Skip to content
LALT-Iso_1
  • menú
  • English
  • Español
Número 20

Kichka uma / tankar kichka…

  • por Dida Aguirre García
Print Friendly, PDF & Email
  • November, 2021

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

 


 

Kichka uma
tankar kichka
ñawiymantam
yuraq qasa inti suturimun

chuyunyaq orkokunapi
Wanchuy chuya maypi

sapan
sapachallan

yana tutawan maytukuykuspa
llakillay
puriptin.
Chaynama
llaqtanchik
yuraq qasa inti lloqlla
kay
chaki allpapi
laswa sachachakuna laqwasq jina

Kichka uma
tankar kichka
ñawiymantam
layqa

rimarimun

manañam
laswa sachachakuna kanku

allpatam
patarichimunku
raku raku sapinkunawan

ninayasqaña
qaqayasqaña

llipipikuq
sacha kaspa.

 

*

 

Little Tankar1 of thorny head,
ice crystals like a white sun
fall from my eyes
over desolated regions, where the Orqos2 lives,
over pristine waters born in the Wanchuy tree3.

Lonely
very lonely,
the body is one with the fateful night
when my sorrow walks across this land.
Our territory is like
a white frost
a sun of dust.
This infertile land
is crawling like the muddy and fallen trees in an avalanche.

Little Tankar of thorny head,
through my eyes
the Layqa4 speaks in this land
And there are no muddy and fallen trees anymore

The trees
are shaking the soils with its strong roots

What a fire is burning now!
What perennial rock is rising now!

Because they are new beings, splendid trees!

Translated from Quechua to English by Christian Elguera

From the book Jarawi (Lima: Editorial Universidad Federico Villarreal, 2000)

1 The Tankar is an Andean tree with a thorny body.

2 In the Andes, local people consider Orqos or mountains as mighty beings.

3 Andean populations believe trees such as the Wanchuy to be the mothers of rivers.

4 According to Guaman Poma de Ayala and Cristobal de Molina, Layqa means a diabolic sorcerer. However, Layqa is an indigenous religious specialist with the skills to interact with powerful deities or non-human entities in Andean rituals.

 

Photo: Woman weaving, Cusco, Peru, by Adrian Dascal, Unsplash.
  • Dida Aguirre García

Dida Aguirre García (Huancavelica, 1952) is the author of three books of poetry in Quechua and Spanish: Arcilla (1989), Jarawi (1999, National Prize for Poetry in Quechua, Universidad Nacional Federico Villareal, 1999), and Qaparikuy (2012). Her work appears in the anthologies Poesía Peruana: Siglo XX (Vol. II, PETROPERÚ, 1999) and Poetas peruanas de antología (2009). She has taken part in international poetry festivals in Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, and México. The book Pichka harawikuna: Five Quechua Poets (1998) includes her poems in translation to English.

  • 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). 

PrevAnterior“Warmipa qapariynin” / “Cries of a Woman” by Gloria Cáceres Vargas
SIguienteSeeking Publisher: Notes on Roadkill by Joel Cintrón Arbasetti, translated by Heather HoudeNext
RELACIONADOS

Soy una máquina y no puedo olvidar de Martín Rangel: poesía electrónica [simuladamente robótica] mexicana actual

Por Luis Correa-Díaz

Based on the recent appearance of the Antología de poesia electrónica (2018) in the portal of the Centro de Cultura Digital de México, containing diverse and multimodal/media works by six…

From A House Full of People

Por Mariana Sández

La ira dentada

Por Javier González Cárdenas

Habituado a detentar el poder militar, Rachstad se paseaba esa tarde como un dios en sus jardines nubosos. Iba escoltado por un grupo de agentes anti-demográficos que solía acompañarlo en…

Footer Logo

University of Oklahoma
780 Van Vleet Oval
Kaufman Hall, Room 105
Norman, OK 73019-4037

  • Accesibilidad
  • Sostenibilidad
  • HIPAA
  • OU Búsqueda de trabajo
  • Políticas
  • Avisos legales
  • Copyright
  • Recursos y Oficinas
Actualizado: 20/02/2024 01:30:00
Facebook-f Twitter Instagram Envelope
Latin American Literature Today Logo big width
REVISTA

Número Actual

Reseñas

Números Anteriores

Índice de Autores

Índice de Traductores

PUBLICAR EN LALT

Normas de Publicación

LALT Y WLT

Participar

Oportunidades para Estudiantes

CONÓCENOS

Sobre LALT

Equipo Editorial

Misión

Comité Editorial

LALT BLOG
OUR DONORS
Suscribirme
  • email
LALT Logo SVG white letters mustard background

Subscriptions

Subscribe to our mailing list.
LALT Logo SVG white letters mustard background

Suscripciones

Suscríbase a nuestra lista de correos.