THE ELEPHANT Carlos Drummond de Andrade With my scant resources I make an elephant. I count on some wood from old furniture to prop him up. And I fill him with cotton, silk floss, softness. Glue will secure his droopy ears. His curling trunk is the finest part of his architecture. But he also has…
Tag: Poetry
The vast, ancient, solitary sea
Discovery Green-muscled ocean Idol of many arms like an octopus Convulsive incorruptible chaos Ordered tumult Contorted dancer Surrounding the taut ships We traversed row on row of horses Shaking their manes in the trade winds The sea turned suddenly very young and very old Revealing beaches And a people Of just-created men still the colour…
The sea’s only sentence
The scalpel and the metronome on my father’s piano kept a silence between them, when I was a child. Only now, with time, have I begun to hear, understand their strange stories. They hone time to transparency. (Source: Shape of Time, by Doris Kareva, tr. Tiina Aleman (2010. Original: Aja kuju, 2005) When the fear of death…
Because there is desire within me, everything glimmers
Hi, folks, Next on my series of posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have eight poems by Brazilian author Hilda Hilst, in various translations. You can find the whole series here, along with other Brazilian gems. Enjoy! Yours truly, J. This mournful moon, this unease Inner turbulence, lagoon, Inside the solitude, a dying body, All…
May it sting me until it extinguishes me
Hi, folks, Next on my series of posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have four poems by Brazilian author Ricardo Domeneck, in various translations. You can find the whole series here, along with other Brazilian gems. Enjoy! Yours truly, J. IN WHICH THE POET CELEBRATES HIS TWENTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD LOVER for Jannis Birsner Wars have outlasted your…
To confront desire
Hi, folks, Next on my series of posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have four poems by Brazilian author Ana Cristina César, in various translations. You can find the whole series here, along with other Brazilian gems. Enjoy! Yours truly, J. Bedside Intractable. I don’t want to put poems on paper anymore or let my…
The mere life of the obscure
Hi, folks, Next on my series of posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have two poems by Brazilian author Cora Coralina, translated by Gilson P. Borges. You can find the whole series here, along with other Brazilian gems. Enjoy! Yours truly, J. All Lives Inside me lives An old backwoodswoman Of evil eye, Crouched by…
Felipa set the caravels on fire
Hi, folks, Next on my series of posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have three poems by Brazilian author Adelaide Ivánova, translated by Francisco Vilhena. You can find the whole series here, along with other Brazilian gems. Enjoy! Yours truly, J. for laura in 1998 when they found the gay body of matthew shepard his…
Cutting and repetition
Dear Marília, In your poetry collection Um teste de resistores (2014, ‘a test of resistors’, not translated yet), each poem undergoes, as its starting point, a resistance test: the attempt to draw a map; to cross this map as it is drawn; and, finally, to offer steady resistance to the very act of crossing it….
This sand so clear
Hi, folks, Next on my series of posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have four poems by Brazilian author Cecília Meireles, in various translations. You can find the whole series here, along with some other Brazilian gems. Enjoy! Yours truly, J. Introduction Here is my life: This sand so clear Withdrawing that walk Dedicated…
it’s a love story and it’s about an accident
Hi, Folks, Next on my series of poetry posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have six poems by Brazilian author Marília Garcia, translated by Hilary Kaplan. You can find the whole series here, along with some other Brazilian gems. Enjoy! Yours truly, J. it’s a love story and it’s about an accident by Marília Garcia,…
A hunchbacked happiness imitating wings
Hi, folks, Next on my series of posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have four poems by Brazilian author Lívia Natália, translated by Tiffany Higgins. You can find the whole series here, along with some other Brazilian gems. Enjoy! Yours truly, J. The Weary Hour I wasn’t invited to participate in the world’s carnival. Or…
It is the circle where hearts meet
Hi, folks, Next on my series of posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have four poems by Brazilian author Henriqueta Lisboa, trabslated by Hélcio Veiga Costa. You can find the whole series here, along with other Brazilian gems. Enjoy! Yours truly, J. Camellia Come to see the camellia, born at daybreak, before the sun…
The grandest thing in the world is feeling
Hi, folks, Next on my series of poetry posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have some poems by Brazilian poet Adélia Prado, in various translations. Enjoy! Yours truly, J. Teaching My mother thought study the grandest thing in the world. It is not. The grandest thing in the world is feeling. That night,…
To wrap up this new body of mine
Hi, folks, Next on my series of poetry posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have three poems by Brazilian poet Ana Guadalupe, translated by Jacob Steinberg and by the author herself. Hope you enjoy! Yours truly, J. girl turned mosquito by Ana Guadalupe, translated by Ana Guadalupe & Jacob Steinberg Source: here one…
A woman with exposed bricks
Hi, folks, Next on my series of poetry posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have five poems by Brazilian poet Angélica Freitas, translated by Hilary Kaplan. Hope you enjoy! Yours truly, J. Artichoke Angélica Freitas, translated from the Portuguese by Hilary Kaplan Source: Granta 132 – Possession – Summer 2015 amelia, the real woman,…
To embrace the whale
Hi, Folks, Next on my series of poetry posts for Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months, hosted by Stuart and Richard, you have four poems by Brazilian poet Alice Sant’Anna, translated by Tiffany Higgins. Hope you enjoy! Yours truly, J. THAT MOMENT AN ENORMOUS TAIL by Alice Sant’Anna, translated by Tiffany Higgins Source: Ghost Town Lit Mag of the whale would…
What day knits night forgets
Hi, folks! Stuart and Richard are hosting the Spanish and Portuguese Reading Months in July & August, and I will take this opportunity not only to read some damn good books written in the last flower of Lazio, but also to showcase some of my favourite Portuguese-speaking poets. To start, you have three poems by Brazilian poet Ana Martins Marques,…
