Translator’s Note:
La voz de la casa (The Voice of Home) is a collection of forty-five poems and two essays by one of Chile’s most outstanding contemporary poets, Rosabetty Muñoz.
Written in 2020 under the home quarantine that the global pandemic brought about, and published in 2021 by Ediciones UCM, the collection is her response to remaining at home: she is listening back in time to a record of domestic practices long traditional on the island of Chiloé. The poems act both as a guide to living more mindfully—of the past and the present time—and as a collection of vignettes. Given Rosabetty’s fierce and lifelong commitment to her native Chiloé and to her own role as a teacher, as well as a place-based writer, La voz de la casa triumphs beautifully on all counts.
Throughout the collection, the home’s voice tends nostalgically towards celebration. Many of the poems read like a recipe, with plain-spoken instructions to follow for best results. In others, the voice quietly observes a degradation of customs caused by the new industries and technologies that have crept onto the islands. In a few, the voice calls out the mindset of past generations, socially unacceptable today. For the present selection of five poems, I chose a series in a continuous tone. The poems gathered here face confinement with optimism and compassion, revealing the richness of simple yet deeply meaningful actions. Rosabetty’s voice has been described as sometimes minimalist and often as reverent, almost mystical, so as to lead the reader to a calm, contemplative state. To translate these to English has brought me great joy, as I hope will be shared by readers.
Claudia Nuñez de Ibieta
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Bread
Next is to return to the kitchens. Everyone, to the fragrances and the lovely palate, to the original tongue. The boy and his sister are there with the volcano of flour, adding the yeast, waiting for it to leaven as they watch it intently. The siblings don’t quarrel, and they learn to make bread.
Greeting
Good morning, good morning, say to the clouds heavy with water that will fill the wells
and delight plants, roots, every hollow, cavity, mouth.
Good morning to the deep, dense silence of the early hours.
Good morning to those rising and getting going on the tasks.
Good morning, getting ready for a few hours that could well be splendid.
Good morning despite the quarantine that plunges us further into the creases of this house.
The Flowers
By no means forget the dead. Sit with the children of the house around the kitchen table and begin making waxed flowers for when we can return again to talk with the departed. Some will cut petals from tissue paper, others will straighten wire for the stems; the mother will heat the remainders of wax and—if she has some—will add colored candlewax. While everyone works, they’ll be remembering the elders, the things they did, what they were like. They’ll be spoken about until they’re conjured and they sit in the circle in their airy bodies. The flowers will be held by their wire stems and submerged in the wax, allowed to cool, and placed in a laughing, open-mouthed basket.
Forks
Gear up like an explorer, with flashlights, light clothing, gloves, and head out to look for lost objects. Over the years the house has been swallowing up socks, cups, tablecloths, notebooks, forks—so many forks! Make a map and split up along the search routes.
Beltrán
The idea will be to sleep while trying to purge small-minded thoughts. As if we were examining a head for lice, part the hair and remove the parasites nesting there where we keep our stores of energy.
Beltrán tells me about his carrots and radishes, how much they’ve grown, and how he’s been photographing every dawn, one by one. He assures me he’s never seen the same clouds twice, nor the same thick waves, nor the way in which the islands’ edges are revealed.
Think about this before falling asleep. Listen to the rhythmic surf, that voice.
Translated by Claudia Nuñez de Ibieta
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