These poems are part of my manuscript, ‘Arizona SB 1070: An Act,' which is a homophonic translation of the dangerous anti-immigration bill passed in Arizona in 2010 (though thankfully limited by the Supreme Court later on). Each page of the bill has become a separate section within the larger poem. My method of homophonic translation relies on the re-sounding of a source text, letter by letter, according to the various possible sounds each letter is able to produce (ex: “cat” may become “ash” by silencing the ‘c’ as in “indict,” and by sounding the ’t’ as an ‘sh-‘ sound, as in “ratio”). These particular poems are translations of the 4th, 5th, and 6th pages of the bill. As can be seen, the source text is listed in gray above the translated line. In translating the text in this way, I have attempted to write against it as a rejection of the bill, pointing toward a space for transformation..

Ryan Clark writes much of his work through a unique method of homophonic translation. His poetry has most recently appeared in Menacing Hedge, Homonym, Poor Yorick, Parentheses, and Weatherbeaten, and his first book, How I Pitched the First Curve, is forthcoming from Lit Fest Press. He is a recent winner of a San Antonio Writers Guild Award, and he currently teaches English and Creative Writing at Waldorf University.