"Exquisitely written, shaped, heard poems of witness, invoking whole rich worlds of being and knowing. Translation of languages, yes, but most of all, Judith Small's astonishing ability to voice what it means to be a human being for so many making the immigrant's leap — brave passage from life to life. A crucial, profoundly moving collection."
— Naomi Shihab Nye, Poet
Second Tongue
from Brighthorse Books
Second Tongue is a sequence of poems interweaving the narratives of four French-speaking asylum seekers — two from West Africa, two from North Africa — with the voice of their interpreter.
Winner of the 2017 Brighthorse Prize for Poetry, Second Tongue was also a finalist for the FIELD Poetry Prize, the Georgia Poetry Prize and the Idaho Prize for Poetry. Portions of the sequence were published in the 2016 Fall/Winter issue of Epiphany. Read an excerpt here.
Published in November 2019, Second Tongue is available from IndieBound.com or your local, independent bookseller.
or on Barnes & Noble, Amazon or Books-A-Million
Additional praise for Second Tongue
“Second Tongue is a constellation of global persecution and resilience, of misery and transcendence; it is a work of art that interrogates the role of the narrator, the interpreter, and the bystander of modern life. How do we interpret the suffering of others, as well as our own? These poems sing the pain of existence and the wrenching sorrows of displacement; they also sing with the possibility inherent in carving out a new life, the glimmering promise—if only a person can successfully plead her case—of finding refuge, and of starting over.”
— Lauren Markham, Author of The Far Away Brothers
“It may well be the hardest thing in the world to match the rhythms of experience among lost, displaced, and suffering people to the rhythms of superbly managed poetry, but that is just what Judith Small has done. And she even makes it look easy, enhancing both sides of the equation. She writes with a ferocious empathy and she handles her poems with consistent skill and integrity. I like this book enormously.”
— David Young, Poet and translator; founding co-editor, FIELD
“…. Hauntingly beautiful….In a time when the foreigner is made to seem so apart and different, an intruder in the home society, Judith Small’s poems fully portray the humanity of each individual, and in so doing strengthen the bonds that hold us all together as humankind.”
— Karen Musalo, Director, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, U.C. Hastings College of the Law
“…. Combines the inexhaustible power of story with a moving and ongoing meditation on translation and language itself. A hybrid work of lyric and witness, Second Tongue is a careful, expressive, and timely work of art.”
— Jennifer Grotz, Poet and translator; Director, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference
Second Tongue cover art by Rachell Sumpter