Poems for staying at home (Day 28)
Jorge Aulicino in Valdivia, Chile, September 2013 (photo Richard Gwyn).
Now, listen: do not go roaming with the possum. Is that perfectly clear?
from A Somewhat Difficult Syntax
The possum represents those who craved
the Holy Word, but who, once they have received it,
do nothing with it. And they breed inside the ears.
The possum represents those who wanted Grace
and Grace was given to them, to no end.
Do not move if you find a possum
on the staircase or on a taxi seat.
Its thought will crawl towards well-trodden places,
because, assured of Grace and of the Word,
it never occurs to it to do anything but wander
where once there were cities that armies
crushed beneath their boots and filled with condoms.
Better for you to keep working on your worthiness
so that the white or celestial blue light falls on you,
when you get really distracted from your work of flaying,
weeding, bending, casting to the winds, storing or tossing.
Even though you walk barefoot on the rough wharves
of your own thought, you will have to be profoundly distracted
not to receive in vain the friendship of the kingdom,
not to go roaming with the possum.
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
de Cierta dureza en la sintaxis
La comadreja representa a quienes estuvieron deseosos
de la palabra divina, pero que nada hacen con ella
cuando la han recibido. Y crían en las orejas.
La comadreja representa a quienes quisieron la gracia
y la gracia les fue dada, para nada.
No te muevas si encontrás a la comadreja
en la escalera o en el asiento de un taxi.
Reptará su pensamiento hacia lugares hollados,
porque, segura de la gracia y la palabra,
no se le ocurre qué hacer sino vagar
por donde hubo ciudades que los ejércitos
aplastaron con botas y llenaron de condones.
Más bien continúa construyendo el merecimiento
para que descienda la luz blanca o celeste sobre vos,
cuando realmente te distraigas en tu trabajo de desollar,
carpir, doblar, aventar, guardar o sacudir.
Aunque andes descalzo por los muelles ásperos
de tu propio pensamiento, habrás de distraerte profundamente
para no recibir en vano la amistad del reino,
para no deambular con la comadreja.
Jorge Aulicino, born in Buenos Aires in 1949, is a poet, journalist and translator. He has published a number of poetry collections, a large selection of which appear in Estación Finlandia: Poemas Reunidos (Buenos Aires: Bajolaluna, 2012). Aulicino has translated a number of Italian poets, including Cesare Pavese and Pier Paolo Pasolini; and in 2015 published his translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. He worked for the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarín for 28 years and from 2005 to 2012 was the editor of the newspaper’s weekly cultural magazine, Ñ. In 2015, he won the Argentine National Poetry Prize.
Possum in a bucket, Nicaragua 2012.
Poems for staying at home (Day 27)
Today – because ‘it’s the only thing the universe knows how to do’ – a poem about falling, from Argentina’s Beatríz Vignoli. I love the particularity of these lines: ‘If they tell you that I fell / don’t come / and teach me revisionist aerodynamics. / Don’t tell me of those who fell in victory . . .’
The Fall
If they tell you that I fell
it’s because I fell.
Vertically.
And with horizontal results.
In a right angle I am
only the sides.
I am ignorant of the monumental art of slanting
the hero’s ornamental torsion
that passes off his fall as a jump.
That loop of the martyr who, ascending,
casts off the role of victim
and soars above her own anguish
is not my specialty. Me, when I fall,
I fall.
There is no parabola
no air, no lift force.
A slip: I wait. I land on the floor
by the shortest route.
An avalanche, a stone,
a beam that has been dynamited.
There is no bodily guile in my descent.
It outlasts itself: the bottom
of the abyss is softer
for one who does not fly, only falls.
If they tell you that I fell
don’t come
and teach me revisionist aerodynamics.
Don’t tell me of those who fell in victory.
Don’t come and tell me
that you don’t believe it was an accident.
The only thing I believe in is the accident.
The only thing the universe knows how to do
is fall over for no reason,
is collapse, just because.
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
La caída
Si te dicen que caí
es que caí.
Verticalmente.
Y con horizontales resultados.
Soy, del ángulo recto
solamente los lados.
Ignoro el arte monumental del sesgo,
esa torsión ornamental del héroe
que hace que su caer se luzca como un salto.
Ese rizo del mártir que, ascendiendo
se sale de la víctima
y su propio tormento sobrevuela
no es mi especialidad. Yo, cuando caigo,
caigo.
No hay parábola
ni aire, ni fuerza de sustentación.
Un resbalón: espero. Al suelo llego
por la ruta más breve.
Un alud, una piedra,
una viga a la que han dinamitado.
No hay astucias del cuerpo en mi descenso.
Se sobrevive: el fondo
del abismo es más blando
para quien no vuela, sólo cae.
Si te dicen que caí,
no vengas
a enseñarme aerodinámica revisionista.
No me cuentes de los que cayeron venciendo.
No vengas a decirme
que no crees que haya sido un accidente.
En lo único que creo es en el accidente.
Lo único que sabe hacer el universo
es derrumbarse sin ningún motivo,
es desmoronarse porque sí.
Beatriz Vignoli was born in Rosario, Argentina in 1965. She is a novelist, poet, journalist, translator and art critic. Five of her poems appear in The Other Tiger: Recent Poetry from Latin America.
Poems for staying at home (Day 26)
The theft of a rooster prompts today’s poem from the Venezuelan Igor Barreto; a lament for a creature who ‘sings like the Angel Gabriel’. The poem can be found, along with 155 others, in The Other Tiger: Recent Poetry from Latin America.
Rooster thief
My flower-growing neighbour
has robbed me of a very precious fowl.
I refer to a tobacco-coloured rooster
which grazed in a chicken coop
at the end of the house’s back patio.
I didn’t make any complaint,
I simply didn’t dare.
Every daybreak I set out furtively
down the dirt road
that skirts our properties
and drawing close to his place
I once again heard my cockerel crow.
It is a bird that sings like the Angel Gabriel
scaring off night’s shadows,
with four well defined musical inflections.
This modest ritual
went on for three nights.
Three times I awaited the dawn
longing to hear him.
My sight and hearing
sharpened in such a fashion
during that last gesture
over ownership of a bird
that I felt
the debt had been settled.
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
Ladrón de gallos
Mi vecino floricultor
me ha robado un ave muy preciada.
Se trata de un gallo color tabaco
que pastaba en una jaula
al fondo del segundo patio de la casa.
No hice ningún reclamo,
simplemente no me atreví.
Cada madrugada caminé furtivo
por la carretera de tierra
que bordea nuestras casas
y acercándome a la suya
escuché de nuevo cantar mi gallo.
Es un ave que canta como el Ángel Gabriel
espantando las sombras,
con cuatro inflexiones musicales bien marcadas.
Este modesto ritual
se prolongó por tres noches.
Tres veces aguardé el amanecer
anhelando escucharlo.
Mi vista y mi oído
se aguzaron de tal manera
en aquel último gesto
de pertenencia sobre el ave,
que sentí
que la deuda estaba saldada.
Igor Barreto was born in Venezuela in 1952. He was resident in Romania for a number of years and studied Theory of Art at the University of Bucharest (1973-1979). Barreto has been translated into English, Italian and French. In 2008 he won a Guggenheim fellowship. He has also worked as Professor of Literature at both the Central and Metropolitan Universities of Venezuela. Barreto has published a dozen books of poetry with Sociedad de Amigos, Caracas, and his collected poems, El campo / El ascensor was published by Pre-textos in 2014.
Poems for staying at home (Day 24)
Today’s poem is another of my favourites from The Other Tiger, an extraordinary journey through family memory, in which the unsayable is said, and the tree of family is revealed to not know its roots. ‘Tree’ is by the Bolivian poet Jessica Freudenthal Ovando.
From ‘Tree’
1.
my father has a girlfriend of my age
my father says he cheated on my mother with six women
of those he fell in love with
my father always cheated on my mother
“always” could be reduced to fifteen or twenty years
my father and my mother became engaged at fifteen years of age
and were married as soon as they were legal adults
my mother is the daughter of a military man
my mother is the daughter of a military man they say was involved
in the death of che guevara and the nationalization of the gulf oil company
my father is the son of the right hand man of the president who led
the revolution of 1952
my father’s father was exiled by the father of my mother
i am the daughter of my mother and of my father
i have a sister and two brothers
my older brother has the same name as my father and the older brother of my mother
the older brother of my mother died in an airplane accident
they say that it wasn’t an accident
they say that the plane was sabotaged to bring about the fall of my military grandfather’s government that nationalized oil and tin
my younger brother has the name of sid campeador and of the younger brother of my mother which is also the name of her father
i have my name and the name of the older sister of my father who died during an epileptic attack in eastern bolivia
my father’s mother says that she was born in a place where the cemetery is bigger than the village, and the word love is not known
my sister has her name and the two names of my mother
my mother’s younger brother has his father’s name
– but never uses it –
my mother’s younger sister is adopted
– but this is an open secret –
i am the spouse of my spouse
i do not use the surname of my spouse
my spouse was the boyfriend of the second daughter of my mother’s younger brother
my mother and my spouse’s father had a fling
my father became somewhat jealous
my mother was sick with jealousy
she used to check my father’s pockets and phone him like a madwoman
i suffer from jealousy
my husband has cheated on me on several occasions
i have never been able to cheat on my husband
i haven’t dared
yet
mother and father
mother fatherland
pacha mama
the family tree doesn’t know its roots
it can’t see them
in the darkness and depth of the earth
there hidden underground
far from the crown
from the air
and from the branches
from the branches of this tree
hang the dead
the suicides
my father’s mother’s brother
shot himself on christmas night
my father’s younger brother snorted cocaine until his heart stopped
my mother’s first cousin threw himself off the niagara falls
poetic deaths
deaths
my mother’s father died of cancer of the pancreas
my father’s father died of pulmonary emphysema
it costs this tree to breathe
it doesn’t know its roots
surnames run all along its structure
they vanish
they become transparent
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
Fragmento de ‘Árbol’
1.
mi padre tiene una novia de mi edad
mi padre dice engañó a mi madre con seis mujeres
de las que se enamoró
mi padre siempre engañó a mi madre
–siempre– puede reducirse a quince o veinte años
mi padre y mi madre se hicieron novios a los quince años
y se casaron al borde de la mayoría de edad
mi madre es hija de un militar
mi madre es hija de un militar que dicen estuvo involucrado
en la muerte del che guevara y la nacionalización de la gulf oil company
mi padre es hijo del hombre de confianza del presidente que hizo
la revolución de 1952
el padre de mi padre fue exiliado por el padre de mi madre
yo soy hija de mi madre y de mi padre
tengo una hermana y dos hermanos
mi hermano mayor lleva el nombre de mi padre y el nombre del hermano mayor
de mi madre
el hermano mayor de mi madre murió en un accidente de aviación
-dicen que no fue un accidente-
dicen que sabotearon el avión para que cayera el gobierno de mi abuelo militar que nacionalizó la gulf y el estaño
mi hermano menor lleva el nombre del sid campeador y el del hermano menor de mi madre que es también el de su padre
yo llevo mi nombre y el nombre de la hermana mayor de mi padre muerta por un ataque de epilepsia en el oriente boliviano
la madre de mi padre dice que nació en un lugar donde el cementerio es más grande que el pueblo, y que no conoció la palabra amor . . .
mi hermana lleva su nombre y los dos nombres de mi madre
el hermano menor de mi madre lleva el nombre de su padre
– pero no lo usa nunca –
la hermana menor de mi madre es adoptada
– pero ese es un secreto a voces –
yo soy esposa de mi esposo
yo no uso el apellido de mi esposo
mi esposo era el novio de la hija segunda del hermano menor de mi madre
mi madre y el padre de mi esposo tuvieron un romance
mi padre se puso algo celoso
mi madre era enferma de los celos
auscultaba los bolsillos de mi padre y lo llamaba como loca por teléfono
yo sufro de celos
mi marido me ha engañado varias veces
yo nunca he podido engañar a mi marido
no me he atrevido
todavía
madre y padre
madre patria
pacha mama
el árbol familiar no conoce sus raíces
no puede verlas
en la oscuridad y profundidad de la tierra
allí debajo escondidas
lejanas a la copa
al aire
y a las ramas
en las ramas de este árbol
cuelgan los muertos
los suicidios
el hermano de la madre de mi padre
se pegó un tiro la noche de navidad
el hermano menor de mi padre aspiró cocaína hasta detener su corazón
el primo hermano de mi madre se lanzó por las cataratas del niágara
muertes poéticas
muertes
el padre de mi madre murió de cáncer de páncreas
el padre de mi padre murió de enfisema pulmonar
a este árbol le cuesta respirar
no conoce sus raíces
los apellidos recorren toda la estructura
se desvanecen
se hacen transparentes
from Patria bastarda (2014)
Jessica Freudenthal Ovando, born in Madrid in 1978, is a Bolivian writer who lives in La Paz. She promotes children’s reading with the Colectivo Lee and teaches Spanish on the International Baccalaureate Programme. She received an honorary mention in the Premio nacional de poesíá Yolanda Bedregal for her book Hardware (2009) and since then her work has appeared in various anthologies throughout America and Europe. Her second collection, Demo, was published in 2010, Patria bastarda in 2014, and El filo de las hojas in 2015.
Poems for staying at home (Day 23)
‘When spirit plays at being matter, it turns into cat’. A selection of cat poems from Darío Jaramillo. Published in Impossible Loves (Carcanet, 2019).
Cats
The moon gilds the rooftops.
Unannounced, the shadows of cats appear.
They are so stealthy
they are only their shadows.
They see everything without being seen
and everything must be still while they move
so they can feel themselves to be unmoving,
the cats, their shadows.
*
Cloud in the shape of a cat:
cat that eats moons.
stealthy carnivore of the sky,
disguised as a cloud
or muffled in the darkness,
cat that devours stars.
Crouching, it surveys the heavenly spheres
and guzzles them in the night,
cat that eats moons.
*
States of matter.
The states of matter are four in number:
liquid, solid, gaseous and cat.
The cat is a special state of matter
although doubts remain:
Is this voluptuous contortion matter?
Is this way of sleeping not heaven-sent?
And this silence: might it emerge from a place without time?
When spirit plays at being matter
it turns into cat.
*
Wisdom of the cat:
To be idle all day without ever being bored.
Materialisation of the cat:
when the cat becomes matter, it extends its claws.
Guile of the cat:
it pretends to be a domestic animal.
Silence of the cat:
cats keep all the secrets of the night.
Mysteries of the cat:
everything about the cat is mysterious.
*
Nearly all cats
are cats.
But there are also cats that are not cats.
There are, to be sure:
we know about witches who take the form of a cat
and no one speaks of cats who turn into witches.
It could happen that a cat is so laid back
that it ceases to be a cat without becoming anything else,
a cat so idle
that it can’t be bothered with being a cat.
*
Words for speaking about cats:
there are no words for speaking about cats.
Words do not encompass cats.
Cats are indifferent
to beings who speak.
A bark might disturb them
and a thunder-clap give cats a shock.
But cats do not hear words,
they are not interested in anything that can be said with words.
Why words when you can have smell?
Why words when
silence is possible?
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
Gatos
La luna dora los techos.
Inesperadas, aparecen las sombras de los gatos.
Son tan sigilosos
que son solamente sus sombras.
Ellos ven todo sin ser vistos
y todo debe estar quieto mientras se mueven
para que ellos puedan sentirse inmóviles,
los gatos, sus sombras.
*
Nube en forma de gato:
gato que come lunas,
sigiloso carnívoro del cielo,
disfrazado de nube
o embozado en lo oscuro,
gato que devora estrellas.
Agazapado, vigila las órbitas
y las engulle en la noche,
gato que come lunas.
*
Estados de la materia.
Los estados de la materia son cuatro:
líquido, sólido, gaseoso y gato.
El gato es un estado especial de la materia,
si bien caben las dudas:
¿es materia esta voluptuosa contorsión?
¿no viene del cielo esta manera de dormir?
Y este silencio, ¿acaso no procede de un lugar sin tiempo?
Cuando el espíritu juega a ser materia
entonces se convierte en gato.
*
Sabiduría del gato:
hacer pereza todo el día sin llegar nunca al tedio.
Materialización del gato:
cuando el gato se convierte en materia, saca las uñas.
Astucia del gato:
fingir que es un animal doméstico.
Silencio del gato:
los gatos guardan todos los secretos de la noche.
Misterios del gato:
todo en el gato es misterioso.
*
Casi todos los gatos
son gatos.
Pero existen gatos que no son gatos.
Que los hay los hay:
se sabe de brujas que se meten entre un gato
y nadie cuenta de gatos convertidos en bruja.
Puede ocurrir que un gato sea tan indolente
que deje de ser gato sin volverse nada distinto,
sólo un gato tan perezoso
que le da pereza ser gato.
*
Palabras para hablar de los gatos:
No hay palabras para hablar de los gatos.
Los palabras no abarcan a los gatos.
Los gatos son indiferentes
con los seres que hablan.
Un ladrido puede molestarlos
y un estruendo asusta a los gatos.
Pero los gatos no oyen las palabras.
no les interesa nada que pueda decirse con palabras.
¿Para qué las palabras si hay olfato,
para qué las palabras
si es posible el silencio?
Darío Jaramillo is one of Colombia’s foremost poets and novelists, widely acclaimed for re-energising the love poem, and winner of his country’s National Poetry Prize (2017). He is the recipient of the International Federico García Lorca Prize (2018) for a lifetime contribution to Spanish literature. His poems have been translated into English by Richard Gwyn, and have been published by Carcanet as Impossible Loves (2019). His poems also appear in The Other Tiger (Seren, 2016).
Poems for staying at home (Day 22)
What is insignificance? The routines of the quotidinal? Can one, nevertheless, become an artist of the quotidinal? And if making tea, is it not a point of some importance to use the correct tea, in its allocated box, as the dust motes dance in the May sunlight? Today’s lockdown poem is by D.G. Helder, of Argentina.
Insignificance
One moment.
And slowly, shhh . . .
Don’t wake the cat.
Don’t frighten the sparrows
in the orange tree.
The water’s boiling, I close my book,
May has returned to the window.
Does anyone want a cup of tea?
Would any of you like
a cup of tea?
On the second shelf,
to the left, there are two tins,
one red and one white.
That ray of sunlight
that shines through the glass
and the curtains
has travelled 150 million kms
to alight on the wooden floor.
Inside the sunbeam, in the non-gravity,
crazed grey dust specks
swarm.
Not the white one, the red.
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
Intranscedencia
Un momento.
Y despacio, shhh…
Que el gato no despierte.
Que los gorriones en el naranjo
no se espanten.
Hierve el agua, cierro el libro,
mayo ha vuelto a la ventana.
¿Alguien quiere una taza de té?
¿Alguno de ustedes desea
una taza de té?
En el segundo estante,
a la izquierda, hay dos latas,
una roja y otra blanca.
150 millones de kms
ha recorrido este rayo de sol
que trasluce el vidrio
y las cortinas
y se fija en la madera del piso.
Dentro del rayo, en la no-gravedad,
el polvillo gris enloquecido
hormiguea.
La blanca no, la roja.
From El faro de Guereño, 1990
Daniel García (D.G.) Helder was born in Rosario, Argentina, in 1961. He is a poet and critic, and one of the most authoritative commentators on contemporary and twentieth century Argentine literature. He has been co-editor of the website Poesía.com (1996-2006), director of the Casa de Poesía in Buenos Aires (2001-2008) and was the curator of the XVII Festival Internacional de Poesía de Rosario (2009). In addition to his own publications, his poetry has been included in numerous national and international anthologies.
Poems for staying at home (Day 21)
Imagine that you are in a dark nightclub and a Tiger is seated at the bar, observing you curiously. Something like this happened to Pedro Serrano in Cardiff a few years back. I know; I was there, and so was Bill. This poem was published in The Other Tiger – and is the only poem, as far as I know, to make its first ever appearance in that tome. The night spot has since closed down. The image above is from a painting by the Catalan artist Lluís Peñaranda.
Dark Ages
The tiger leaps
from a cloud of smoke into transience.
Falls on the devastating corral with an idleness
corresponding to the haste of his victims,
not to his elasticity.
He brushes past the bars of his cage
swinging his tail, rattling, tac, tac, tac, tac.
Crackling, he licks the circus sands
and raises ripples of dust,
traces of an approaching wake.
The motive for his observation
journeys in the smooth rhythm of his stomach,
velvety, gluttonous, elastic.
He turns circles before the spectators,
ears cocked, instincts fixed
on the excitement in the air.
He walks by the tables, propitious,
exudes substance and style.
The head sinks between the shoulders,
swells in the rail that encircles him.
The claws are extended
in the animal body that awaits him.
In the mirror of midday
the night’s end was taking shape,
beatific, inscrutable.
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
Dark Ages
El tigre salta
de la humareda a la fugacidad
y cae en el corral aplastante con una pereza
que alude a la prisa de sus victimas,
no a su elasticidad.
Pasa rozando las rejas de su jaula
una vuelta y otra.
Restallante lame las arenas del circo
y levanta espejuelas de polvo,
huellas de una estela aproximándose.
Meneando la cola, golpeteando.
La razón de su observación
viaja en el suave ritmo de su vientre.
Da vueltas a los espectadores,
las orejas prestas, su olfato
en la agitación que se respira.
Pasa propicio por sus mesas,
se enjundia.
Afelpado y glotón,
sume la cabeza entre los hombros.
Crece en el riel que lo circunda
y cae con las uñas puestas
en el cuerpo animal que lo acecha.
Queda un muñeco de goma
descomponiéndose, desarticulado.
Beatífica, hierática,
desde el espejo del mediodía
se apunta la noche.
Pedro Serrano, born in Montreal in 1957, is a poet and professor at UNAM in México DF. He was until recently Director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre in Canada. His translations include the anthology La generación del cordero (containing many of the most prominent British poets of the 1980s), Shakespeare’s King John and the poetry of Edward Hirsch. He recently published DefenßaS, a book on poetry and other wanderings. La construcción del poeta moderno, based on this doctoral thesis, is an extended essay on T.S. Eliot and Octavio Paz, and was published 1n 2012. He was for many years the editor of the online poetry monthly Periódico de Poesía. A book of his selected poems, Peatlands, translated by Anna Crowe, was published by Arc in 2014.
Poems for staying at home (Day 20)
Today’s poem, from Costa Rica’s Mauricio Molina, concerns a castle, a bishop, and . . . lycanthrogyny? It is dedicated to Lilith, who howls in the night.
The Old Lycanthrope
The old lycanthrope takes a stroll in Bucharest
There is a chess bishop on the tower of the castle
a yellow flower in his lapel
Black the night and black the blood
He plays the three of clubs
and the rain is the stuff of frogs
The princes of the land
decide once again
They are mistaken even about the colour of
their hats.
Will day break in Bucharest?
The hour is not known to be honest
nor serious
and just in case you ask me
what I gain cutting off the leg
of the batrachian
I will point out to you the poor lycanthrope
Who once again is walking in circles around the square
She
meanwhile
invents words
to kill the winter
paints her lips white
discovering the sweet pleasure of
lycanthrogyny
She uncorks an apple
and trembles with cold
while thinking
that the goal
is not the wolf
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
El Viejo licántropo
A Lilith, la que aúlla en la noche
El viejo licántropo se pasea en Bucarest
Hay un alfil sobre la torre del castillo
una flor amarilla en su solapa
Negra la noche la sangre negra
Se juega el tres de bastos
y la lluvia es cosa de ranas
Los príncipes de la tierra
deciden otra vez
Se equivocan hasta en el color de
sus sombreros
¿Amanecerá en Bucarest?
La hora no es conocida por sincera
ni por seria
y si acaso me preguntas
qué gano cortándole la pata
al batracio
te señalo al pobre licántropo
que otra vez da vueltas a la plaza
Ella
mientras tanto
para matar el invierno
inventa palabras
pinta del blanco sus labios
descubriendo el dulce placer de
la licantroginia
Descorcha una manzana
y tiembla de frío
mientras piensa
que la meta
no es el lobo
Mauricio Molina was born in Costa Rica in 1967. While living in Colorado, USA, he wrote his first book; Abominable libro de la nieve (México DF: Conaculta, 1999) for which he received the 1998 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Poetry Prize from the Mexican Cultural Centre. Between 2002 and 2007 he lived in Greece, where he wrote Cuadernos de Salónica (San José: Espiral, 2012). He is currently a professor at the University of Costa Rica.
Poems for staying at home (Day 19)
Wendy Guerra‘s poem, ‘Reverse Journey’, appropriately reflects our current state of travel: it takes place without actually going anywhere. The poem is one of my favourites from The Other Tiger. Guerra, pictured above in matching colours with Andrés Neuman and myself in Guadalajara, nine years ago, first made her name with the autofiction Todos se van translated as Everyone leaves, but still lives in Cuba, as far as I know.
Reverse Journey
I pack and unpack my bag
I do and undo everything with the intention of leaving
I call my friends tell them I’m escaping
and later secretly board the raft
to absorb the sorcery of the sun in peace
A wedding ring lost in the stomach of a fish
And again the luggage for the non-deferrable journey
I keep seeing that unmoving piece of marble
that are the boots of my personal memorial
Look how my tears course down the suitcase
you track them with your index finger
and you will arrive at the centre of my doubts
I fish in the same sea that overflows in the water from my eyes
I see my half-packed suitcase come on board
my tormented compass
and the child’s drawing of a map of Cuba
I trace the thousand forms of an exploratory circumnavigation
Dip a foot in to test the exact temperature of the waters
withdraw a little and then leave
for the interminable and conclusive regatta
Someone pushes me for a laugh and I almost fall and drown
but I sustain an amazing state of equilibrium
I make the journey to the interior
realizing in an epiphany
that I dictate my ideas’ last line.
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
El viaje inverso
Hago y deshago la maleta
hago y rehago todo con intención de partir
Llamo a los amigos les cuento que me escapo
y luego subo disimuladamente a la balsa
a recibir en paz los sortilegios del sol
Un anillo de bodas perdido en el estómago de un pez
Y otra vez las valijas para el viaje impostergable
Veo y veo ese inmóvil trozo de mármol
que son las botas de mi monumento personal
Mira cómo viajan mis lágrimas sobre la valija
los sigues con el dedo índice
y llegarás hasta al centro de mis dudas
Pesco en el mismo mar que desborda el agua de mis ojos
Veo cómo sube mi valija incompleta
mi brújula atormentada
y el dibujo de un niño con el mapa de Cuba
Trazo las mil formas de un bojeo exploratorio
Sacar el pie para probar la temperatura exacta de las aguas
retroceder un poco y partir luego
a la regata interminable y conclusiva
Alguien me empuja en broma y casi caigo ahogada
pero conservo un asombroso estado de equilibrio
Hago el viaje al interior
divisando iluminada que yo dicto
el último renglón de mis ideas.
Wendy Guerra was born in 1970 in Cienfuegos, Cuba. She is part of a generation of Cuban writers and artists who express themselves in a mix of genres and across media. She came to fame with the publication of an autobiographical novel based on her diaries, Todo se van in 2006, which won the Premio Bruguera de Novela and gained critical acclaim across Spain and Latin America, and was published in English as Everyone leaves (2012). A Cage Within is a collection of translations of Guerra’s poetry published by Harbor Mountain Press (2013). In 2016 Guerra published Domingo de Revolución (Revolution Sunday) in Spain, the story of a Cuban author who publishes a book of poems in Europe and is the object of suspicion by both the Cuban government and Cuban dissidents.
Poems for staying at home (Day 18)
Today we have a short and apposite poem from Beatriz Vignoli. I have no idea which hotel is referred to by the four asterisks, but the poem always makes me think of the Hotel Castelar in Buenos Aires, where Lorca lived for six months in 1933-4. The Castelar, for long a landmark on the Avenida de Mayo, closed down definitively last week as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Written on the Bedside Table of a Hotel ****
For shame of being
poor, I spent half my life
hiding away
from my friends, to avoid
the gossip;
now they are
dying
from all these
new, rare
diseases;
now I
embrace them, but they no longer
radiate heat, their faces are grey
– I mean a dark grey –
and now nothing at all remains
of those happy and brilliant people
we were going to be.
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
Escrito en la mesa de luz de un Hotel ****
Por vergüenza de ser
pobre, me pasé media vida
escondiéndome
de mis amigos, no fuese que
murmuraran;
ahora ellos están
muriéndose
de todas esas
enfermedades nuevas,
raras,
ahora sí
los abrazo, pero ya no irradian
calor, sus caras están grises
– quiero decir, de un gris
oscuro – y ya no queda nada
de todo lo felices y geniales
que íbamos a ser.
Beatriz Vignoli was born in Rosario, Argentina in 1965. She is a novelist, poet, journalist, translator and art critic. Five of her poems appear in The Other Tiger: Recent Poetry from Latin America.
Poems for staying at home (Day 17)
A second poem from Laura Wittner of Argentina to accompany the one I posted on Day 6 (which was in fact Day 36 of the UK lockdown), just because it felt appropriate, as we spend time watching images on our TV screens of places where we are not. And snow, an idea which seems remote and even wonderful.
Another City
When I raise my eyes I see snow,
snow gleaming from the television.
As always, places where one is not
shimmer on the map.
Certainly, I’d miss the flower market
and waking in this eighth-floor flat
which opens out in defiance of the wind.
The truth is there was just one day of snow
and there is a second possible version
of things known to us.
Suitcases have been packed for ever
and ready on the sofa
waiting to be off.
That moment lasts, is sustained,
it’s a way of being:
to be at the point of being abandoned.
The black pit of packed bags
the reverse of disembarking.
The human desire for the incomplete
reflected, it is said,
in a preference for small things,
brevity, fragments.
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
Otra ciudad
Cuando levanto la vista veo nieve,
nieve refulgiendo desde el televisor.
Como siempre, titilan sobre el mapa
los lugares donde una no está.
Seguro extrañaría el mercado de flores
y despertar en este piso octavo
que se abre desafiando al viento.
La verdad es que hubo un solo día de nieve
y que hay una posible segunda versión
para las cosas conocidas.
Las valijas están hechas desde siempre
y además están sobre el sofá
en posición de espera.
Ese momento dura, se sostiene,
es una manera de estar:
estar a punto de ser abandonado.
El pozo negro de las valijas hechas,
reverso del desembarco:
el deseo humano por lo incompleto
que se refleja, dicen,
en la predilección por lo pequeño,
lo breve, el fragmento.
Laura Wittner was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1967. She has published several poetry collections, most recently La Altura (Bajolaluna, 2016). She is also a translator from English, and has published work by Leonard Cohen, David Markson, Anne Tyler and James Schuyler. She coordinates poetry and translation workshops and runs a poetry blog in Spanish at http://selodicononlofaccio.blogspot.com/ and she can also be found (in English) at https://intranslation.brooklynrail.org/spanish/inside-the-house/.
Poems for staying at home (Day 16)
Today’s poem follows the announcement by the Prime Minister of the UK to ‘stay alert’ (whatever that means), while the leaders of Scottish and Welsh governments have told us to continue to ‘stay at home’, which seems clearer, at least. The protagonist in Darío Jaramillo Agudelo’s poem has left home, but no one is sure whether he will return. I love this poem, and apologies to those who have read it in a previous post, but since Carcanet recently published an entire collection of my translations of Jaramillo’s poems, called Impossible Loves, I thought I would give it a plug.
You can listen to Blanco reading ‘Reasons for his absence’ here.
Reasons for his Absence
If anyone asks after him,
tell them that perhaps he’ll never come back, or else
on returning no one will recognise his face;
tell them also that he left no one any reasons,
that he had a secret message, something important to tell them
but he’s forgotten what it was.
Tell them that he is falling, in a different way, and in another part of the world,
tell them he is still not happy
if that makes some of them happy; tell them also that he left
with his heart empty and dry
and tell them that this doesn’t matter, not even for pity or pardon’s sake
and that he himself doesn’t suffer on this account,
and that now he doesn’t believe in anything or anyone, far less in himself,
that from seeing so many things, his sight dwindled,
and now, blind, he needs touch,
tell them that once, on a sunny day, he had the faint glimmer of a faith in God,
tell them that once there were words that made him believe in love
and that later he learned love lasts
as long as it takes to say a word.
Tell them that like a balloon punctured by gunshot,
his soul plunged toward the hell within,
and he isn’t even in despair
and tell them that sometimes he thinks this inexorable calm
is his punishment;
tell them that he doesn’t know what sin he has committed,
and that he considers the blame he drags around the world
just another aspect of the problem
and tell them that on certain insomniac nights and even on others
during which he believes he has dreamt it,
he is afraid that the blame might be the only part of himself that is left
and tell them that on certain luminous mornings
and in the middle of afternoons of merciful lust and also
on rainy nights drunk with wine
he feels a certain puerile joy in his innocence
and tell them that on these blissful occasions he talks to himself.
Tell them that if some day he returns, he will come with two cherries for eyes
and a blackberry bush seeding in his stomach and a snake
coiled around his neck.
And nor will he expect anything from anyone and he will earn his living honourably,
as a fortune-teller, reading the cards and celebrating strange ceremonies
in which he will not believe
and tell them that he made off with some superstitions, three fetishes,
a few misunderstood instances of complicity
and the memory of two or three faces that always come back to him
in the darkness
and nothing.
(Translated by Richard Gwyn)
Razones del ausente
Si alguien les pregunta por él,
díganle que quizá no vuelva nunca o que si regresa
acaso ya nadie reconozca su rostro;
díganle también que no dejó razones para nadie,
que tenía un mensaje secreto, algo importante que decirles
pero que lo ha olvidado.
Díganle que ahora está cayendo, de otro modo y en otra parte del mundo,
díganle que todavía no es feliz,
si esto hace feliz a alguno de ellos; díganle también que se fue con el
corazón vacío y seco
y díganle que eso no importa ni siquiera para la lástima o el perdón
y ni él mismo sufre por eso,
que ya no cree en nada ni en nadie y mucho menos en él mismo,
que tantas cosas que vio apagaron su mirada y ahora, ciego,
necesita del tacto,
díganle que alguna vez tuvo un leve rescoldo de fe en Dios, en un día de sol,
díganle que hubo palabras que le hicieron creer en el amor
y luego supo que el amor dura lo que dura una palabra.
Díganle que como un globo de aire perforado a tiros,
su alma fue cayendo hasta el infierno que lo vive y que ni siquiera
está desesperado
y díganle que a veces piensa que esa calma inexorable es su castigo;
díganle que ignora cuál es su pecado
y que la culpa que lo arrastra por el mundo la considera apenas otro
dato del problema
y díganle que en ciertas noches de insomnio y aun en otras en que cree
haberlo soñado,
teme que acaso la culpa sea la única parte de sí mismo que le queda
y díganle que en ciertas mañanas llenas de luz
y en medio de tardes de piadosa lujuria y también borracho de vino
en noches de lluvia
siente cierta alegría pueril por su inocencia
y díganle que en esas ocasiones dichosas habla a solas.
Díganle que si alguna vez regresa, volverá con dos cerezas en sus ojos
y una planta de moras sembrada en su estómago y una serpiente
enroscada en su cuello.
Y tampoco esperará nada de nadie y se ganará la vida honradamente,
de adivino, leyendo las cartas y celebrando extrañas ceremonias en las
que no creerá
y díganle que se llevó consigo algunas supersticiones, tres fetiches,
ciertas complicidades mal entendidas
y el recuerdo de dos o tres rostros que siempre vuelven a él
en la oscuridad
y nada.
A note on ‘Reasons for his absence’
I was attracted to this poem by its epistolary style, and by the device of news being relayed about an absent party. The lack of clarity surrounding the reasons for the man’s absence holds particular poignancy in a country such as Colombia, where ‘disappearances’ were – at the time of the poem’s composition, in the late 1970s – already becoming an everyday occurrence. The baroque language and incantatory style creates a strange juxtaposition with the content, which describes a life of sensual dissolution. The curiosity is stirred by the profound sense of loss or lack with which the absentee seems infused, wherever he is. Whether his exile is literal or metaphoric is never made clear.
My principal concern with the translation of this poem concerned the title. The Spanish noun ‘razón’ can mean a range of things, including ‘reason’ or ‘information’, or even ‘explanation’, depending on context. Similarly ‘ausente’ – here a noun, but commonly an adjective – could be translated in a number of ways: ‘the absent one’ sounded too much like translatorese, ‘the missing person’ subject to over-interpretation in the context of recent Latin American history. In the end I chose ‘his absence’, which deviates from the original in a grammatical sense but conveys the meaning of the phrase accurately. A second concern was the repetition in the Spanish of ‘díganle’ (literally: tell him), which, since it refers back to ‘alguien’ (anyone) in line 1, I chose to translate as the generic ‘tell them’.
I attempted to re-create the long, rolling cadences of the original in my translation, alongside the reiteration of the introductory ‘tell them that . . .’. I have also tried to reproduce the bereft tone that reflects the absentee’s solitude, and the distance he has chosen to maintain from those he left behind.
When I read this poem out loud at an event – as I do from time to time – it still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I can’t say that happens with many poems, but with this one it happens every time.
Darío Jaramillo Agudelo is an internationally acclaimed poet, novelist and essayist. He graduated in law and economics from the Universidad Javeriana of Bogotá, and worked for many years in various roles with state cultural and arts organisations. He has won both the Colombian national prize for poetry (2017) and the García Lorca Prize (2018).
A rare photo of the young Darío Jaramillo (on the right) with J.L. Borges, Bogotá circa 1965.
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