Prepoemas en postespañol y otros poemas // prepoems in postspanish and other poems
Playlist by Action BooksFor the rest of my life, I will be grateful to these translators! Jorgenrique Adoum has an extraordinary landscape for us to meet, explore “in the subsoul or the dislife” and to know poets, poetry, as new all over again. The strength of poetry has never been more evident!
—CA Conrad, author of While Standing in Line for Death
Jorgenrique Adoum, widely-recognized as the most important Ecuadorian intellectual of the twentieth century, was an award-winning poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright. Of Lebanese descent, he was born in the Andean town of Ambato in 1926. During his lifetime, he published 14 books of poetry. He belonged to a pioneering and yet often overlooked group of Spanish American poets known as “conversacionalistas.” who emphasize the orality of language, make use of the languages of the social sciences and mass media, and innovate by challenging poetic limits and by requiring an active reader, one considered a co-author. Adoum spent much of the sixties, seventies, and eighties in exile, mainly in Paris, returning to Ecuador in 1987, where he continued to write. He died in Quito in 2009 and is buried at the Chapel of Man, the museum and cultural center created by his friend, the outstanding visual artist, Oswaldo Guayasamín.
Katherine M. Hedeen’s latest translations include prepoems in postspanish and other poems by Jorgenrique Adoum (Action Books) and from a red barn by Víctor Rodríguez Núñez (co•im•press). She is a Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, a Managing Editor of Action Books, and the Poetry in Translation Editor at the Kenyon Review. More info: www.katherinemhedeen.com
Víctor Rodríguez Núñez (Havana, 1955) is one of Cuba’s most outstanding and celebrated contemporary writers, with over fifty collections of his poetry published throughout the world. He has been the recipient of major awards in the Spanish-speaking region, including, in 2015, the coveted Loewe Prize. His selected poems have been translated into over a dozen languages. His latest book in English translation is from a red barn (tr. K. Hedeen, co•im•press, 2020). He divides his time between Gambier, Ohio, where he is a Professor of Spanish at Kenyon College, and Havana, Cuba. More info: www.victorrodrigueznunez.com
Bienvenida a deshora
No te esperaba, bruma, y vienes sin decirme y entras con ella, la empujas tras su lágrima.
No te maté, niebla tuya de ti, nimbo con que te rodeas: te me fuiste acabando de familiares contraseñas y ajenos cinturones, te ibas yendo de tal vez en tal vez, perezoso ese irte, y no pudimos ver tu cadera salir de mi costado, amontonar olvido contra la ventana en que solía esperar, como si nada, mañana, el año venidero, el algún día, pero es duro estar de pie toda la vida y nos apuntalábamos los pechos, las rodillas, cuando todos los ojalases tambaleaban, y es duro recordar, quehacer de quien espera cartas y no cuerpos, y yo quiero el olor que la noche dejaba escapar de alcoholes melancólicos, y es duro en la mañana reponerse los ojos y ver los días como una sola estatua injusta, y ver desmantelado y viudo y qué desmemoriado el traje, y qué juntas sobre el sexo las manos, guantes de menta, que me habían acogido, y cómo te regresas de repente a la acabada, a la dormida ausencia de quien ninguna ocupación tiene conmigo, como si no lloviera, como si no pudiéramos desencruelecernos, reconsiderarnos, rehacer de nuevo con paciencia los entonces y estar otravezmente comenzando.
Welcome at the Wrong Time
I wasn’t expecting you, brume, and here you come wordless with her, to nudge her behind her tears.
I didn’t kill you, mist yours of you, halo surrounding you: you’ve been finishing off my family passwords and other belts, you went from perhaps to perhaps, lazy your going and we couldn’t see your hip emerging from my side, piling up oblivion against the window where I’d wait, not a second thought, tomorrow, the next year, the someday but it’s hard to stand a lifetime and we propped up our chests, knees, when all the hopefullys teetered, and it’s hard to remember, task of one waiting for letters and not bodies, and I want the scent of melancholic alcohols that night let loose and in the morning it’s hard to replace my eyes and see the days like a single statue unjust and see all broken up and widowered and how forgetful the suit, and how together the hands over your sex, mint gloves that took me in and how all of a sudden you come back to the finished, the sleeping absence of one who has no occupation with me, as if it didn’t rain, as if we couldn’t decruel, reconsider ourselves, patiently recreate the thens one more time and be oncemorely beginning.
Tarea y vacaciones
ser ser —pero de fondo— y encontrarnos la huella de los propios pulgares de la propia pisada y no esconderse en el otro que nos hicieron por partes con letreros cédula de identidad 251/99/7 muertodehambre que vota el qué-se-habrá-creído tipo pobretipo el que ha cambiado mucho
poder ser —si se pudiera— honesto e intacto como un animal o por lo menos no incurrir en ciudadano respetable el que tiene todo en orden (los cachivaches del corazón en el cajón de abajo) o ése que no reclama sino lo que le toca o el que no ama más de lo que debe o el que con todas sus mitades jamás ha estado solo y descansar de uno amanecer de pronto ocupando su nada metido en su deshombre como si fuera hindú y hubiera muerto y fuera cierto que uno vuelve a nacer lagarto araña enano normal-como-los-otros bieneducado adefesioso desvalijadores de cadáveres por teléfono que hablan de unos huesos enviados por correo y ser el destinatario recibirlos completos como los tenía con todas las astillas de mis cavilaciones con mis queridos clavos problemáticos y entonces perdonarme (aunque me reí muchísimo) el haberme ido y dejarme esperando
Task and Vacations
to be being —but deeprooted— and find the trace of our own toes from our own steps and not hide the other made for us in parts with signs ID card 251/99/7 anobody voting the who-does-he-think-he-is guy poorguy the one who’s changed so much
to go on being —if you could— honest intact like an animal or at least not fall into respectable citizen the one who has it all figured out (the heartjunk in the bottom drawer) or the one who only demands what he’s given or the one who only loves what he should or the one who has never been alone with all his halves and to take a break from yourself wake up all at once occupying your nothingness stuck in your demanning as if you were hindu and died and it was true that you come back as a lizard spider dwarf normal-like-everyone-else wellbehaved oddball cadaver burglars by phone talking about some bones sent in the mail and to be the addressee get them back whole like you had them with all my musing splinters with my dear problematic nails and then to forgive myself (even though I laughed so hard) for having gone and left myself waiting
Lástima que no se pueda olvidar a los griegos
eurídice de barrio ex isla exiliada pobrecilla noamada malamente querida por tus ojos desnudos de imperio austro-húmedo y esa tenacidad gatuna de adherencia
a tu vibrángulo voraz enciclopédico fui a buscarte-nos oracular desbrujulado en nuestra boda lenta como para remorirse pero te volviste a mirar tus bestias infernales (siempre va tras de ti tu único espejo las nalgas con inscripciones como un muro que no borró mi canto con sus letras de mano)
orfeo yo también de pacotilla nadie me sentenció no seré devorado por las minibacantes de calcetines blancos nuncacordelias casipotrillas puroyeguas que ya los cambiarán por medias negras de nylon
la culpa es de este periodo post-elénico y del marqués que sabe histoire de quatre sous sin moral ni moraleja entre lo in-a-moral y el desmoralizado
Shame the Greeks Can’t Be Forgotten
neighborhood eurydice ex island exiled poor little girl unloved badly cherished by your naked austro-humidian empire eyes and that feline tenacity of adherence
to your voracious encyclopedic vibrangle i went to look for you-us oracular discompassed in our slow wedding like redying but you watched your infernal beasts once more (your one mirror always follows you backside with inscriptions like a wall that my song couldn’t erase with its hand language)
orpheus me too shoddy nobody sentenced me i won’t be devoured by the whitesocked minibacchantes nevercordelias almostfoals totalmares soon to be changed for black nylon stockings
it’s the fault of this post-ellenic period and the marquis who knows histoire de quatre sous no morals or moral in between the in-a-moral and the demoralized
Sunday bloody Sunday
vallejo sabe que también es bocón el sepulcro del domingo lagartamente tragón de lo que entonces es nosotros el resto de monigote zarandeado entre semana el sueño con que nos postergamos o nos disminuimos esta desactividad de postvivo acostumbrado a los quién sabe los cómo los qué pena
el mundo es desde hace años un domingo de tarde la estación de donde cada vez regresas a lo que eres los aeropuertos donde se menos acaban los que quedan donde dios está en todas partes puro eco de ese bisílabo que me duele adentrísimo
(domingamente bocabajo bajo qué boca te le estarás muriendo a alguien despacito)
menos mal que desde el lunes se piensa en otra cosa
Sunday Bloody Sunday
vallejo knows the sunday sepulcher is bigmouthed too lizardly greedyguts of what then is us what’s left of the ragdoll jostled all week the dream we postpone or diminish ourselves with this disactivity of postliving used to the who knows the hows the what a shames the world’s been a sunday afternoon for years now the station from where you come back to what you are every time the airports where the staybehinds less lessen where everywhere god is pure echo of that bisyllable that hurts me deepinside (sundayly facedown down which face you’re dying on someone so slowly) thank goodness beginning monday you’ll think about something else
Epitafio del extranjero vivo
con hambre y hembra este hombre surreal su realidad desretratado en su pasaporte descontento en este descontexto trabajando y trasubiendo para desagonizarse de puro malamado queriendo incluso desencruelecerse pararse a reparar y repararse pero no le da tiempo esta república sepulturería pública y sigue remuriendo en un círculo virtuoso de su larga desmuerte enduelecido
Epitaph of the Living Foreigner
with hunger and hembra this hombre his reality surreal dispictured in his passport discontent in this discontext working and worqueen to be deagonizing from badlyloved even wanting to disencruel himself to stand erect to correct and recorrect himself but this republic public sepulchershop doesn’t give him enough time and he keeps redying in a virtuous circle from his long inhurting disdeath