Glacier Perito Moreno
The poem fell like a deafening block of ice.
Sparse-leaved shrubs grow here
and sheep crop
with small shifts forward;
they don’t seem to move, yet advance
across the ground.
I thought I might come close to wisdom,
facing that landscape,
a whim as infantile
as picking your nose
until it bleeds.
It was a moment of poetic
stupefaction: a lump of cold rearing up
seventy metres above us.
In front of the glacier,
we sought the certainty of powerlessness.
Not because we were nothing,
but that the noise of the mass as it plunged
resounded
like an open heart.
Translated by Ruth Fainlight
Translating ourselves
There is something fascinating
to be found between not understanding
and the desire to understand
something similar to the task making a poem
or translating a fragment
from an unknown tongue
Something as true
as the axe-split wood
in our primal need
to articulate
a thought
or sketch something
that will send signals
out of a clearing in the forest
to the autistic child
Small victories
in the human communication
—What are they saying?
—What does it mean?
Minimal gestures and minimal words
that somewhat calm
The growing anxiety
I only understand
what I project onto you
what the foreign language
unchains
out of its strange music
when
out of any place
dislocating
emerge
searchlights, also unexpected
allusions to bears, leopards
or the word ‘wolf’
brought out by desire
from beyond the erudite reference
to the founding of Rome
and ignoring
what it could mean
in dialogue
rather than in poetic
monologue
if we could all speak
in the same language
interchanges, intellectual lectures
in museum galleries
would the word ‘wolf’
arise on its own
fully substantiated?
For
what we can finally grasp
out of the silent orphanhood
of impossible phrases
in our vacillating
attempts to make progress
through the clearing in the forest
—What are you saying?
—What are you trying to say me?
when a word surfaces
and one believes one understands
what it could not be
and what Is
the absolute truth of the poem
and also its failure
Translated by Judith Ortiz Cofer
Kazimir in the Prow of a Boat
(Variations on a painting by Malevich)
1
I was sailing down the Yenisei
Toward the mouth of the river
In the maw of the landscape
To be devoured.
I was traveling onboard
Across the landscape
Without counting the days
Since my destruction.
I was traveling toward my capitulation
To houses without
Clear views
Without a thought for the humble
Investiture of the monk.
I was distracted, not looking,
When I saw the riders
In a small oil painting,
And I lost my mind.
2
I was sailing down the Yenisei
Toward the mouth of the river
In the maw of the landscape
To be devoured.
I was traveling onboard
Across History
Without counting the days
Since my destruction.
I was traveling toward my capitulation
To houses without
Clear views
Without a thought for the humble
Architecture of the laity.
I was distracted, not looking,
When I saw the riders
Approaching the riverbank,
And I lost my mind
3
I was sailing down the Yenisei
Toward the mouth of the river
In the maw of the landscape
To be devoured.
I was traveling onboard
Across my History
Without counting the days
Since my destruction.
I was traveling toward my capitulation
To houses without
Clear views
Without a thought for the white
Investiture of the saint.
I was distracted, not looking,
When I saw the horses
Approach the riverbank,
And I lost my mind.
Translated by Clinton Krute
Ruth Fainlight was born in New York, but has mainly lived in Britain since she was 15, having also spent some years living in France and Spain. She studied for two years at the Birmingham and Brighton Colleges of Art. In addition to her own works, Fainlight has also provided criticism for BBC Radio, The Times Literary Supplement, The Guardian and numerous other publications. She was married to the British writer Alan Sillitoe (1928–2010) and has a son, David, who is a photographer for The Guardian, and an adopted daughter, Susan. Fainlight lives in London. She has twice been Poet in Residence at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee, and was a close friend of Sylvia Plath in the years leading up to Plath’s death.
Judith Ortiz Cofer (February 24, 1952 – December 30, 2016) was a Puerto Rican American author. Her critically acclaimed and award-winning work spans a range of literary genres including poetry, short stories, autobiography, essays, and young-adult fiction. Ortiz Cofer was the Emeritus Regents’ and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia, where she taught undergraduate and graduate creative writing workshops for 26 years. In 2010, Ortiz Cofer was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, and in 2013, she won the University’s 2014 Southeastern Conference Faculty Achievement Award. Ortiz Cofer hailed from a family of storytellers and drew heavily from her personal experiences as a Puerto Rican American woman. In her work, Ortiz Cofer brings a poetic perspective to the intersection of memory and imagination. Writing in diverse genres, she investigated women issues, Latino culture, and the American South. Ortiz Cofer’s work weaves together private life and public space through intimate portrayals of family relationships and rich descriptions of place. Her own papers are currently housed at the University of Georgia’s Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
