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Issue 3
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Seven Poems

  • by Hugo Mujica
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  • July, 2017

(Confession

The poem, the one I long for,
the one I aspire to,
is the one that can be read aloud and go unheard.

It is that impossibility I start each time
it is from that chimera
that I write and erase.)

Sunrise and Silence

The sun rises and
I silence;

I silence all fear, I silence any
omen,

I seek a virgin dawn of myself,
I seek the birth of the light,
not its illumination of me.

Only at the End

The two shores
are always one, but you learn that only at the end,
afterwards, after you sink between them.

In This Valley

Night
you hear crickets
and now the
wind
wards off or brings on the trembling
of all that bends.

Today, in this valley,
under this moon,
I learned that the wind does not pass,
I learned that it is always arriving.

Boldness

To see is not to open your eyes,
it is to throw the white cane to one side:

to dare to walk
over the knowledge that you are lost.

VI

There’s a split
in the word
split,

a break where
each word quiets,
where all quieting creates;

it’s what in the uttering is breath
not of sound,
it’s where in each word
we hear ourselves revealed.

Day Is Born

Day is born
beneath a cloudless sky,

the clarity where all
is shown,
what springs toward it,
and what its very light withers.

Every birthing asks for bareness,
just as love does,
just as death grants.

“Confession,” “Sunrise and Silence,” “Only at the End,” “In This Valley,” and “Boldness” translated by Arthur Dixon.

“VI” and “Day Is Born” translated by Katherine M. Hedeen.

 

  • Hugo Mujica

Hugo Mujica studied Fine Arts, Philosophy, Philosophical Anthropology, and Theology. He has published over twenty books. His latest essays are: “La palabra inicial: La mitología del poeta en la obra de Heidegger,” “Flecha en la niebla,” “Poéticas del vacío,” “Lo naciente: Pensando el acto creador,” “La pasión según Georg Trakl: Poesía y expiación,” “El saber del no saberse,” and “Dioniso: Eros creador y mística pagana.” Solemne y mesurado and Bajo toda la lluvia del mundo are his two short story collections. His Poesía Completa: 1983-2011, which includes the ten verse collections he has published up to that date, was published by Editorial Vaso Roto along with two further volumes that include almost all of his essays. He has also published the verse collections Y siempre después del viento, Cuando todo calla (XIII Premio Casa de América de Poesía Americana), and Barro desnudo with the Spanish editorial Visor. He also has several personal anthologies published in twenty countries; some of his books have been published in English, French, Italian, Greek, Portuguese, Bulgarian, Romanian, Slovenian, Hebrew, and Maya.

  • Arthur Malcolm Dixon, Katherine M. Hedeen
headshotarthurdixoncroppededited1

Photo: Sydne Gray

Arthur Malcolm Dixon is co-founder, lead translator, and Managing Editor of Latin American Literature Today. His book-length translations include the novels Immigration: The Contest by Carlos Gámez Pérez and There Are Not So Many Stars by Isaí Moreno, both from Katakana Editores, and the poetry collections Intensive Care by Arturo Gutiérrez Plaza and Wild West by Alejandro Castro, both from Alliteration Publishing. He works as a community interpreter in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where from 2020 to 2023 he was a Tulsa Artist Fellow.

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