Essay by HEBE UHART
Translated from the Spanish by ANNA VILNER
Essay appears in both Spanish and English.
Translator’s Note
Hebe Uhart’s “A Trip to La Paz” is delightfully misleading in that we never arrive at our destination; we never see the city that touches the clouds. This essay is concerned with a different kind of beauty—the getting there, the buzzing potential of travel. It encapsulates why we embark on grueling car rides, on flights, on long train journeys, in the first place.
By RUBEM BRAGA
Translated from the Portuguese by RACHEL MORGENSTERN-CLARREN
Through radar, the Americans made contact with the moon, which of course is exciting. But the most important event of the week happened with my cornstalk.
In my backyard, in a pile of dirt the gardener gathered, something was born that might have been just plain grass—but that I discovered was a cornstalk. I transplanted it to the narrow flowerbed in front of the house. The small leaves were dried out; I thought it was dead. But it revived. When it was the size of a palm, I showed a friend and he declared disdainfully that it was actually grass. When it was the size of two palms, I showed another friend, and he confirmed that it was sugar cane.
Poetry by ŞÜKRÜ ERBAŞ
Translated from the Turkish by DERICK MATTERN
Poems appear in both Turkish and English below.
Translator’s Note:
Şükrü Erbaş was born when, as his mother said, “the vineyards were boiling”—that is, when the pekmez (a traditional grape syrup) was being made. He grew up among those vineyards and wheat fields and apple orchards, deep in the Anatolian countryside, in the town of Yozgat, not far from the ruins of the ancient capital of the Hittites.
Erbaş’s reputation in Turkish poetry hasn’t strayed far from the geography he grew up in, neither from its idyllic beauty nor from its brutal poverty and neglect. But while Erbaş doesn’t shy away from the politics or economic struggles of the long-suffering Anatolian people, he’s not reducible to a mere political or a nature poet. His reviewers usually accord him something like the status of a poet of witness. Poet-critic Şeref Bilsel calls Erbaş a socialist poet without slogans, one who doesn’t say “I need to speak” but rather “I have heard.”
By CRISTINA CARLOS
Translated by JETHRO SOUTAR
At school I learned to count—one plus one is two
I learned to multiply—one times one is one
And subtract—one minus me is zero: Nothing!
By JARID ARRAES
Translated by MARGUERITE ITAMAR HARRISON
tell me
about how tough everything is
and even the beer’s out of reach
and even writing has dried up
tell me
By MATILDE CAMPILHO
Translated by HUGO DOS SANTOS
for José
On the night Billy Ray was born
(New York, 28th and 7th)
not one soul contemplated the geraniums
There was, however, the sound of the world falling
like multiple stalactites
in the area surrounding the hospital
By JOSÉ LUÍS PEIXOTO
Translated by HUGO DOS SANTOS
Alone, I arrive in a looted city
and walk slowly, my arms hanging
loosely, I look through open doors,
By LEONARDO TONUS
Translated by CAROLYNE WRIGHT
they say that the most impressive of all crossings
is not thirst
or the fear
afterwards.
The humiliation
no longer wounds
what does not exist
they say
bodies in a boat
of bodies
veins
eyes
skin
penis
nails
vagina
By CLARA OBLIGADO
Translated by RACHEL BALLENGER
On December 5, 1976, I arrived in Madrid from Argentina. I flew Iberia airlines, caught the plane in Montevideo because I was afraid of the disappearances happening at the border. I left wearing summer clothes, as if I were a tourist heading for the beaches of Uruguay, then, two or three days later, landed in Madrid, where it was winter. My father and sister saw me off. It took me six years—the years of the dictatorship—to return.
By JOAQUIM ARENA
Translated by JETHRO SOUTAR
And then, as is its wont, death comes knocking at the door. This time from two thousand miles away.
I try to get the image I have of him in my head to focus. The man who tried to be my father for over thirty years. Officially, not biologically, and not anymore. A death that will nevertheless force me home, back to Lisbon, just when I thought I’d found my place on this dry and sleepy island.
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