{"id":46070,"date":"2026-06-13T14:02:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T20:02:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/?p=46070"},"modified":"2026-06-17T09:28:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T15:28:55","slug":"translation-as-relation-and-relative-irma-pinedas-stolen-flower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/2026\/06\/translation-as-relation-and-relative-irma-pinedas-stolen-flower\/","title":{"rendered":"Translation as Relation and Relative: Irma Pineda\u2019s Stolen Flower"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cAnybody who thinks they can understand how terrible the terror has been, without understanding how beautiful the beauty has been against the grain of the terror, is wrong.\u201d
\n<\/span>– Fred Moten<\/span><\/h5>\n
<\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n

Isthmus Zapotec poet Irma Pineda\u2019s <\/span>Stolen Flower<\/span><\/i> wields heart-wrenching, beautiful poetry\u2014flowered words\u2014against the grain of state-sponsored terror. She tends to the wounds of Indigenous women who have survived rape and of those who have died, who in turn survive even death through their stories voiced on the page. <\/span>Stolen Flower<\/span><\/i> (<\/span>Guie\u2019 ni zinebe <\/span><\/i>\/ <\/span>La flor que se llev\u00f3<\/span><\/i>; Yale University Press, 2025; originally published in Mexico in 2013) was sparked by a crime committed in 2007, when Mexican soldiers raped seventy-three-year-old Nahua woman Ernestina Ascencio Rosario in Soledad Atzompa, Veracruz. In a gesture of inter-Indigenous solidarity, Pineda\u2019s condemnation of this atrocity reawakened painful memories of assaults on her Zapotec community and family, echoing the violence faced by Indigenous Nations throughout Mexico. She characterizes her work as part of a socially committed literary movement spanning Mexico. Her engagement with the history of Soledad Atzompa\u2014what Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg writer Lisa Betasamosake Simpson would term <\/span>ceremony<\/span><\/i>\u2014offers what Pineda describes as \u201cpoetry about absence, pain, lost traditions, kidnappings, human trafficking, desperate migrations, the military state, and assassinations.\u201d Rather than a <\/span>poes\u00eda resurrecta<\/span><\/i> (resurgent\/resurrected poetry), suggesting the revitalization of moribund Native cultural practices, <\/span>Stolen Flower<\/span><\/i> mobilizes its forty-six untitled poems in a <\/span>poes\u00eda insurrecta<\/span><\/i> (insurgent poetry) that compels readers to feel the violence inflicted upon Native Nations. An essential addition to anyone\u2019s library, this trilingual Didxaz\u00e1-Spanish-English edition brings a landmark work to a broad audience through Wendy Call\u2019s richly textured English translation.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pineda describes her Didxaz\u00e1 and Spanish versions as mirrors held up to one another: \u201cYou must think of them as parallel poems, one poem created in our language and another poem in Spanish. Both versions uphold their respective literary traditions\u201d (viii). The prism of these parallel versions refracts into Wendy Call\u2019s English translations. She weaves between two textual paths, reading between the stanzas in both Didxaz\u00e1 and Spanish. Call explains: \u201cI have two paths into English. Some lines of my English translations might seem a bit distant from the Spanish because I have chosen the Didxaz\u00e1 path\u201d (viii). For instance, where the Spanish reads \u201cel gran \u00e1rbol de nuestra memoria\u201d (the great tree of our memory), her English rendering, \u201cthe great tree of our wisdom,\u201d deliberately appeals to a Didxaz\u00e1 word that encompasses collective knowledge. Call concludes that, in English, \u201cour wisdom\u201d was \u201cthe best among insufficient options\u201d (viii). As Y\u00e1snaya Elena Aguilar Gil and Gladys Tzul Tzul affirm, Indigenous languages are political. In an era when AI stomps out meaning\u2014stripping away the intricate contexts of language\u2014it is more vital than ever to nourish the political and social relationships forged through these exchanges.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pineda\u2019s work invites a deeper understanding of translation; words extend beyond mere lexicon to embrace contexts and relations. Tracing another difference in these textual paths, Pineda and Call signal that objects such as stones take on animacy in Didxaz\u00e1 and \u201chold collective memory and cultural history\u201d (98). Like a stone, a poem can breathe life and be a <\/span>relative<\/span><\/i>. Call\u2019s translations go beyond words on the page to forge such relationships. This trans(re)lation is the product of nearly two decades of collaboration\u2014of <\/span>co-labor<\/span><\/i>\u2014between Call and Pineda. They have discussed multiple versions, and Call has advanced in her study of Didxaz\u00e1 to the point where she can now read the poems\u2019 reflections in both original languages.<\/span><\/p>\n

In their narrative arc, the poems ultimately assume a firm posture of defiant survival. A call to action permeates the following untitled poem:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No wound hurts
\n<\/span>like the silence
\n<\/span>of those watching our flesh lanced open
\n<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 listening resigned to the crunch of bones and show their concern
\n<\/span>by mopping up spilled blood
\n<\/span>so it won\u2019t dirty the dawn (36).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Indifferent observation is not an option. These poems breathe fiery words into complicit silences, making it impossible to look away. One could think of the many tourists who travel to Mexico, oblivious\u2014or just silent\u2014in the face of oppression. \u201cThe dawn\u201d evokes a fa\u00e7ade of touristy panoramas, where Indigenous artists are only expected to display marketable traditions, rather than denounce dispossession.<\/span><\/p>\n

In response to systemic violence, a communal subjectivity weaves a collective <\/span>we<\/span><\/i> into the fabric of <\/span>Stolen Flower<\/span><\/i>. This is, in the words of Cherokee-Appalachian poet Marilou Awiakta, \u201can art for <\/span>life\u2019s<\/span><\/i> sake.\u201d Having lived through her father\u2019s abduction in 1978 and the military invasion of Juchit\u00e1n in 1983, Pineda views the oppression of Nahua communities in <\/span>Stolen Flower<\/span><\/i> through the lens of her own community\u2019s survival: \u201cI was filled with so much sadness and anger. All those earlier experiences with military presence in our communities were sleeping deep in my memory\u201d (vi).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The poems strike a tone of defiance, or, in Ojibwe writer Gerald Vizenor\u2019s terms, <\/span>survivance<\/span><\/i>:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Who are we now?
\n<\/span>If the vibrant glow of threads we wore has been masked by mud
\n<\/span>to hide us from the poisonous glare you sling
\n<\/span>Who does your fiery breath hurt?
\n<\/span>You might knock me down
\n<\/span>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0I might fall
\n<\/span>but let me tell you
\n<\/span>others will rise up and defy you (6).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Where an individual <\/span>might<\/span><\/i> fall, a collective force rises. A less nuanced translation might render the line as \u201cI will fall,\u201d but that misses the uncertainty of \u201cYo caer\u00e9\u201d\u2014which presents the fall as a risk to be braved, rather than an inevitable fatality. The poems\u2019 scarce punctuation mirrors the tumult described within them:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t hurry your steps mother
\n<\/span>I too want to escape down the path
\n<\/span>want to find other hearts
\n<\/span>and speak without fear
\n<\/span>But I can\u2019t leave so quickly
\n<\/span>with the shadows of our dead
\n<\/span>entangling my feet (46).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stolen Flower<\/span><\/i> eschews the finality of periods in a knot of enjambment, ellipses, questions, and exclamations\u2014a reflection of the battles that remain unfinished today. And this isn\u2019t just a vision for the future, but a deep engagement with previous generations\u2014one that honors the ancestors buried in the precious land while looking toward the future. It is a plea to remain rooted; the \u201cshadows of our dead\u201d are not just ghosts, but the very value and history of the territory. As the book progresses, the voice of defiance gathers strength:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Words and memory have more power than your weapons
\n<\/span>We are the ancient tree that holds all history in its every branch
\n<\/span>Your green is a disguise telling lies
\n<\/span>Perhaps you think we\u2019re nearsighted?
\n<\/span>Even if were blind
\n<\/span>we will still hear the distant sound
\n<\/span>of your body crawling
\n<\/span>belly to earth like some worm
\n<\/span>We know you will arrive like a snake
\n<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0spitting your venom
\n<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0vomiting fire
\n<\/span>even after you incinerate our bodies
\n<\/span>the rocks will burn with our memory\u2019s light (80).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In her translator\u2019s notes, Call clarifies that the stones are a bicultural bridge\u2014honoring the Zapotec belief in their living spirit while drawing on a Spanish metaphor that celebrates the permanence of stone over the fragility of paper. Crucially, <\/span>Stolen Flower<\/span><\/i> avoids idealizing Indigenous Nations. The poetic voice addresses the Indigenous soldiers\u2014those disguised in green uniforms\u2014who perpetrate atrocities: \u201cWhere did you bury your dreams? \/ Give me your hands and calm your heart\u201d (86). Like fellow Southern Mexican writers Mikel Ruiz, Mart\u00edn Tonalmeyotl, and Hubert Mati\u00faw\u00e0a, Pineda moves beyond mere linguistic and cultural revitalization to probe the agonizing complexities of Indigenous communities. Her poems crescendo into affirmations of strength.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A statistic frequently shared by Wendy Call and Irma Pineda reveals a stark contrast: while over 20% of literary publications in Mexico are translations, in the U.S. just 3% are translated works\u2014and for Indigenous languages, those figures plummet in both countries. This paucity stems from a deep-seated resistance to the distinct epistemologies these languages offer. <\/span>Stolen Flower <\/span><\/i>is a masterful addition to any library, actively pushing these statistics in a more inclusive direction. By placing the translator\u2019s notes at the end, the edition ensures an uninterrupted flow of poetry while still inviting deeper reflection on Pineda\u2019s work and the wider social struggles it represents. <\/span>Stolen Flower<\/span><\/i> is a transformative read for anyone seeking to <\/span>relate with<\/span><\/i> the complexities of our shared world.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAnybody who thinks they can understand how terrible the terror has been, without understanding how beautiful the beauty has been against the grain of the terror, is wrong.\u201d – Fred Moten   Isthmus Zapotec poet Irma Pineda\u2019s Stolen Flower wields heart-wrenching, beautiful poetry\u2014flowered words\u2014against the grain of state-sponsored terror. She tends to the wounds of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":46074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2892],"tags":[5703],"genre":[],"pretext":[],"section":[],"translator":[],"lal_author":[5733],"class_list":["post-46070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-literatura-indigena","tag-numero-38","lal_author-adam-w-coon"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46070","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46070"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46070\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46275,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46070\/revisions\/46275"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46070"},{"taxonomy":"genre","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/genre?post=46070"},{"taxonomy":"pretext","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pretext?post=46070"},{"taxonomy":"section","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/section?post=46070"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/translator?post=46070"},{"taxonomy":"lal_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinamericanliteraturetoday.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/lal_author?post=46070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}