Two Translations of the Poet Silvia Guerra
Atropos
Neither mine.
Nor anyone's. Nothing.
Kindling, needles. Wind of dry leaves.
In the blue morning, the white breeze and perverse yearning.
To go on wanting, the head the eczema-covered face, into the wind.
She descends along those sharp, precise rapids
in profile, in the atrocious fear of the figure.
Water in the gaze that meets hers and it's a face with no soul
that escapes to fill that other face of silence
to fill it with a thread anointed with dreams, in the mist.
Shadow with nothing behind it, without a body to reflect, just pure shadow.
Pure shadow that injured itself stretches out, grabs on
to the floor, to cover the heroic rough surface
Toward the desert drinking like a song like a long sound,
a cavity enfolding itself in the copper center, sweetest
metal, which enshrouds it.
And outside among the houses, scattered far off
Sets of habits, Tablecloth, small looms set ablaze
with gardenias. And far away outside, the dusk that bends
the first stars. Forever?
Átropo
Ni mía.
Ni de nadie. Nada.
Yescas, hojillas. Viento de hoja seca.
En la mañana azul, la blanca brisa y el perverso anhelo
El ir queriendo, la cabeza la cara con eczemas, al viento.
Baja por esa correntada nítida y precisa
en el perfil, en el miedo atroz de la figura.
El agua en la mirada que se enfrenta y es un rostro sin alma
que se escapa para llenar ese otro rostro de silencio
para llenarlo con el hilo libado de los sueños, en la niebla.
La sombra sin atrás, sin cuerpo que refleje, la pura sombra.
La sombra pura que maltrecha de sí logra extenderse, asirse
sobre el suelo, cubrir la heroica superficie agreste
Beber hacia el desierto como un canto como un sonido largo,
una oquedad nimbándose desde el cobre central, dulcísimo
metal, que envuelva.
Y afuera entre las casas, dispersamente lejos
conjuntos de hábitos, manteles, pequeños telares enardecidos
de gardenias. Y afuera lejos, la tarde que se curva
las primeras estrellas. ¿Para siempre?
Ánima Mundi
Like a border, to embroider this pattern. Every day
a little more drizzle, another shoot emerges from the branch. Nest
tangles over the thread extending not suturing.
But no, it comes from outside. From inside comes complex
Weave. We must understand that it floods strikes the walls
resists. We must understand that it moans tears at itself
how heroic it is to make of the soul a brocade that grows
and leave the rest aside Like Oblivion
Like distance, between the possible and the essential.
Ánima mundi
Como borde, bordar este tramado. Todos los días
un poco, un poco más gotea arma la rama, Nido
entrama sobre el hilado que se extiende no sutura.
Pero no, viene de fuera. De dentro viene enrevesando
Trama. Hay que entender que inunda que golpea las paredes
que resiste. Hay que entender que gime que se rompe
que heroico es hacer del ánima brocado que se expanda
y lo demás dejarlo Como Olvido
Como distancia, entre lo posible y lo inherente.
Silvia Guerra (1961, Maldonado, Uruguay) is an Uruguayan poet, critic and editor whose books include Un mar en madrugado (2018); Pulso (2011), and Estampas de un tapiz (2006); Nada de nadie, (2001); La sombra de la azucena, (2000); Replicantes Astrales (1993), Idea de la aventura (1990); De la arena nace el agua (1986) and Fuera del relato (2007), a fictionalized biography of Lautréamont. She is a member of the executive boards of both the Mario Benedetti Foundation and the Nancy Bacelo Foundation. In 2012 she was awarded the Morosoli Prize in Poetry for her career.
Jesse Lee Kercheval is the author of 16 books of poetry, fiction, and memoir as well as a translator, specializing in Uruguayan poetry. Her translations include The Invisible Bridge/ El puente invisible: Selection Poems of Circe Maia for which she was awarded an NEA Fellowship in Translation and Poemas de amor/ Love Poems by Idea Vilariño both from the University of Pittsburgh Press. She was an 2016 NEA Fellow in Translation and the 2019 Carlson Fellow at the, Banff International Literary Translation Centre. She is the Zona Gale Professor of Poetry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Jeannine Marie Pitas translations include We Do Not Live In Vain (Veliz Books, 2020) by Uruguayan poet Selva Casal. Her co-translation, with Jesse Lee Kercheval, of Sea at Dawn by the Uruguayan poet Silvia Guerra is forthcoming from Eulalia Books.