Palabras Errantes Latin American Literature in Translation
Palabras Errantes in Nueva York
pyramidal
By Gema Santamaria. Translated by Rebecca Keith. pyramidal give me one more silence by your side, with the gray that hides this triangular morning behind the anguished crest of rocks. god cast his wound here. with his fist shut tight he sowed a circle of shy greens and petrified […]
antidote for a tragic woman
By Gema Santamaria. Translated by Rebecca Keith. antidote for a tragic woman no more. not even a single turn into the abyss or a single fervor chipping at the soul after dawn. nothing remains. you smell the streets and recognize the scent of your sex hanging like a tightrope-walking bird […]
the hole
By Gema Santamaria. Translated by Rebecca Keith. i open a hole with my tongue. a hole where my legs can kick until they find the warm water of some well. girl. cracked. dressed in white. she forgot her name and now she can’t go home. house-dollhouse, of purple dresses and celestial lace, […]
Note written after a
By Gema Santamaria. Translated by Rebecca Keith. Note written after a “chaotic and doubtfully clear night” I am witness to nothing more than your broken noses. To the tremor that doesn’t let you say a word without a stutter. You always carry a canteen under your arm and a rancor that frees […]
Viernes negro
By Gema Santamaria. Translated by Rebecca Keith. Black Friday. A man trampled to death. Run over by a stampede of mad shoppers. He was a temp, passing through. One more uniform in the chain of Walmart superstores. I wonder how his bones cracked, if his mouth opened, if he spit blood at […]
Night in Managua
By Gema Santamaria. Translated by Rebecca Keith. Night in Managua, after the death of the roosters Tonight has a reddened throat. It has screamed and is sick. It sleeps on the floor of a white, illuminated room. It’s a big pink pig. In the corner, it wails. It can’t think and […]
a theme looks for a theme
By Gema Santamaria. Translated by Rebecca Keith. “a theme looks for a theme,” as Chantal Maillard would say house. to live in parenthesis. to live in the meanwhile. on a rope— extended, horizontal. between two points : not to be the tight-rope walker. but the rope, the rope itself. at its most […]
The fix
By Yarisa Colón Torres. Translated by Leora Fridman. Because I’m drawn to what you hide I lend you this land so you’ll wake up under dead smiles or above however you like because you like to read me while I open up my legs you’re still invited to the deep dark pool […]
Unexpected visit
By Yarisa Colón Torres. Translated by Leora Fridman. Short hair looks good on you. You’re beautiful because your eyes know how to look. You lie little. You try not to kill. You greet with a full smile. You know the mountains get up at night to shift positions. They don’t like cramps either. […]
I collect red
By Yarisa Colón Torres. Translated by Leora Fridman. From all the leaves the wide the tiny the newborn and the dry ones I extract color that fuels the old womens’ walking sticks from all the images inked and scattered over the earth from the veins that run toward the party the heartbeats fibers and fresh […]
Postcard from a boricua in Paris
By Yarisa Colón Torres. Translated by Leora Fridman They say I’m a firm palm tree with two huge coconuts and long fronds waving in the wind crown my head a silent plastic ocean shimmies behind me annoyed with the sand because its shells won’t smile for the camera and in the distance […]
Dead book
By Yarisa Colón Torres. Translated by Leora Fridman. On the coast of sorrows new creatures grow together they dream of the same universe they hold up their heads strangly deftly cut through delusion they sing in unison watch how the horizon sways they stretch out their tentacles and spill out poison […]
Panic
By Yarisa Colón Torres. Translated by Leora Fridman. There’s a boy settled in his own eyes he paws at the color scribbling outside the lines with the knife just about to be loved there’s no silence that can bury him no word that can set him off restless he freezes and burns […]
Gold
Written by Yarisa Colón Torres. Translated by Leora Fridman. I burn for the voice the voice in flames * Oro Escrito por Yarisa Colón Torres. Llamo a la voz la voz en llamas
the ’80s (2)
By Soledad Marambio. Translated by KT Billey. first time I see him bedridden not during Sunday siesta with the paper spread around his feet but three days in bed with the cat attached to his heels today on the third day he was afraid and asked the mother to call the […]
absences
By Soledad Marambio. Translated by KT Billey. I the regulars the day to day’s the 9 to 9’s the bus takes him the bus brings him back on the arm, always a bag with some book II he takes the napkin cleans his mouth with it leaves […]
the ’80s
By Soledad Marambio. Translated by KT Billey. and the cows that fattened up to tear themselves to pieces on the street the fat cows and the dictator he followed the bullets that rang through other neighborhoods and the one that crossed his office window on a day of protests while he lunched […]
The Whalefishbelly
By Marta del Pozo. Translated by Mary Ellen Stitt. Photography by Marta del Pozo. 1. Let us say that something has begun, something that takes us closer to the first genes, that uses the part of the brain that knows the hologram Something that calls to me like the statue of Rilke, […]
Albedo
By Alexis Iparraguirre. Translated by Emily Toder. versión en español I saw no point in writing until Captain Musso appeared in my life, or rather, disappeared from all of our lives. Musso would say I discovered the beauty of writing and that there is simply no going back. I’d reply that actually I found the […]