Blanca Varela
In these December days, and as a gift to the readers of Mercurius Magazine, I would like to share some poems by the spectacular Peruvian poet Blanca Varela. The English translations are by Sara Daniele/Lisa Allen, Arturo Desimone and Sophie Cabot Black, who have translated one of the most important Latin American poets with great sensitivity. My previous post on Five Latin American poets included “Monsieur Monod does not know how to sing” (translated by Lisa Allen). I now leave you with something more from Varela.
Blanca Varela was born in Peru in 1926. Considered to be one of the most important poets in Latin America, she studied Humanities and Education. In 1949, she and her husband, the painter Fernando de Szyszlo, travelled to Paris where she met Octavio Paz. He introduced her to artists and intellectuals such as André Bretón, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Henri Michaux, and Fernand Léger. At the insistence of Paz, she published her first book, Ese Puerto Existe, at the age of 33. In the prologue he wrote, "Blanca Varela is neither pleased with her discoveries nor drunk with her songs. With the instinct of the true poet, she knows when to be silent.” She was awarded the Gabriela Mistral Medal in 1996, the Octavio Paz Prize for a first edition of Poetry in 2001, the Federico García Lorca international Poetry Prize in 2006, and the Reina Sofía Prize for Ibero-American Poetry in 2007. Blanca Varela died in Peru in 2009.
Woman in White
the poem is my body
this the poetry
the fatigued flesh the dream
the sun traversing deserts
the extremities of the soul touch
and i remind you of dickinson
precious soft ghost
wandering time and distance
you live in another's mouth
you fall through the air
you are the air that pounds
my forehead with invisible salt
the extremities of the soul touch
and close off
the turning earth is heard
that lightless sound
blind sand
pounding us
that's how it will be
eyes that were mouth that said
hands that open and close
empty
distant in your window
you see the wind pass
see yourself pass your face in flames
posthumous summer star
and you fall turned bird turned snow
in the wellspring in the earth
in oblivion
and you return
with a false feminine name
in your winter clothes
in your white winter clothes
in mourning
Final Scene
I've left the door half-open
I'm an animal who doesn't resign itself to die
eternity is the dark hinge that yields
a small sound in the night of the flesh
I'm the island that goes forth sustained by death
or a city ferociously surrounded by life
or maybe I am nothing
only insomnia
and the brilliant indifference of stars
desert destiny
the inexorable sun of the living rises
I recognize that door
there is no other
springtime ice
and one thorn of blood
in the eye of the rose
Translated by Lisa Allen Ortiz and Sara Daniele Rivera
CONVERSATION WITH SIMONE WEIL
-children, the ocean, wildlife, Bach.
–man is a strange animal.
In most of the world,
half the children go to bed
hungry.
Does the angel renounce its feathers, the rainbow,
gravity and grace?
Is our hope for better
now over?
Life is for others.
Delusions and mistakes
The weary word.
You don’t even dare eat a peach.
I closed the door for a reason,
turned my back
and between sleep and anger forgot many
things.
Half the children go to bed
hungry.
–children, the ocean, wildlife, Bach.
–man is a strange animal.
The wise in whom we place
our trust
betray us.
–children go to bed hungry.
–the old go to death hungry.
The word does not feed. Numbers do not add up.
I remember; do I remember?
I misremember, I grope. I make mistakes.
A girl comes from afar. I turn my back.
I forget reason and time.
And everything must be a lie
as I am not in the place of my soul.
I don't complain the right way.
Fed up with poetry.
I close the door,
Piss sadly on the paltry flame
of grace.
–children go to bed hungry.
–the old go to death hungry.
The word does not feed.
Numbers do not add up.
–man is a strange animal.
Translated by Sophie Cabot Black
VILLAIN SONG
and all of a sudden life
on my pauper’s plate
a meager scrap of celestial pig
here on my plate
observe me
observe you
or kill a fly without ill-will
annihilate the light
or create it
create it
as would he who opens his eyes and chooses
a heaven that spills over
onto the empty plate
rubens onions tears
more rubens more onions
more tears
so many histories
black indigestible miracles
and the eastern star
brought to a blush
and the bone of love
so gnawed upon and so hard
shining upon another plate
this hunger in itself
exists
is the urge of the soul
which is the body
is the rose made from grease
that ages
in its heaven of flesh
mea culpa the turbid eye
mea culpa the black morsel
mea culpa divine nausea
no other one is here
upon this empty plate
without I
devouring my eyes
and yours
Translated by Arturo Desimone