I'm going to start featuring the work of a poet-friend of mine, Jean-Pierre Restif. Here's a few of his poems. Some he's translated into English (with my help); others he wrote originally in English, with French interjections, which we have not been translated:

A DOG NAMED ILLINOIS

If I had a dog I would name him Illinois

We would go to the park and meet pretty girls

And other pleasant, down-to-earth people

I would not be allergic to him; life would be good

We would listen to NPR and the BBC World Service

And to Illinois Jacquet at JATP

A real cool cat

A dog more cat than wolf



NO MFA PROGRAMS IN FRANCE

In France we have no MFA programs

Instead a young poet will burn down the house of an elder poet

The elder poet will come home to find no home

The young poet will have perfected his art in secret, voici l'essentiel

In French we have a future perfect tense adequate to the task

(Est-ce que vous-avez la même chose en anglais? Mais oui!)

The village elders will emerge from their hovels to judge a drunken poetry contest between the two poets, the loser never to write again

This is a metaphor, we French poets actually disapprove of arson

It's true, though, we have no ateliers to speak of.