Stay, Shadow<\/strong><\/p>\nStay, shadow of my elusive prize
\nimage of enchantment I most want,
\nfair illusion for whom I joyfully die,
\nsweet fiction for whom I painfully live.<\/p>\n
If to the magnet of your charm\u2019s attraction
\nserves my breast of obedient steel,
\nwhy do you entice me with your flattery,
\nif you then will fool me with escape?<\/p>\n
\u2019Tis you can\u2019t boast in satisfaction
\nthat I fell victim to your tyranny;
\nthough while you fooled the straight bond<\/p>\n
that your fantastic form constrained,
\nit matters little to fool arms and breast
\nif my fantasy holds you prisoner.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Delmira Agustini (Uruguay, 1886-1914)<\/strong><\/p>\nFiera de amor<\/strong><\/p>\nBeast of love, I suffer hunger for hearts.
\nOf pigeons, vultures, roe deer, or lions,
\nThere is no more tempting prey, no more gratifying tastes,
\nIt already strangulated my claws and instinct,
\nWhen erected in an almost ethereal plinth,
\nI was fascinated by a statue of antique emperor.<\/p>\n
And I grew in enthusiasm; through the stone stem
\nMy desire ascended like fulminous ivy,
\nUp to the chest, seemingly nurtured in snow;
\nAnd I clamored to the impossible heart\u2026 the statue,
\nA custodian of its glory, pure and serene,
\nWith its forehead in Tomorrow and its feet in Yesterday.<\/p>\n
My perennial desire, the stone stem
\nHas been suspended like bloody ivy;
\nAnd since then I bite my heart while dreaming
\nOf the statue, supreme prisoner of my beautiful claw;
\nIt is neither flesh nor marble; a star paste
\nBloodless, with neither warmth nor palpitation\u2026<\/p>\n
With the essence of a superhuman passion!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Le\u00f3n de Grieff (Colombia, 1895-1976)<\/strong><\/p>\nWhite Moon<\/strong><\/p>\nWhite moon\u2026 and cold\u2026
\nand my sweet heart in bold
\nsecluded\u2026 secluded\u2026<\/p>\n
Your hand, eluded!<\/p>\n
White moon, and cold
\nmy sweet heart in bold
\nsecluded\u2026<\/p>\n
The vague piano notes\u2026
\nFrom the forest an arcane aroma\u2026
\nAnd a river, resounded\u2026<\/p>\n
My sweet heart in bold,
\nsecluded\u2026!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Enriqueta Arevalo Larriva (Venezuela, 1886-1962)<\/strong><\/p>\nWe Were Not the Whole Tree<\/strong><\/p>\nWe were not the whole tree. Only graceful
\nbranches, moss-covered bark, humid flowers,
\nroots liberated from the abyss.<\/p>\n
We were not always the tree.
\nWe didn\u2019t weather frosted, stubborn rain
\nor keep vigil in a night of ghosts.<\/p>\n
And we were delightedly sheltered
\nin its own hollow, not its hollow.<\/p>\n
If they burned the summer frowns,
\nwith laughter we jumped into the well.<\/p>\n
If ax arms were lifted,
\nwoodcutting ballads would beat us.<\/p>\n
If fire lines advanced,
\nrower and horse rhymed our fugue.<\/p>\n
If devouring ants climbed,
\nwe were only a mirror of disaster.<\/p>\n
If the afternoon dragged it by shadows,
\nwe would go to the heart of the west
\nto play with the sun, cooled and red.<\/p>\n
And when the wind threatened like a giant,
\nforeboding the uncongealing, we saved ourselves.<\/p>\n
We were not the whole tree.
\nWe were not always the tree.
\nBut the miracle fully perpetuates:
\nMy branches are nurtured by your impulse,
\nmy uneasiness evaporates in your resin.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dulce Mar\u00eda Loyn\u00e1z (Cuba, 1902-1997)<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Mirror<\/strong><\/p>\nThe mirror hanging on the wall,
\nwhere I sometimes see myself in passing\u2026
\nis a dead pond brought
\ninto the house.
\nCorpse of a pond is the mirror:
\nstill, rigid water containing
\nin itself remnants of color,
\nremembrances
\nof the sun, of shadow\u2026\u2014movable
\nedges of the horizon burning, passing by
\nin circles, returning, never
\nburning up\u2026\u2014vague
\nreminiscence that coalesced in the glass
\nand cannot return to the distant
\nland from where the pond was torn up,
\nstill white
\nof moon and jasmine, still trembling
\nof rain and birds, its waters\u2026
\nThis is water tamed by death:
\nit\u2019s a ghost
\nof a living water that shined one day,
\nfree in the world, lukewarm, suntanned\u2026
\nOpen to the happy wind that
\nmade her dance\u2026! The water doesn\u2019t dance
\nanymore; it will not reflect
\nthe suns of each day. It is barely reached
\nby the withered ray filtered through
\nthe window.
\nIn what cold did they freeze you for so long,
\nvertical pond, no longer spilling
\nyour stream over the carpet, no longer
\nemptying your remote landscapes
\nin the living room and your spectral
\nlight? Gray, crystallized water,
\nmy mirror, where I saw myself
\nso distant
\nsometimes, where I feared being kept
\ninside forever\u2026 Detached
\nfrom myself, lost in the mud
\nof ash made of limbering starts\u2026<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Carlos Drummond de Andrade (Brazil, 1902-1987)<\/strong><\/p>\nInternational Congress of Fear<\/strong><\/p>\nProvisionally we shall not sing to love,
\nwhich hides far below the underground.
\nWe shall sing to fear, sterilizing embraces,
\nwe shall not sing to hatred which exists barely,
\nfear barely exists, our father and companion,
\nthe great fear of heartlands, of seas, of deserts
\nthe fear of soldiers, the fear of mothers, the fear of churches,
\nwe shall sing to the fear of dictators, the fear of democrats,
\nwe shall sing to the fear of death and the fear of after death.
\nThen we will die of fear
\nand over our graves yellow, fearful flowers will rise.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Blanca Varela (Peru, 1926-2009)<\/strong><\/p>\nCurriculum Vitae<\/strong><\/p>\nlet\u2019s say that you won the race
\nand the prize
\nwas another race
\nthat you didn\u2019t savor the wine of victory
\nbut your own salt
\nthat you never listened to hurrahs
\nbut dog barks
\nand your shadow
\nyour own shadow
\nwas your only
\nand disloyal competitor<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Juan Gelman (Argentina, 1930-2014)<\/strong><\/p>\nEnd<\/strong><\/p>\nPoetry isn\u2019t a bird.
\nAnd is.
\nIt isn\u2019t a lung, air, my shirt,
\nno, nothing like that. And all of it.
\nYes.
\nI have broken a violent against the sunset
\nto see what happened,
\nI went to the stone and asked what happened.
\nBut no. But no.
\nNot yet.
\nDid I perhaps forget that handkerchief
\non which an old waltz circles in silence?
\nI didn\u2019t forget it, look at my cheek
\nand you\u2019ll see, no, I didn’t forget it.
\nDid I forget the wooden horse?
\nTouch in me the child and you\u2019ll say no.
\nAnd so what?
\nPoetry is a way of living.
\nLook at the people at your side.
\nDo they eat? Suffer? Sing? Cry?
\nHelp them fight for their hands, their eyes, their mouth, for the kiss to kiss and the kiss to give away, for their table, their bread, their letter a and their letter h, for their past\u2014were they not children?\u2014for their present, for the piece of peace, of history and happiness that belongs to them, for the piece of love, big, small, sad, joy, that belongs to them and is taken away in the name of what, of what?
\nYour life will then be an innumerable river to be called pedro, juan, ana, mar\u00eda, bird, lung, the air, my shirt, violin, sunset, stone, that handkerchief, old waltz, wooden horse.
\nPoetry is this.
\nAfterward, write it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jorge Teiller (Chile, 1935-1996)<\/strong><\/p>\nA Poet of the Countryside<\/strong><\/p>\nafter a Marc Chagall painting\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nYes
\nwe could also be lying down
\nprominently in the painting
\nwith the raincoat covered with grass
\nand from our dream
\nperhaps
\nan indifferent horse would emerge
\na slow-chewing cow
\na helmet with a hay roof.<\/p>\n
But
\nthe point is
\nthat things ought to dream with us,
\nand at the end no one ought to know
\nif it is us who are dreaming with the poet
\nthat dreams this landscape
\nor it is the landscape that dreams with us
\nand the poet
\nand the painter.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Humberto Ak\u2019Abal (Guatemala, b.1952)<\/strong><\/p>\nThe Dance<\/strong><\/p>\nAll of us dance
\non the edge of a coin.<\/p>\n
The poor\u2014because they are poor\u2014
\nlose their step,
\nand fall<\/p>\n
and everyone else
\nfalls on top.<\/p>\n
All translations by Ilan Stavans<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For twenty years, Ilan Stavans has been translating poetry from Spanish, Yiddish, Hebrew, French, Portuguese, Russian, German, Georgian, and other languages. His versions of Borges, Neruda, Sor Juana In\u00e9s de la Cruz, Ferreira Gullar, Ra\u00fal Zurita, and dozens of others have become classics. This volume, which includes poems from more than forty poets from all over the world, is testimony to a life dedicated to the pursuit of beauty through poetry in different languages.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4447,2954],"genre":[2022],"pretext":[],"section":[2365],"translator":[],"lal_author":[3066],"class_list":["post-11363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-numero-17","tag-translation-es","genre-preview-es","section-translation-previews-and-new-releases-es","lal_author-ilan-stavans-es"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11363\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11363"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=11363"},{"taxonomy":"pretext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pretext?post=11363"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section?post=11363"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/translator?post=11363"},{"taxonomy":"lal_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lal_author?post=11363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}