Three Poems
by Alejandro Albarrán Polanco
Translated by Rachel Galvin
from Algunas personas no son caballos
from Algunas personas no son caballos
From Persona fea y ridícula
de Algunas personas no son caballos
de Algunas personas no son caballos
de Persona fea y ridícula
This week’s Poesía en acción feature also includes:
A micro-interview with Rachel Galvin
Alejandro Albarrán Polanco was born in Mexico City. His 2018 poetry collection Algunas personas no son caballos won the Premio Internacional Manuel Acuña. His other books include Ruido (2012), Tengo un pulmón que no es el cielo (2014), and Persona fea y ridícula (2017). He has received grants from Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes and Fundación para las Letras Mexicanas, and he is a founding editor of the press Canón Accidental. He is also a musician and conceptual artist whose performances and installations have been featured in numerous art exhibitions. The magazine La Tempestad named him the Emerging Writer of 2017.
Rachel Galvin’s books include Elevated Threat Level (Green Lantern Press), a finalist for the National Poetry Series, and Pulleys & Locomotion (Black Lawrence Press). She is the translator of Raymond Queneau’s Hitting the Streets, which won the 2014 Scott Moncrieff Prize, and co-translator of Decals by Oliverio Girondo, a finalist for the 2019 National Translation Award. Her translation of Cowboy & Other Poems (2019), a chapbook by Alejandro Albarrán, was published by Ugly Duckling Presse. Her work appears in Best American Experimental Writing 2020, Best American Poetry 2020, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Fence, Gulf Coast, McSweeney’s, The Nation, The New Yorker, and Poetry.
Poesía en acción is an Action Books blog feature for Latin American and Spanish poetry in translation and the translator micro-interview series. It was created by Katherine M. Hedeen and is currently curated and edited by Olivia Lott with web editing by Paul Cunningham.