poetry in action features work by poets from around the world, translated into English.
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Coming at you around the 20th of each month.
poetry in action #57
from Miriam Reyes’s book Sardine, now available from Ugly Duckling Press
Translated by Laura Cesarco Eglin
///
cada vez que o home aquel me chamaba sardinilla
eu pensaba en ti / na túa paixón
como collías as sardiñas coas mans
o pequeno corpo estendido no ar
e en cada extremidade a pinza dos teus dedos
comíalas a bicos
ata deixar o esqueleto esplendente
o home aquel no era quen
ainda non coñecín quen o fose
every time that man called me sardinilla, little sardine
i thought of you / your passion
how you’d take the sardines with your hands
the small body stretched in the air
and on each side your clamped fingers
you devoured them by the mouthful
leaving the skeleton sparkling
that man wasn’t who to
i still haven’t met who that could be
*
segundo o dicionario o A é o símbolo do ampere
e non de ti
que es a unidade coa que mido
a intensidade de calquera corrente de amor
dende que teño memoria
according to the dictionary G is the symbol for gravity
and not for you
the unit by which i measure
the intensity of any pull of love
ever since i can remember
*
bate máis rápido o meu corazón cando leo
a-vivar a-vivecer a-viventar
e xa vés ti
a-
coma nunha anticipación alfabética
substantivo feito carne feita oblea
gárdote entre a lingua e o ceo da boca
my heart beats faster when i read
graft grammar grand
and you’re almost here
g-
like alphabetic anticipation
noun made flesh made wafer
i keep you between my tongue and the roof of my mouth
*
falo de ti
mais son eu o suxeito
deste estudo / desta paixón
i speak about you
but i’m the subject
of this study / of this passion
*
ás veces detéñome
na metade desta linguaselvaescura onde te procuro
a gatiñas
que é o que espero recuperar?
como é que podo encontrar as palabras
se non sei en que buracos se esconden?
sometimes i stop
midway along this tonguedarkforest where I look for you
felinely
what do i hope to recover?
how can i find the words
if i don’t know which holes they hide in?
Miriam Reyes studied Literature at the Central University of Venezuela and graduated in Hispanic Philology at the University of Barcelona. She is the author of several poetry collections including Espejo negro (DVD), Bella durmiente, finalist for the 19th Hiperión Poetry Prize (Hiperión), Desalojos (Hiperión), Haz lo que te digo (Bartleby), Prensado en frío (Malasangre), Sardiña (Chan da pólvora) and Con (La bella Varsovia), for which she received the 2025 National Poetry Prize of Spain. In addition to being a poet, Reyes is an editor and translator into Spanish. She is the editor and translator of the anthology of contemporary Galician poetry Punto de ebullición (FCE). She translated from the Catalan El guante de plástico rosa by Dolors Miquel (Marisma), and she has also translated Daniel Salgado’s Huelga general from the Galician (Marisma). Since the year 2000 Reyes has been combining poetry with other arts and technologies.
Laura Ces
arco Eglin is a poet and translator from Uruguay. Cesarco Eglin translates from the Spanish, Portuguese, Portuñol, and Galician. She is the translator of Sardine by Miriam Reyes (UDP, 2026). Her translation of claus and the scorpion by the Galician author Lara Dopazo Ruibal (co•im•press) was longlisted for both the 2023 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation and the 2023 National Translation Award in Poetry. Cesarco Eglin is also the translator of Of Death. Minimal Odes by the Brazilian author Hilda Hilst (co•im•press), winner of the 2019 Best Translated Book Award in Poetry. She co-translated from the Portuñol Fabián Severo’s Night in the North (Eulalia Books). She is also the translator of The Mistaken Place of Things by Gabriela Aguirre (Eulalia Books, 2024). Cesarco Eglin is the author of three collections of poetry and five chapbooks, including Break a Part (Finishing Line Press, 2026). Cesarco Eglin is the co-founding editor and publisher of Veliz Books.