“Niebla verde / Green Fog” by Xánath Caraza

“Niebla verde / Green Fog” by Xánath Caraza

 

"Madre" by Juan Chawuk

 

Hombres de humo

de eternidad azul

de pensamientos fragmentados

 

Hombres que ya no sienten a la mujer susurrante

a la mujer de cuerpo celeste

a la mujer de constelaciones dulces

a la mujer que estimula la imaginación

 

En el corazón de las ciudades divididas

de las ciudades sin playa

de las ciudades sin nombre

llega la niebla verde

 

como olas gigantes

como el Saturno de Goya que devora

como el aliento de la serpiente

que da entrada a los hombres de humo

 

Fuerza arrasadora que bloquea

fuerza que no deja fluir los sentimientos

que no deja crecer las almas

de líderes de corazones puros

 

¿Dónde están los recuerdos de la espuma?

¿Dónde están los barullos de la calle?

¿Dónde están las manos salvajes creadoras?

¿Dónde están los pensamientos eternos?

¿Dónde están?

 

 

Xanath Caraza

Green Fog

 

by Xánath Caraza

 

Men of smoke

of blue eternity

of thoughts fragmented

 

Men who don’t feel the whispering woman anymore

the woman of celestial body

the woman of sweet constellations

the woman who stimulates imagination

 

In the heart of the divided cities

of the cities without a shore

of the cities without a name

green fog arrives

 

as giant waves

as Goya’s Saturn that devours

as the breath of the serpent

that lets the men of smoke come in

 

Crushing power that blocks

power that doesn’t allow feelings to flow

that doesn’t allow souls to grow

the souls of leaders with pure hearts

 

Where are the memories of the foam?

Where are the sounds of the street?

Where are the wild creative hands?

Where are the eternal thoughts?

Where are they?

 

 

“Niebla verde / Green Fog” is part of the collection Corazón de pintado by Xánath Caraza (Pandora lobo estepario productions, 2015)

 

Art by Juan Chawuk and cover art by José Jesús Chán Guzmán

Tinta negra, Black Ink, Tinta Nera, Μαύρη μελάνη by Xánath Caraza

Tinta negra, Black Ink, Tinta Nera, Μαύρη μελάνη by Xánath Caraza

 

Tinta negra

por Xánath Caraza

 

Llueve en el fosforescente verde matutino.

Descubro entre la cibernética tinta negra,

entre un desconocido norte que es mi sur,

palabras entretejidas con miedos,

sentimientos disfrazados de distancia,

muros metálicos dividen dos países,

dos corazones, madres e hijos,

padres y hermanos, pasado y presente.

 

¿Qué nos hace diferentes?

 

Somos manos que escriben,

que trabajan, limpian y guían

en la oscuridad más grande.

 

¿Qué es una frontera?

 

Límites creados,

culturas forzadas

a darse la espalda.

 

Llueve en el fosforescente verde matutino.

Descubro entre la tinta negra

de esta pantalla de luz artificial,

los hombres y mujeres sin nombre

que apenas dejan rastro de su existencia

en los desiertos. 

 

Anónimos seres que nunca

serán reclamados.

 

Esperan las madres orgullosas

a los hijos e hijas tragados por

la flamígera arena del desierto.

 

Rojo atardecer llena mi pantalla

y la tinta negra empieza a sangrar.

 

 

Black Ink

Translated by Sandra Kingery

 

It’s raining in the phosphorescent greenness of daybreak.

I discover in the cybernetic black ink,

in an unknown north that is my south,

words interwoven with fears,

emotions disguised as distance,

metallic walls dividing two nations,

two hearts, mothers and children,

fathers and siblings, past and present.

 

What makes us different?

 

We are hands that write,

that work cleaning and guiding

in the darkest dark.

 

What is a border?

 

Created limits,

cultures forced

to turn their back.

 

It’s raining in the phosphorescent greenness of daybreak.

I discover in the black ink

of this screen of artificial light,

nameless men and women

who barely leave a trace of their existence in the deserts. 

 

Anonymous beings who

will never be claimed.

 

Proud mothers awaiting 

sons and daughters swallowed

by the scorching desert sand. 

 

Red twilight fills my screen

and the black ink begins to bleed.

 

 

Tinta Nera

Tradotto da Andrea Garbin

 

Piore nel fosforescente verde mattutino.

Copro nella cibernetica tinta nera,

in uno sconosciuto nord che è il mio sud,

parole intrecciate con paure,

sentimenti mascherati da distanza

muri metallici dividono due paesi

due cuori, madri e figli

padri e fratelli, passato e presente.

 

Cosa ci rende differenti?

 

Siamo mani che scrivono,

che lavorano, che puliscono e guidano

nell’oscurita più gande.

 

Cos’ è una frontiera?

 

Limiti creati,

culture forzate

a voltarsi le spalle.

 

Piove nel fosforescente verde matutino.

Scopro dentro la tinta nera di questo

schermo di luce artificiale,

le ombre e donna senza nome

che a stento lasciano una traccia della

lore esistenza nei deserti. 

 

Esseri anonimi che non saranno

mai reclamati.

 

Sperano le madri orgoliose

dei loro figli e figlie inghioltiti dalla

fiammoggiante sabbia del deserto.

 

Il rosso crespuscolo riempie

il mio schermo e la tinta nera

cumincia a sanguinare.

 

Μαύρη μελάνη

Translated to the Greek by María José Martínez Rodríguez and her students: Angelikí Patera, Stella Panagopoulou, Katerina Apostolaki, Varvara Asouti, Tatiana Basakou, Timoklia Dougali, Afroditi Papatheodorou

 

Βρέχει στο λαμπερό πράσινο του πρωινού

ανακαλύπτω ανάμεσα στη μαύρη μελάνη του κυβερνοχώρου

ανάμεσα σ’ έναν άγνωστο βορρά που είναι ο νότος μου

λέξεις υφασμένες με φόβους

αισθήματα μεταμφιεσμένα από απόσταση μεταλλικά

τείχη διαιρούν δυο χώρες

δυο καρδιές, μητέρες και παιδιά

Γονείς και αδέρφια, παρελθόν και παρόν

 

Τι μας κάνει διαφορετικούς;

 

Είμαστε χέρια που γράφουν, που εργάζονται

καθαρίζουν και οδηγούν στο πιο μεγάλο σκοτάδι

 

Τι είναι τα σύνορα; Όρια φτιαχτά

πολιτισμοί πειθαναγκασμένοι να γυρίζουν την πλάτη

βρέχει στο λαμπερό πράσινο του πρωινού

ανακαλύπτω ανάμεσα στη μαύρη μελάνη αυτής της

οθόνης με τεχνητό φως τους άνδρες

και τις γυναίκες χωρίς όνομα που μόλις

 

αφήνουν ίχνη της ύπαρξης τους

στις ερήμους. Ανώνυμα πλάσματα

 

που ποτέ δεν θα αναζητηθούν

οι μητέρες περήφανες περιμένουν τους

γιους και τις κόρες που κατάπιε η φλογισμένη

 

άμμος της ερήμου. Κόκκινο σούρουπο γεμίζει την

οθόνη μου και η μαύρη μελάνη αρχίζει

να ματώνει.

Tinta negra / Black Ink

Author:  Xánath Caraza

Publisher: Pandora Lobo Estepario Productions (April, 2016)

 

Tinta Negra / Μαύρη μελάνη

Author: Xánath Caraza

Publisher: Pandora Lobo Estepario Productions (2019) (Spanish-Greek)

 

Image by Silvia Santos 

_Red Teardrop, Κόκκινο δάκρυ_ by Xánath Caraza

 Red Teardrop, Κόκκινο δάκρυ by Xánath Caraza

 

 

Red Teardrop / Κόκκινο δάκρυ de Xánath Caraza

Traducido al inglés por Sandra Kingery y Aaron Willsea

Traducido al griego por Natasa Lambrou

Case editorial: Pandora Lobo Estepario Press (2022)

ISBN-10: 1940856469

ISBN-13: 978-4294289433

 

Con gran alegría comparto con los lectores de La Bloga que mi poemario Lágrima roja (2017), originalmente escrito en español y recipiente del primer lugar como “Mejor libro de poesía en español”, International Latino Book Awards de 2018, ahora se puede encontrar en su versión en inglés y en griego.  Red Teardrop / ha sido publicado por Pandora Lobo Estepario Press en este 2022.  La traducción al inglés es de Sandra Kingery y Aaron Willsea, la traducción al griego es de Natasa Lambrou y la imagen de la portada de Miguel Lopez Lemus quien también es editor de esta casa editorial junto con Kapra Fleming.  Pueden hacer sus pedidos aquí. También está disponible en Amazon. Que la poesía nos salve.

 

Lágrima roja, Xánath Caraza's award-winning poetry collection is now available in a bilingual English and Greek volume (Red Teardrop/Κόκκινο δάκρυ). These poems focus on the abuse of Mexican women but speak to the suffering of women and indigenous peoples the world over. The English translations by Sandra Kingery and Aaron Willsea are well-crafted and convey the passion and force of the Caraza's Spanish poetry. Natasa Lambrou's renditions in Greek are breathtaking: in the hands of this gifted translator, the musicality and the flexible syntax of Greek, the closeness of many sounds to the Spanish, and the easy coexistence of multiple registers in Greek all contribute to the beauty of these poems. Both the English and Greek versions bring to readers the striking imagery and passionate commitment, the unique voice of Caraza's Spanish poetry.

 — Thalia Pandiri

Professor of Classics and Comparative Literature at Smith College

Editor in Chief, METAMORPHOSES

 

Το Lágrima roja, η βραβευμένη ποιητική συλλογή της Σάναθ Καράσα διατίθεται τώρα σε μια δίγλωσση μετάφραση αγγλικά και ελληνικά (Red Teardrop/Κόκκινο δάκρυ).  Τα ποιήματα αυτά εστιάζουν στην κακομεταχείριση των γυναικών του Μεξικού αλλά μιλούν και για την οδύνη των γυναικών και των αυτοχθόνων λαών του κόσμου. Οι αγγλικές μεταφράσεις από την Σάντρα Κίνγκερι και τον Άαρον Γουίλσι είναι δουλεμένες με μεγάλη τέχνη και μεταδίδουν το πάθος και τη δύναμη της ισπανικής ποίησης της Καράσα. Η απόδοση της Νατάσας Λάμπρου στα ελληνικά είναι συγκλονιστική. Στα χέρια αυτής της χαρισματικής μεταφράστριας, η μουσικότητα και η ευέλικτη σύνταξη των ελληνικών, η εγγύτητα πολλών ήχων με την ισπανική, και η εύκολη συνύπαρξη των διαφορετικών επιπέδων στα ελληνικά, όλα συνεισφέρουν στην ομορφιά αυτών των ποιημάτων. Και οι δύο εκδοχές αγγλικών και ελληνικών μεταφέρουν στους αναγνώστες τον εντυπωσιακό μεταφορικό λόγο και την ενθουσιώδη αφοσίωση, με τη μοναδική φωνή της ισπανικής ποίησης της Καράσα.

 

—Θάλεια Παντίρη

Καθηγήτρια Κλασικής και Συγκριτικής Λογοτεχνίας του Smith College

Αρχισυντάκτρια, METAMORPHOSES

 

 

Commentary on the Book ‘An Exercise in the Darkness’ by Elizabeth Lara

 

Commentary on the Book ‘An Exercise in the Darkness’ by Elizabeth Lara

 

In An Exercise in the Darkness / Ejercicio en la oscuridad, Xánath Caraza has given us poems that vibrate on the page. The writer’s ink, imbued with a throbbing life force, is barely contained by the white spaces that surround it. Nature envelopes her, speaks to and through her. Color, light, and sound play against each other. The world shifts between dark and light, between internal and external landscapes: gray skies over shimmering lakes; a blue dragon on the face of the moon; birds devouring her fears.

 

Each of the 66 poems in this volume is dual in nature: first we encounter a poem in prose, followed by a very brief poem of no more than six short lines. In the prose poem, certain words and phrases are highlighted in bold; these become the text of the short poem that follows. The short poem – sometimes only one word – speaks to the subtext of the prose; it may crystallize, complement, or confront it. For example, in the poem, “Se extiende en las manos / It Extends in My Hands,” the poet turns her eyes toward the sunrise. Her dream – “a tranquil dream I embrace in the early morning sun / sueño que abrazo en la claridad” – is fading, and the birds are now silent. Magically, the golden light of dawn flows from her hands. And yet, these four short lines follow:

 

It fills

and reflects

the night

around me

 

This is mysterious: despite the bright light of the dawning day, we find the writer in darkness; night is embedded in the preceding text.

 

The book is divided into three sections, arising from three geographical spaces that the author has inhabited: Fertile Land / Tierra fértil (Mexico); The Great Plains / Las planicies (Kansas); and Random Punctuation / Puntuación aleatoria (Vermont). Running through all the poems is the author’s rootedness in nature: when Caraza opens a window on her creative process, she plants her words in the soil of the earth; when lonely or broken-hearted, she imagines the moon extending a hand, or envisions the passion of water as it strikes the rocks.

 

In the first section, we experience with her the sound of the rain, birds singing at dawn, the plantain leaves that frame her view. From the opening words of her first poem, “The symphony of this forest engulfs me / La sinfonía de este bosque me envuelve”, Caraza plunges the reader into the darkness from which she writes, where the underlying silences are so profound that we can hear our own breathing, where birds, frogs, crickets, and fish croak or chirp, sing or swirl in a wild accompaniment to her songs. Together the sounds make a chorus; even the raindrops are musical instruments. In “Sound / Sonido”, she writes: “… every waterdrop is distinguishable, it tells us the thickness, the roughness, the texture of the leaves … / … cada gota se distingue, nos dice el grosor, la rugosidad, la textura de las hojas …”. Water from a well shape-shifts into blue ink, and then becomes a memory of hydrangeas on a mountain path. Water is everywhere throughout the collection; the sulfurous water in “The Natural Spring / Ojo de agua” is the life force, her lover: “… boiling water, I melt in your arms. /… Agua hirviente, me derrito en tus brazos”.

 

The Great Plains / Las planicies, the second section of the book, evokes the voices of the ancestors and the world of dreams. Here, in a region that often lacks for water, water abounds – rain, snow, and fog; rivers and seas; tears. Mythic figures are born out of the earth: in “Another Place / Otro lugar”, a chorus of women arises from “the pulsations of mud / las pulsaciones de barro”.  Of a goddess-like figure whose heart of jade so frightens her lovers that only fire dares to kiss her, Caraza writes, “She called herself water, and the wind howled between the syllables of her name / Se llamaba agua y entre las sílabas de su nombre ululaba el viento”. The author frequently reflects on the writing process and the interplay between writing and reading. In “Tornado of Memories / Tornado de recuerdos”, the poet opens a book of poems that awaken her deepest memories. As she reads, what strikes her most are the letters on its pages; she sees the white of the paper as merely a cloak tangled among them. In “The Quill / La pluma”, the ink is a plant whose roots sink into the paper. The poet’s pen and paper are instruments she will use to write a new landscape.

 

Immediately, as section III opens, there is a change in the light, paralleling the transition from winter to spring. Caraza begins with a street scene; blue flowers are scattered everywhere “until the streets are filled with miniscule corollas that drown our sorrow / hasta llenar las calles de minúsculas corolas que ahoguen la tristeza”. Even as she faces the inevitability of death (“From the Passage of Time / Por el tiempo”), in the poem that follows she responds with its counterpoint: “The river calms the demons. Its current makes illusions flow. / El río calma los demonios. Su corriente hace fluir la ilusión.” Again and again, her poems call to each other across the pages. In one poem the maple trees “weep as their translucent blood is drained for humanity / sollozan al perder su translúcida sangre para la humanidad”, and in the next the poet herself drinks of the “water from the tree of the north / agua del árbol del norte”, an experience so erotic that she urges it to “Flow within me, impregnate me  / Fluye en mí, préñame”. With the poem “Windows of Joy / Ventanas de felicidad” the writer has now fully come into the light. The poems are full of sounds and colors, from the rumble of thunder to the indigo night sky. Still, love remains elusive; it calls her name, yet with the sound of a train departing it seems to vanish once again. In the final poem, “From Winter to Spring / De invierno a primavera”, Caraza pens a final reminder of the power of words, commanding her poetry to “… rend the pages. Sprout from the subsoil of this book that is born of the darkness / … rasga las páginas. Brota del subsuelo de este libro que de la oscuridad nace”.

 

While the book’s structure, with the prose poem followed by a short poem, evokes the haibun, and the use of repeated words engages the reader much like a sestina, Caraza’s forms are completely original. One way to proceed through the book is to move in linear fashion, reading each pair of poems together. And it’s possible, of course, to read only the prose. Nevertheless, the author designed the two elements of the poems to be independent of each other, so a reading of the short poems, composed of only the words in bold, offers an entirely new text.

 

 

If there were any one word to sum up this collection, it would be "mystery".  Caraza writes from within the vortex. Her words literally crackle with electricity. In whatever order the poems are read, whether it is her heart that is breaking or her breath melting the ice, they tell a compelling story. For the poet, syllables, letters, and words are embedded in the lived experience, not just of human beings but of trees, flowers, rivers, the sky. The language of nature and the human body – the writer’s body, in particular – are intertwined. While Caraza has invited the reader to accompany her on her journey through the darkness, she has not forgotten about the power of the light.

 

 

Elizabeth Lara

Silver Spring, Maryland