This Translation Tuesday, the Latvian poet Ivars Šteinbergs graces us with an ode to the tongue—the small, oh-so-easily forgotten organ without which language, and the institutions of literature and translation that depend on it, would be impossible. Drawing on the half-remembered frisson of youthful trysts, this humorous prose-poem ties the “games” of nascent sexuality to the generative “play” of language, brilliantly undermining the boundary between language and the body even as it strikes a balance between restraint and ribaldry.
I spin the bottle, it stops on Estere. I wanted it to stop on Sandra.
A small kiss, no tongue, mechanical, like you’re going through the motions during a dance lesson, afterwards I taste cherry lip balm. As far as the class trip, I only remember the ride in the bus, where in the back we had a circle around an empty Sprite bottle.
Years later—truth or dare at someone’s place, no one chooses truth, we know everything we need to know anyway: “Kiss Renāte—with your tongue!”, “Lick Anete’s neck!” “Touch each other with your tongues!”. The next morning—an oral exam, I hadn’t slept, but I got a good grade, as if I had been warming up for it the entire night before.
What hasn’t my tongue accomplished: heroic deeds in the director’s office, at the school psychologist, later—fiascos in front of crowds or on live tv, public slips-of-the-tongue and salt from inner thighs.
My tongue, bearing four languages, though one it has forgotten, and one—never fully learned; with my tongue I have messed around, uttered nonsense, licked, and lied. Tongue, you wet key, able to open the way to victory in arguments, charm, provoke laughter, curse, plead and titillate clits; without you it wouldn’t even be possible to eat, and therefore exist; around you, this red organ, we’ve built a multi-billion euro industry, cooking shows, culinary depravities—we do not feel with the heart, but with you, tongue. The middle finger is rude, but stick out a tongue and we have a game.
I suddenly understand, it’s been years since we played suck and blow, we don’t lock couples in dark closets anymore to wait till their seven minutes are up, but as we get older, we continue playing something—and it’s in language, in this world-wide orchestra, where the tongue is the restless baton of the conductor.
Translated from the Latvian by Jayde Will
Ivars Šteinbergs is a poet, critic, and translator from Riga, Latvia. His second collection of poems, Youth (2022, Neputns), received the Annual Latvian Literature Award in 2023, the most prestigious literary award in his country.
Jayde Will is a literary translator. He has an M.A. in Fenno-Ugric Linguistics from Tartu University. His translations of Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian authors have been published in numerous journals, including Poetry Review, Trafika, and Mantis, as well as anthologies such as the Dedalus Book of Lithuanian Literature and several Best European Fiction anthologies.
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