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Issue 20
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Warmipa qapariynin / Cries of a Woman

  • by Gloria Cáceres Vargas
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  • November, 2021

Editor’s Note: This poem is available to read in Quechua and English. Scroll down to read in English.

 


 

Warmipa qapariynin

Warmipa qapariyninqa
mamapachapa qapariyninmi
sap’inkunata taqwaptinku
aychanta kuchuptinku.

Warmipa qapariyninqa
mayupa kikin qapariyninmi
wawankunata ñut’uptinku
mana valiqhinata wisch’uptinku.

Warmipa qapariyninqa
wayrapa llaki sukanhinam
pisquchakuna qasi kayta
maskananpaq ripuptinku.

Warmipa sunqunqa
pachamamapa kikin sunqunmi
ñak’arispa, wawankunapa musqunta
p’ampaptinku.

Ichaqa kay warmipa sunqunqa
mamapachapa sunqunhina
sapa patpatyasqanpi
Musuqyakuptin.

¡Warmipa sunqunqa,
mamapachapa kikin sunqunmi!

 

 

Cries of a Woman

Cries of a woman
like howls of Mother Earth
when someone lacerates her blossoms,
when someone hurts her flesh.

Cries of a woman
like the weeping of a river
when someone breaks her children
and they are thrown away as worthless beings.

Cries of a woman
like the hiss of dark winds
when the birds, the pisquchakuna,
leave their nests to search for a quiet place.

A woman’s heart
is the heart of Mother Earth
lashed by cutting edges
when killers engulf her children’s dreams.

But a woman’s heart
is also like the Sacred Land
that renews itself
in a unique sound that reverberates heartily.

The heart of a woman
is the heart of Mother Earth!

Translated from Quechua to English by Christian Elguera

 

Photo: Woman at work, Cusco, Peru, by Willian Justen de Vasconcellos, Unsplash.
  • Gloria Cáceres Vargas

Gloria Cáceres Vargas (Ayacucho, 1947) has published the books Riqsinakusun (Conozcámonos, 1996), Munakuwaptiykiqa (Si tú me quisieras, 2009), Wiñay suyasqayki (Te esperaré siempre, 2010), andYuyaypa K’anchaqnin (Fulgor de mis recuerdos, 2015). She also translated two short stories by José María Arguedas from Spanish to Quechua: “Hijo solo” and “Warma Kuyay” (2011). She was Dean of the Program of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Universidad Nacional de Educación “Enrique Guzmán y Valle”–Chosica. She has taught classes on Quechua and Spanish at a variety of institutions in Peru and France, such as the Instituto Nacional de Lengua y Civilizaciones Orientales–INALCO, the Nouvelle Sorbone, and so on. Between 2008 and 2009, she worked in the Dirección de Educación Intercultural Bilingüe (Ministry of Culture, Peru).

  • Christian Elguera Olortegui

Christian Elguera Olortegui (1987) was born and raised in Lima, the capital city of Peru. However, he recognizes his family roots in Tingo María (a Peruvian Amazonian town in the province of Huanuco). He earned a bachelor’s degree in Literature from the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos and holds a PhD in Iberian and Latin American Languages and Literatures from the University of Texas at Austin. He also completed a Graduate Portfolio in the program in Native American and Indigenous Studies at this institution. Currently, Christian is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at Marist College and, since 2021, he has been a translator and Indigenous Literature correspondent for Latin American Literature Today (LALT). As a creative writer, he has received literary accolades in Peru, such as an honorable mention in the XXI Biennial Copé Short Story Award for his text “El extraño caso del señor Panizza” (2020), the Copé Silver Award for his short story “El último sortilegio de Fernando Pessoa” (2022), and the Copé Gold Award for his first novel, Los espectros (2023). 

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