I’m in awe of this poetry issue [online April 15, 2026]. The poets! The translators! The English version of each verse/stanza will appear first, followed directly by the original versions in their native format. If y’all find a hiccup, a burp, in the native language, blame me, not the translators.
April 15th, ya’ll. Insanely fabulous poetry.
Plus, get ready, I’m looking forward to featuring a new chapbook from southern Dead Mule Poet Emeritus: Helen Losse. Seriously, could it get any better?
Nah, it can’t.
Translations from an international lineup of extraordinary poets including the contemporary Chinese poet, A Hua; Danish author, musician, painter, and sculptor Rolf Gjedsted ; “Autumn Again,” a two-page, 129-line translation from Hélène Sanguinetti’s Domaine des englués suivi de Six réponses à Jean-Baptiste Para; Chinese poet Wu Min. Yan An, renowned Chinese poet.
I’m giddy with excitement just reading the submission emails, I can’t wait until you read the poetry! Oh gosh!
French poet, Jean Luc Pouliquen; Chinese poet Shuguang Zhang and some tried and true Dead Mule poets published over the last 30 years.
Here’s an appetizer, a slight bit, a taste, of the translators’ in April 2026 Poetry Issue :
Chen Du is a voting member of the American Translators Association and an expert member of the Translators Association of China with a Master’s Degree in Biophysics from Roswell Park Cancer Institute, SUNY at Buffalo and a Master’s Degree in Radio Physics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In the United States and a few other Western countries, she has published 160+ pieces of English translations, poems, and essays in more than fifty literary journals. Yan An’s poetry book, A Naturalist’s Manor, translated by her and Xisheng Chen was published by Chax Press and shortlisted (one of four titles) for the 2022 Lucien Stryk Asian Translation Prize, administered by the American Literary Translators Association. Yan An’s poetry collection Rock Arrangement which was co-translated by her and Xisheng Chen was a runner-up for Carnegie Mellon University Press’s 2025 Literary Translation Prize and will be published in fall 2026.
Xisheng Chen is a Chinese American linguist, lexicologist, ESL grammarian, translator, and educator with over four decades of professional translation experience. He was the top scorer in English in the National College Entrance Examination of Jiangsu Province and earned both his BA and MA from Fudan University, Shanghai. He also holds a Mandarin Healthcare Interpreter Certificate from City College of San Francisco. His professional career has included work as a translator for Shanghai Television Station’s Evening English News Program, lecturer at Jiangnan University in Wuxi, China, and adjunct professor in the Departments of English and Social Sciences at Trine University (formerly Tri-State University) in Angola, Indiana. Over the course of his career, Chen has published numerous translations across a wide range of fields in newspapers and academic journals in China and internationally. He currently works at Tesla in Fremont, California and also as a freelance translator for JTG Inc., contributing to translation projects for the United States Department of Justice.
I hope you’ll join me in celebrating what is arguably one of the most significant Mule Poetry Issues in our publishing history. Yup, I’m talking 30 years of poetic excellence.
