue 12 of Molecule - a tiny lit mag.

on page 36 of the online PDF here: https://moleculetinylitmag.art.blog/

De Quincey’s Botany in The Georgia Review

2024-10-28T11:42:00.000+01:00

The Georgia Review Fall issue has published Mónica Ojeda’s Botánica de Quincey, from Historia de la leche, in my translation along with the original. The Delusional Epitaphs poem is online in English and Spanish.

Bloomsday Again

2024-06-16T20:31:00.000+02:00

21st Bloomsday

for Pep

Today your death is

twenty-one years old.

An adult.

Today your death could

walk into a bar in Boston

and order a Sam Adams.

Today your death could

play blackjack at Encore

(which is only five, btw).

Today your death could

rent a car, adopt a child,

be a driver's ed instructor.

Today your death is

a college junior majoring

in grief management.

Today your death is

so big it would need

numeraled candles on its cake.

Today your death will

have just fifteen more

years to live.

Poems from Mónica Ojeda's History of Milk in LALT

2023-09-23T17:52:00.037+02:00

Latin American Literature Today issue 27

has published a bilingual spread from Historia de la leche by Mónica Ojeda,

translated by me. There are four poems from across the collection.

Here is the link to the English : LALT

Poetry Northwest Poem of the Week

2023-07-25T17:26:00.003+02:00

A poem I translated from Mónica Ojeda's collection Historia de la leche

is Poem of the Week at Poetry Northwest.

Read on Poetry Northwest

20 Years of Missing You

2023-06-16T13:06:00.000+02:00

Dear Pep,

Your daughter sent me this video this morning,

while I was thinking what to write for you. She

was thinking of you, missing you, sending me

a virtual hug. Your brother took this, added

the songs. A walk up to Can Nan with your

nephew and your daughter. Like so many

walks. You found the biggest rovelló ever.

Twenty Bloomsdays without you.

Twenty years of missing you.

Twenty years of you missing her.

Look at that little girl. You would be

so proud.

Love, Kymm

#143

What I Learned... for Paco, in memoriam

2023-01-31T17:51:00.014+01:00

On the last day of 2023's January Writing Hours (thank you Kim Moore and Clare Shaw) I wrote this in response to the first prompt, based on Brad Aaron Modlin's poem "What You Missed That Day You Were Absent from Fourth Grade" - having learned the day before that my friend and half of my favorite publishers had died. Paco, you would not be surprised to find that, as always, it's all about me.

New England Poetry Club Honorable Mention

2022-10-05T20:17:00.001+02:00

The New England Poetry Club awarded Honorable Mention in the Diana Der-Hovanessian Prize, selected by Eric Hyett, to "Papa, you wanted a son" - my translation of a poem from Mónica Ojeda's collection Historia de la leche, (Editorial Candaya, 2020).

Hear me read

Go here to read the poem at the New England Poetry Club 2022 Anthology page

Sant Jordi #24

2022-04-24T18:21:00.001+02:00

After the Hail

for Pep, 24 years later

The apple tree died while I

was gone, its bark stripped

and fallen back to the pot,

the largest one on the terrace.

Stark, nobby branches choked

by equally dead morning glory

tendrils hold sacs of seeds

stiffly in the April wind.

Both dead things remain

to train the thick nasturtium

stalks with their wealth

of perpetual sunset.

Opposite, the barely salvaged

pine tree pushes its newborn

needles towards the sun. They

follow east to south to west.

Among all the dead branches

in sunburned pots bursting

with wild garlic, clover, asparagus,

the surprise of this tall purple iris.

🐍🌹📚

Poesía en acción #17

2021-11-25T20:32:00.040+01:00

Better late than never!

Poesía en acción published my translation of two poems from Mónica Ojeda's Historia de la leche, along with the originals.

Link to poems

There's also a micro interview with me.

Link to micro interview

I'm very grateful to Olivia Lott for the invitation, and grateful to Kate Hedeen of Action Books, who first encouraged me to pursue getting these poems published in English. And exceedingly grateful to Mónica for writing them and letting me translate them.

It's been a weird year and a half, but I'm grateful for a lot of things. Happy Thanksgiving!

🦃

Bloomsday; Dad's obituary; 18 years without Pep

2021-06-16T23:23:00.000+02:00

Dad's obituary was published in the Boston Globe today, as I requested, so that I could also remember Pep, who died 18 years ago.

There's a page set up for him at Bartlett Funeral Home, who took his body to Harvard, and Globe has another site on Legacy. It's the same obituary.

Legacy site

When Harvard is done, three years from now, his remains will be buried at the family plot in Mount Auburn Cemetery, a very beautiful place to rest.

Fair winds and following seas, Pa.

Translations! Some poems by Carlos Vitale in Words and Worlds journal

2020-08-19T01:01:00.001+02:00

Words and Worlds have published three poems by Carlos Vitale alongside my English translations in the Summer Issue.

SUMMER ISSUE / SOMMER AUSGABE 2020

This great online journal focuses on the immigrant experience.

The View from Olympia Anthology

2020-08-02T19:19:00.002+02:00

Thrilled to have a poem of mine included in this Olympic anthology, alongside many

wonderful poets and friends. I especially love sharing the page with Carole Bromley.

This was also my very first launch event, thanks to zoom and the pandemic, and it was also a thrill to read and to listen.

Thank you to Joe Williams and to Half Moon Books!

Tuttle Publishing's first Translator Interview

2020-07-16T19:32:00.001+02:00

Interview

Tuttle Publishing has interviewed me for their blog. Their first translator interview. Click here to go read it!

Also, read the books. They're fun, informative, and good for your mental health!

New Translation: Forest Bathing

2020-06-19T00:09:00.002+02:00

My latest translation, Forest Bathing is out this month from Tuttle Publishing, a fantastic book for the times.Take a soothing walk in the woods. Breathe. Hug a tree. Listen.

24 April 2020 (22 years later)

2020-04-24T20:33:00.000+02:00

April 24, 2020

For Pep, 22 years later

You tried to steal all of my holidays:

your birthday, just days before mine;

Bloomsday forever the anniversary

of your death. Somehow, until today,

Sant Jordi had escaped. Never a holiday –

none of mine ever were – World Book Day

is now a thing, but then Sant Jordi was mine

by adoption – count the books in my house

dated April 23^rd – and yours by birth:

Barcelona being the only thing we had

in common when we succumbed to the thrill

of the first kiss, to the knowledge that we had

arrived at our shared doorstep, our first day

of blind choices, so glaringly obvious

in hindsight.

Those six books, because you made it

to a sixth, line the shelf by our bed, the bed

I haven’t slept in since February, since

travelling home to see our daughter fence

and being trapped by this pandemic. Trapped

at home, not home. In a house I never grew up in,

with a father I barely recognize, far from all

those books, from all those Sant Jordis

on my own, with my girls, with you, without you,

on my own.

Here at my home not home I have nothing to hand

which your hand touched, no inscription, no dates,

no declarations of love. This is my seventeenth

Sant Jordi without you, though you never took it

away. It has taken a pandemic. So now, instead

of Sant Jordi, instead of streets full of books and

young people hawking roses, instead of exhaustion

from kilometers shuffled among human currents

flowing past author signings, spending too much

money, weighted by books I will never finish, I am

quarantined, confined. the first Sant Jordi I have

missed. The first Sant Jordi I have spent

just missing you.

kc 23 April 2020
143

Two Translated Books: #TuttlePublishing and #NórdicaLibros

2020-04-18T23:46:00.003+02:00

Although I have linked these books on my Professional Page, I thought I'd give them space here as well.
Thanks to Tuttle Publishing and to Nórdica Libros for trusting me with these wonderful illustrated books.

Blue Breeze in The Beach Hut

2020-03-11T04:02:00.000+01:00

So very pleased to have my hard-to-place poem Blue Breeze
@TheBeachHut7, a fantastic online collection of seaworthy poetry and prose.
The image chosen to accompany my poem is also amazing. h/t @JPlenio

Today @TheBeachHut7 we have a #poem by Kymm Coveney @KymmInBarcelona #BlueBreeze and what a gem it is! 🌊#writingforwellness #coastalinspired #WritingCommunity #poetry https://t.co/i5S3q38Zux
— The Beach Hut (@TheBeachHut7) March 9, 2020

Three Poems in The Blue Nib #40

2020-01-16T01:57:00.000+01:00

Three of my poems have been included in The Blue Nib, issue #40.

Looping Gravity
Cauldron Song
Aftermath

I read them at Ateneu La Base for PoémameBCN. See the review.

Cauldron Song was also Highly Commended in the 2018 Prole Laureate poetry competition.

Subscribe!

‘Care and Management of a New Year’ @ Ink Sweat & Tears

2020-01-01T20:25:00.001+01:00

Proud to start the new year with a poem on Ink Sweat & Tears, a poetry site I’ve followed since #52 began, and longed to publish in. Happy 2020!

Care and Management of a New Year

A hearty thank you to Helen Ivory and Kate Birch and, as always, to Jo Bell and her 52 poetry project.

🥂

A version of this poem was longlisted in the 2017 Amaryllis Christmas and New Year Poetry Competition. Thanks also to Stephen Daniels.