Diana Der-Hovanessian Prize, selected by George Kalogeris
Donald Mace Williams is a retired newspaper writer and editor who acquired along the way a PhD in the line structure of Beowulf. His metrical Rilke translations have run in sixteen literary magazines so far, and his iambic translation of Beowulf was published in 2024. He also has a book of original poems, The Nectar Dancer, and a book consisting of a narrative poem and a prose memoir, Wolfe and Being Ninety. He lives in Austin, Texas, and at ninety-four still writes an occasional poem.
The Girl Grown Up It all rested on her and was the world and stood on her with all, mercy and fright, as trees stand, growing and always forthright, all form and formless like the Ark of Light and festive, like a leader just installed. And she endured it; carried easily the flying, fleeing, the grown-far-away, the huge, the not-yet-learned-so-as-to-stay, calm as the water girl who casually bears the full jug. Till midway of the game, still changing and with plans not yet full-grown, the first white veil dropped, gliding softly down until across her open face it came almost opaque and nevermore to rise and somehow to all things she wished to know saying with vagueness that one answer lies: In you, you child that was before, in you. Rainer Maria Rilke Translated by Donald Mace Williams