1. How did you start translating Rodolfo Hinostroza’s work? What drew you to it?
The poetry of Rodolfo Hinostroza is legendary. I had heard about his poetry long before I was exposed to Hinostroza’s work while completing my postgraduate degree at the bilingual creative writing program at the University of Texas at El Paso. I was lent some photocopies of his poems. The first poem I read was the following: “THE LOVE’S MISTERY QUE HACE GIRAR LAS CONSTELACIONES / todo es agua.” I later discovered this was a fragment from “Quinteto del Salmón” from Contra natura. In one fell swoop, I encountered a few of the characteristics of his work: the usage of neologisms (in English, no less) and the seamless fusing of languages, the mystical, or in this case “mistical” cosmic ladder between the terrestrial (water) and the celestial, and the centrality of love as a divine weapon to wield against the landscape of abusive power and destruction.
2. What are some of the main challenges you’ve encountered translating this work?
Contra Natura possesses many complexities, as in the insertions of astrology, history, politics, as well as other passages of lyrical flight and song. I think of similarly striking juxtapositions in works like Zukofsky’s “Poem Beginning ‘The,’” or The Cantos. It clutches at the whole breadth of world literature, at times opting to present the material in its original language, at others to weave it within his text in staggered lines that make the reader’s eyes jolt. Although many connect his use of white space to the experiments of Mallarmé, I found them to be more in keeping with the later poems of William Carlos Williams. Other striking characteristics of the collection include the insertion of symbols and signs. Those moments where one can sense the palpable presence of an allusion create a dilemma for the translator. How close should one come to direct quotation? Whitman, Shelley, the Old Testament, and other texts gather together beneath the “crystal dome” and stars that rotate throughout the collection. This is simply one example of how I was left breathless, weaving different voices, traditions, tones, and sudden verges into a new territory of language. Many passages burst with a sense of the marvelous which the Surrealists celebrated, as well as the numinous, making one think of the assertion made by Paz that poetry is the “Secret Religion” of our age.
What are you reading right now?
I am reading many volumes at the same time…Rage de Vivre by René Depestre; Bessarabian Stamps by Oleg Woolf (translated by Boris Dralyuk); Oda a Rubén Darío (Poemas Selectos) by José Coronel Urtecho; Subconscious Colossus by Carlos Lara; White Sun Black Sun by Jerome Rothenberg; Strays by Ramón García; Selected Poems and New (1958) by José García Villa, and Torn Apart by Joyce Mansour. Those are the titles that I’m reading on a daily basis, but that’s not to mention the poems, fiction, and translations that I return to again and again, as in work by Heller Levinson, Kent Johnson, George Kalamaras, David Shook, Michael Casper, Nylsa Martínez, Will Alexander, Paul B Roth, …and I must reach out to my old companions like Luís Vaz de Camões, Quevedo, Gorostiza, Catullus, Archilocus….
poesía en acción | “Love’s Body” by Rodolfo Hinostroza and translator Anthony Seidman
Anthony Seidman is a poet and translator from Los Angeles. His translations include the novel For Love of the Dollar by J.M. Servin, and A Stab in the Dark by Facundo Bernal. Seidman’s most recent collections of poetry are Cosmic Weather and A Sleepless Man Sits Up In Bed. His poetry, translations, reviews, and short fiction have appeared in such journals and anthologies as New American Writing, Poetry International, World Literature Today, The Bitter Oleander, Modern Poetry in Translation, Ambit, and The Ecopoetry Anthology. Some of his poetry has been translated into French and Spanish, with versions appearing in literary magazines from Mexico, Chile, France, and Argentina.
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.