Five Latin American Poets

Today, Mercurial friends, I want to share the poetry of five great Latin American poets: Darío Jaramillo Agudelo, Rafael Cadenas, Blanca Varela, Ida Vitale and Fina García Marruz. You can not only read them but hear their translations recited in English.

Arrowsmith Press has opened this space for us. Mercurius is delighted to share their works.

Darío Jaramillo Agudelo

Born in Colombia in 1947, Darío Jaramillo Agudelo is considered one of the principal renovators of Colombian love poetry and among the best of the “generación desencantada” (disenchanted generation)

Love Poem XIII

First there is loneliness.
In the innards and at the center of the soul:
this is the essence, the basic fact, the only certainty;
that solely your breath partners you,
that you shall always dance with your shadow:
that darkness is you. 
Your heart, that perplexing rasp, 
does not need grow embittered by your loner's fate;
let it wallow 
for love is a gift that one day arrives by itself.

But first there is loneliness, 
and you are alone,
you are alone with your original sin—with yourself.

Perhaps one night, at nine,
love will appear and everything crashes and something is lit within you,
and you become someone else, less bitter, more blithe;
but do not forget, especially then,
when love arrives and emblazes you,  
that first and forever, there is your loneliness,
and then nothing
and after that, if it shall come, there is love.

— Translation by Arturo Desimone

Rafael Cadenas

Born in 1930, Rafael Cadenas is a Venezuelan poet who taught for many years at the Central University of Venezuela. His work has won various prizes.

ARS POÉTICA
Let each word carry what it says.
Let it be like the tremor that sustains it.
Let it maintain itself like a heartbeat.

I may not put forward ornate lies
not apply doubtful ink
nor add shine to what is.
This obliges me to hear myself.
But we’re here to tell the truth.
Let’s be real.
I want terrifying exactitudes.
I tremble when I think I’m falsifying myself.
I have to bear the weight of my words.
They possess me as much as I possess them.

You who know me, if I can’t see, tell me my lie,
point out my imposture, rub in my fraud.
I’ll be grateful to you, seriously.
I want madly to correspond to myself.
Be my eye, wait for me at night and spy on me, examine me, shake me.

    — Translation by Rowena Hill

Blanca Varela

Born in 1926, Blanca Varela was a Peruvian poet who died in 2009. Her poems have been described as surrealist, insofar as they try to express the world from the inner space’s point of view.

Monsieur Monod Cannot Sing
my darling
I remember you like the best song
what divinity of roosters and stars you once were
the way I am no longer and you and I will never be again
yet doubtless we both know
that I speak with a mouth painted over
in silence, with the wretchedness of a fly
at summer’s end
and still there are doors left ajar
purging or bewailing the shifty wind of memory
a record scratched before it was ever used
tinted with the humor of the times
and their old maladies
of red
of black
like a disgraced king standing before a mirror
at the moment of evensong
and tomorrow and in the past and forever

night that ruined you
(now here comes the song)
filled with augury
insatiable bitch (un peu fort)
splendid mother (plus doux)
ever fecund and shoeless
so as not to be heard by the fool who believes in you
so as to better crush the heart
of the sensitive one
who dares to hear the miserable step
of life
and of death

pit in the thigh, storm of feathers
a gale in a glass of wine
a tango

the order alters the product
a machinist’s error
poor technology that allows you to keep living your story
but backwards like in a movie
a dream thick
and mysterious, thinning
el final es la entrada
hope’s timid little lamp
like the white of an egg
with a smell like fish or old milk
from Cluny and the Parque Salazar
a treadmill so dark and speeding
that you never know
if you are or you are making a life
or a death
and yes an iron flower
like the last little bite to devour you
twisted and dirty and slow

my darling
I love everything that is not mine
you for example
with that jackass skin covering your soul
and those wax wings I gave you
that you never dared use
you don’t know how I regret my virtues
I don’t know what to do with my collection of keys

and lies
with my child’s obscenity and I must
finish a story that’s already too late to tell
because memory is like a song
worse if you want the one and only
and can’t resist another blank page
and it doesn’t make sense that I am here
destroying
what does not exist

my darling
in spite of that
everything stays the same
the philosophical tickle after a shower
the cold coffee the bitter cigarette
Green Slime at the Montecarlo
all of it continues well-suited for life everlasting
intact: the idiocy of the clouds
intact: the obscenity of geraniums
intact: the garlic’s shame
the little sparrows shitting divinely
in April’s open sky
Mandrake raising rabbits in some
circle of hell
and always the crab leg snared
in the trap of being
or not being
or I don’t want this or that
you know
these things that happen to us
and should be forgotten so they can exist
for instance a hand with wings
but without hands

a kangaroo history— that of the sack or the life—
or of the captain trapped in a bottle
that’s always empty
an empty belly with wings
and without a belly
you know
the passion      the obsession
the poetry      the prose
the sex      the exit
or visa-versa
the congenital vacuum
the little speckled egg
among the millions and millions of speckled eggs
you and I
tú y yo
toi et moi
tea for two in the immensity of silence
in the timeless sea
on the horizon of history
because ribonucleic acid we are
but ribonucleic acid in love
forever.

    — Translation by Lisa Allen Ortíz 

Ida Vitale

Born in 1923, Ida Vitale is a Uruguayan poet who played an important role in the art movement known as “Generation of 45”. She is the recipient of various prizes.

Step By Step

Soon the wind will come
and it will be autumn.
Summer is leaving and some memory falls
and life descends another step
unnoticed,
from yellow to yellow.
Goodbye, stay back,
the step I didn't take,
the uncertain friendship,
scarcely a dream.

It will be autumn soon.
There's no longer time.

I lost a magic double
of my name,
a fleeting sign
that could have made the world more exact.
I lost the peace,
the war.
I lost life perhaps
and perhaps I've still not earned
death itself.

In empty space
someone is strumming a string,
very gently.
It's already autumn, so soon.
There's no longer time.

    — Translation by Rowena Hill

Fina García Marruz

Born in 1923, Fina García Marruz is Cuban poet who has received numerous prizes.

Much Simpler

I say it's simple, much
simpler. I insist
because there are people who talk
about learnable techniques,
She's just a girl. Blind
like any girl. Alone (after all)
and helpless, like any girl.
Black stockings, poor jersey. Her hair
a bit curly, sweetly springy in the sun.
A girl who still doesn't know she's beautiful
and so is more beautiful still.
A girl who hasn't recovered from the amazement
of being one, who smiles for no reason.

And then a poet came and saw her.

    — Translation by Rowena Hill

Click this Spotify link to hear the poets in both their native Spanish and English. The American poet Askold Melnyczuk is reading them.