In this essay, I present three found poems consisting of discussion thread titles from a popular bilingual dictionary website, WordReference.com . Browsing these forums during a translation project, I became fascinated by the ways in which thread titles hinted at larger narratives, and I wanted to investigate what these user queries might reveal about the sorts of language that people need, sometimes desperately. The poems are preceded by a personal essay investigating the difficulties of maintaining authority and confidence as a non-native speaker and translator.

This essay works with and through the process of translation to examine Heavier than Air , a play by Anne Harris and Stacy Holman Jones. As a play based on interviews with queer Australian teachers, but performed in multiple locations, the ways the text moved across cultures and between those involved required negotiations of meaning and expression. Scene 11, “Fucking Faggot,” serves as a potent example for me—a queer man involved in the production—about the ways that those negotiations are a complex process that occurs even after a production has been produced.