poetry in action features work by poets from around the world, translated into English.
It has three rallying cries:
Poets of the world, unite and take over!
Resist the oppressive constraints of good, publishable poetry established by mainstream literary venues!
Only poetry in translation, all the time!
Coming at you every 10th and 20th of each month.
An Apocryphal History of Venus Fly Traps, or The Magnetic Field of Needs
1.
North Carolina, June. I remember
the sudden changes in light and the bathrooms,
the American girls crying in front of mirrors and wearing jeans lighter blue
than their irises; me pausing
in front of the only species I didn’t know how to reproduce in origami
and waiting.
on a sign:
“Please Do Not Poke, Prod, Stick, or in any way Touch the Venus Fly Traps!
Each leaf can open & close only a few times before it dies.”
there’s no need to worry, we can
study the garnet of their open lobes and the chute of their stems,
and imagine the tachycardia of insects
hypnotized by their ruby,
the theory of redundant triggering, the fever,
tricks are really just mouths
I say,
the mouths of an enormous blow-up attraction at the local fairs
from when I was twelve.
there’s no need to worry,
we were there for so long
—the teenagers from the bathroom crossed the hall, I remember,
briefly projecting a swampland scene
with the reflections from their flamingo pink hair—
there so long watching the net
and the way the fish shone in the net,
that the spectacle occurred:
just a rustle of stems and centuries,
spider turned petal, a long, drawn-out death,
then the valves close and it ends.
we bend over, and towards the back a guide explains how perfect this hunting system is,
names minute trichomes that can detect
the impact of a raindrop on the thorax of a bee,
and adds that the poverty of the soils
is the reason for their behavior,
that insects provide the nitrogen lacking in the ground,
beside me, Oh babe, you said, fragile limestone heart,
do you see now, there’s no wickedness here,
there’s no need to worry.
2.
but time is a palindrome, the body of a wetland rush,
and once you’ve grasped that, all that’s left is to dissolve language and describe
the easy way he embraced
without knowing
that such a gesture is an immense sacrifice,
and that we only embrace that way
a few times before we die.
Historia apócrifa das venus atrapamoscas ou O campo magnético da necesidade
1.
Carolina do Norte, xuño. recordo
os repentinos cambios de luz e os baños,
as americanas que choraban diante dos espellos e usaban vaqueiros máis celestes
que os seus iris; determe
diante da única especie que non sabía reproducir en origami
e esperar.
nun cartel:
“Please Do Not Poke, Prod, Stick, or in any way Touch the Venus Fly Traps!
Each leaf can open & close only a few times before it dies”
non hai por que inquietarse, podemos
observar o granate dos lóbulos abertos e o tobogán dos talos,
imaxinar a taquicardia dos insectos
hipnotizados polo rubí,
a teoría do dobre contacto, a febre,
ao final as trampas non son máis que as bocas
digo,
as bocas dunha enorme atracción inchábel nas festas locais
dos meus doce anos.
non hai por que inquietarse,
estivemos alí tanto tempo
—as adolescentes do baño cruzaron a sala, recordo,
proxectando fugazmente a escena dunha marisma
cos reflexos dos seus cabelos rosa flamengo—
estivemos tanto velando a rede
e o fulgor do peixe na rede,
que o espectáculo aconteceu:
apenas un tremor de talos e séculos,
a araña que devén pétalo, unha morte moi estreita,
péchanse as valvas e iso é todo.
inclinámonos, e ao fondo un guía explica a perfección do sistema de caza,
enumera tricomas ínfimos que saben distinguir
o impacto dunha gota de chuvia do tórax dunha abella
e engade que a pobreza dos solos
é a razón do seu comportamento,
os insectos subministran o nitróxeno que falta no terreo.
ao meu lado Oh babe, dicías, débil corazón de toba,
xa ves, non hai maldade,
non hai por que inquietarse.
2.
pero o tempo é un palíndromo, corpo de xunco de pantano,
e cando o entendemos, só queda derramar a linguaxe e describir
a maneira vagarosa en que el abrazaba
sen saber
que o xesto é xa un sacrificio,
e que só conseguimos abrazar así
a few times before we die.
The Immersion of Sappho
“and the name of things, which is mistruth and charity”
Claudio Rodríguez, by way of Juan Andrés García Román
1.
Sappho bends backwards
until she’s embracing her tensed legs.
from behind, her back the arch of a cherry tree
a golden exoskeleton
poised to sprout.
2.
the summer we walked along the West Coast,
radios were sending out constant warnings about the imminent departure of the cicadas.
we weren’t yet twenty, and for two seconds we thought we were
practically siblings
to a billion red-eyed, subterranean
parasites
glued to the roots of the trees for seventeen years
holding in the quiver of life for seventeen years
still alive thanks to the juice of those same roots
and aboveground, maybe three, four hands from our hiding place
children circling until they obtain a corpse
aboveground,
the constant pursuit of light and shadow
aboveground,
the harvests and hoe-digging of several generations.
3.
tell me,
when cicadas come out of the earth, what do they find?
girls braiding aniseed stalks
to make crowns,
humus and fructiferous trees,
the beauty of intimations.
then they spread a pair of wings which glisten like Bavarian glass
and achieve their adult form.
seventeen years in the roots, one month under the sunlight.
exiled in Syracuse,
the poet shines.
4.
Sappho writes:
but a kind of yearning has hold of me—to die
and to look upon the dewy lotus banks
of Acheron
Sappho writes and arches her back.
but the state of the papyrus prevents us knowing
if she’s anticipating the white rock of Leucadia
(from which she sets sail in all the 19th century paintings)
or the drop—almost imperceptible—
of the cicadas’ larvae from the trees,
tumbling soundlessly
to their graves.
A inmersión de Safo
“y el nombre de las cosas que es mentira y es caridad”
Claudio Rodríguez, desde Juan Andrés García Román
1
Safo dóbrase sobre si mesma
até abrazar as súas pernas flexionadas.
desde atrás, o seu lombo é un arco de cerdeira
un exoesqueleto dourado
a punto de eclosionar.
2
o verán en que pisamos a Costa Leste
as radios emitían constantes avisos sobre a próxima saída das cigarras.
non cumpriramos os vinte, e durante dous segundos pensámonos
practicamente irmáns
dun billón de parasitos subterráneos
de ollos vermellos
adheridos ás raíces das árbores durante dezasete anos
contendo o titilar da vida durante dezasete anos
vivos aínda grazas ao zume desas mesmas raíces
e por riba, quen sabe, a tres ou catro cuartas do noso agocho
nenos rodando até conseguir un corpo
por riba,
a persecución constante da luz e as sombras
por riba,
as colleitas e os golpes de aixada de varias xeracións.
3
dime,
cando as cigarras emerxen da terra, que encontran?
nenas trenzando talos de anís
para facer coroas,
humus e árbores froiteiras,
a beleza das insinuacións.
logo despregan unhas ás con brillo de cristal bávaro
e adquiren a forma adulta.
dezasete anos nas raíces, un mes baixo a luz solar.
a poeta resplandece,
exiliada en Siracusa.
4
Safo escribe:
pero unha especie de desexo ten poder sobre min
morrer e observar desde as alturas
a rosada nas flores de loto das ribeiras do Aqueronte.
Safo escribe e arquea o lombo.
pero o estado do papiro impídenos saber
se está a anticipar a branca roca de Leucas
(desde a que se lanza ao mar en todos os lenzos do XIX)
ou á caída –case imperceptíbel–
das crías das cigarras desde as árbores,
rebotando sen eco
até enterrarse.
Alba Cid (b. 1989) is a Galician poet, illustrator, critic, and commentator. Her collection, Atlas, was released in 2019, and her work has been included in prominent anthologies and literary journals. Currently pursuing on a PhD from the University of Santiago de Compostela, she is currently a lecturer at the University of Oxford’s Center for Galician Studies. @al_ou_swanehals
Jacob Rogers (b. 1994) is a translator of Galician and Spanish. Recent translations have appeared in journals such as Epiphany, ANMLY, Waxwing, and Asymptote. He is a winner of a 2020 PEN/Heim Translation Grant and was one of four winners in the 2019 Words Without Borders + Academy of American Poets translation contest. @jr_translator
poetry in action is an Action Books blog feature curated and edited by Katherine M. Hedeen (@kmhedeen) with web editing by Paul Cunningham.