Video: Robin Ouzman Hislop
Presentación de Aventuras de Bit Bot, Aman y Lla + Cielito lindo, de Amparo Arróspide con Noni Benegas, Javier Gil, Angel Huerga y Oscar Ouzman. Poesia. Video by Robin Ouzman Hislop
This poetry reading was performed in Spanish on May 6th in Madrid Spain presenting Amparo Arróspide’s award winning poetry book, title as seen above, accompanying her in the presentation and reading were Noni Benegas, Javier Gil, Angel Huerga and Oscar Ouzman. The illustrations to the book were made by artist Asem Navaro & the video was made by Robin Ouzman Hislop
Hotel Naledi. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop
Hotel Naledi where where O Naledi a million years before they came here on the southern savannah creature of berry wood bone & antelope had you always haunted the subterranean world as a sepulchre with your charred offerings and your dead or was it just when they came bigger brained with their sticks & stones you do not often see each other you can evade them from the plain like you they roam in groups thirty forty no more you can hide you can conceal but sometimes come the raids the raids of the newcomers you twist & writhe wriggle & crawl on your belly on your back through the cavernous fissures of the dark earth torwards your terminal chamber together with your contaminated dead so many moons have passed more than a hundred years but what is time on the savannah they grow strong you grow weak they are a different germ it won’t be long this is your shroud you are bound to the savannah & they will go on a million years will be forgotten & now here in the Dinaledi den we uncover your fossilised remains we remake your skeletons transport your mummified effigies into our age our brains blew up & shrank back again though yours tiny as it was had done as much before we came but perhaps ours was the disease that put the world to flame
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com his publications include
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, & Moon selected Audio Textual Poems available at Amazon.com as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)
Sex Core. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop
Sex Core its pulse drives the mindless mindful crowd gravitates it into automata into a faceless faced phantasmagoria where multiple saccades magnetise erogenous zones - convert invert revert regenerate in helpless drift the machinations of our existence a suppressed surge - the numbed norm a dance of marionettes plastered on glittering billboards that announce us their shadows cast into rebirth of tomorrow’s abyss relentless the sex core consumes its victims like sacrificial slaves led to the slaughter – as our heads float by on platters served the menu of the day – bubble & pop.
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com his publications include
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, & Moon selected Audio Textual Poems available at Amazon.com as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)
Damn You All & No Mars Poems by Robin Ouzman Hislop
Damn you all wild cooing of doves in distant branches beyond the curtain drawn window in the darkened room where he sits on the edge of the bed frail & thin gently nodding to & fro thinking progress be damned nation states wear hoods ghost riders in the sky stampede the plains & piss in the oceans the salmon from the rivers have gone in what seas will they now spawn & he is down by the riverside down by the riverside where he casts his line into its waters waiting for it to tauten the sudden tug the thrill electric of connection the flick the jerk as a wriggling sparkling life glints in the light sails through space to land at his feet the poetic stance oh not at all damn you all “No Mars” return to the Jaguar Moon what is perpetuation one is many is everyone is everything is a person a matter of perspective she alone will adorn the many Jaguar Moon evolution is but diversity it will always come again but sapiens are but rapiens now their remains if the world should come again then come O Jaguar Moon the sleek Brazilian jaguar does not in her aboreal gloom distill so rank a feline smell as grishkin in a drawing room who is grishkin O Jaguar Moon when she’s feline & we her prey unless we outlive the day her kiss that sips our blood like nectar
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times at Artvilla.com ; You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author & https://poetrylifeandtimes.com See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)
Six Poems from EL PLAZO (THE DEADLINE) by Olga Muñoz. Translated by Amparo Arrospide and Robin Ouzman Hislop
Six poems from EL PLAZO (THE DEADLINE)
16.
Desapareceríamos todos si las abejas murieran. Por ahora somos cuatro: dos adultos y dos crías que cargar en brazos en caso necesario. Pronostican una marcha tranquila, aunque el zumbido nos alcance en las próximas jornadas. Como alimento llevamos la oscura miel de la familia, indigesta, dulzona. Los nuevos evitamos derramarla, ya que una gota perdida trae la maldición de confundir las criaturas propias. Sin olerla llegó el animalillo de nombre equivocado, en medio del camino.
16.
Were bees to die, we would all disappear. Right now we are just four: two adults and two cubs to carry in our arms if necessary. In spite of the buzz reaching us in the next few days, a peaceful march is predicted. We carry as food for the family our dark sickly sweet indigestible honey. As the newly arrived we take care not to spill a drop as a drop lost would curse us into confusing our own offspring. Not smelling the honey, a little animal with a wrong name appeared into the middle of the road.
17.
Volvemos a casa con la cría y el espacio se ha hecho redondo. Las elásticas paredes ceden a nuestras voces. Parece que el hueco estaba listo desde hace meses, pues cada objeto ocupa su espacio densamente. Sólo a la llegada nos percatamos. Despacio penetramos el aire, conseguimos traspasarlo para cobijar a los nuestros.
17.
We return home with the cub into a space that has become round. The elastic walls recede with our voices. It seems the vacuity had been prepared for months, as each object occupies its own dense space. Only after arrival do we realize it as we slowly penetrate the air and manage to cross it to find a shelter for our own.
18.
No rodará, no caerá al vacío. No lo abrazará el aire, continente escueto al principio, península improvisada, isla final. Como en los trucos de magia, existen hilos invisibles, saliva que me ata a tres cuerpos y hace de mí una marioneta ciega.
18.
It will not roll nor fall into a void nor embrace the air, a bare continent at the beginning, an improvised peninsula, an island at the end. As with tricks of magic, invisible threads exist, saliva that ties me to three bodies like a blind marionette.
19.
Cada uno aguarda su turno para respirar. No nos vemos siquiera. Ocupamos salas de cristal con cuerpos transparentes, reflejados al azar. La gran mentira, el espejismo del aire. Mientras, las crías dormitan en la madriguera, repleta de oxígeno su sangre recién nacida.
19.
We each wait for our turn to breathe. We can’t even see each other. Our transparent bodies occupy glass rooms, randomly reflected. The mirage of air, a great lie. Meanwhile, the cubs are dozing snuggled close, their newborn blood full of oxygen.
20.
Escucha a su madre leer un cuento, la historia que lo espera al otro lado. Aún lo separan unos centímetros del designio. Un jabalí descompuesto en el bosque recuerda a ese niño alumbrado a la muerte. El deseo repetido de luna en luna, la tristeza rojiza del vacío. Mujer estéril que sueña al hijo con solo apartar la mano a tiempo.
20.
He listens as his mother reads a story, a story that waits for him from the other side. Yet still a few centimeters separate him from his fate. A rotting boar in the forest resembles the birth of the child born to death. The same desire passed from moon to moon, the reddish sadness of emptiness. A barren woman who dreams her son with only the withdrawal of her hand on time.
21.
Encontraste el sedal entre la arena, lejos del lugar del sacrificio. Casi caíste, y con todo tu cuerpo –uñas, árbol, océano– preguntabas qué era ese hilo. Te dimos palabras precisas, las más adecuadas seguramente. Nos pierde la exactitud. Aún así, siguen muriendo los peces de asfixia, con ese mismo sedal de tus dedos.
21.
You found the fishing line in the sand, far from the place of sacrifice. You almost fell down, and with your whole body – nails, tree, ocean – asked what was that thread. We replied with precise words, surely the most adequate. Exactitude is our undoing. But still fish continue to die of suffocation, with that same thread from your fingers.
Olga Muñoz Carrasco is author of the books: La caja de música (Madrid, Fundación Inquietudes/Asociación Poética Caudal, 2011), El plazo (Madrid, Amargord, 2012), Cada palabra una ceniza blanca (Valencia, Ejemplar Único, 2013), Cráter, danza (Barcelona, Calambur, 2016), 15 Filos (Madrid, Cartonera del escorpión azul, 2021), Tapiz rojo con pájaros (Madrid, Bala Perdida, 2021) and Filo (unpublished). Her editorial work is linked to the Genialogías collection at the Tigres de Papel publishing house and the Lengua de Agua collective. She completed her doctoral studies in Philology in Madrid, USA and Peru, and is currently a professor and researcher at Saint Louis University (Madrid Campus). In Lima she published her monograph Sigiloso desvelo- The poetry of Blanca Varela (Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, 2007). She prepared Blanca Varela’s anthology Y todo debe ser mentira (Barcelona, Galaxia Gutenberg, 2020) and in France she has just published her study Palabras para un canto. La escritura en espiral de Blanca Varela (Paris, Belin Éducation/Humensis, 2022). In recent years, her works have appeared in the field of Spanish-American and Spanish poetry. She is part of the research project “El impacto de la guerra civil española en la vida intelectual de Hispanoamérica” (“The impact of the Spanish civil war on the intellectual life of Latin America”) , which led to her book Perú y la guerra civil española. La voz de los intelecturales (Madrid, Calambur, 2013). She also teaches at the José Hierro Foundation (Madrid) and at the Diploma Course on Appreciation and Poetic Studies, Caracas (Venezuela).
Amparo Arróspide (born in Buenos Aires) is an M.Phil. by the University of Salford. As well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines, she has published five poetry collections: Presencia en el Misterio, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and En el oído del viento. The latter is part of a trilogy together with Jacuzzi and Hormigas en diaspora, which are in the course of being published. In 2010 she acted as a co-editor of webzine Poetry Life Times, where many of her translations of Spanish poems have appeared, she has translated authors such as Margaret Atwood, Stevie Smith and James Stephens into Spanish, and others such as Guadalupe Grande, Ángel Minaya, Francisca Aguirre, Carmen Crespo, Javier Díaz Gil into English. She takes part in poetry festivals, recently Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds) .
Route Signs. Poems by Javier Gil Martin. Translated from Spanish by Amparo Arrospide & Robin Ouzman Hislop
FIRST TERRITORY child eats crying child cries eating in animal concert Blanca Varela Lips that you have not used to kiss little feet you haven't walked on yet eyes which see just a foot from your face hands you still don't know are yours only crying, hunger and sleep and some furtive smile but now comes life beautiful Guille, and kisses will come and your steps and your eyes will see to the end of the horizon you will know your hands, and how to handle them but don't forget, my child, that crying, hunger, sleep were your first territory. PRIMER TERRITORIO
- niño come llorando
llora comiendo niño
en animal concierto
Blanca Varela
Javier Gil Martin (Madrid, 1981). With a degree in Spanish Philology from the UAM, he is professionally dedicated to subtitling and literary proofreading and passionately to reading and editing, mainly poetry. He has coordinated, together with good friends, several literary collections. In 2020 he founded the publishing project “Cartonera del escorpión azul” and since 2006 he coordinates the “Versos para el adiós” section of Adiós Cultural magazine. As an author, he has published Poemas de la bancarrota (Ediciones del 4 de agosto, Logroño, 2015), Poemas de la bancarrota y otros poemas (Espacio Hudson, Argentina, 2018), Museo de la intemperie (Ejemplar Único, Alzira, 2020) & Museo de la intemperie [II] (Cartonera Island, Tenerife, 2022). His “Route Signs” is a section of the latter.
Amparo Arróspide (born in Buenos Aires) is an M.Phil. by the University of Salford. As well as poems, short stories and articles on literature and films in anthologies and international magazines, she has published five poetry collections: Presencia en el Misterio, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and En el oído del viento. The latter is part of a trilogy together with Jacuzzi and Hormigas en diaspora, which are in the course of being published. In 2010 she acted as a co-editor of webzine Poetry Life Times, where many of her translations of Spanish poems have appeared, she has translated authors such as Margaret Atwood, Stevie Smith and James Stephens into Spanish, and others such as Guadalupe Grande, Ángel Minaya, Francisca Aguirre, Carmen Crespo, Javier Díaz Gil into English. She takes part in poetry festivals, recently Centro de Poesía José Hierro (Getafe).
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times his publications include All the Babble of the Souk and Cartoon Molecules collected poems and Key of Mist the recently published Tesserae translations from Spanish poets Guadalupe Grande and Carmen Crespo visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds) .
Forest Feline. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop
forest feline fir purring
-
dusks dawns this wastrel man
his vagrant days that like tattered
rags clothe his face
as autumn leaves fall
we walk together now to listen talk
where both our persons are now
diminished
before the tempest of ice
-
i care not for the molecules of kings
nor the stratagem of regimes
where we walk diminished in our pain
-
will come again jaguar moon
forest feline purring your dawn dusk’s born
hawthorn & the rowan the red berries growing
a van flashes by our simulacra
i have nothing to offer you
but my blood in your music
-
as I stumble through the straw
but this is beech place not pine
though i guess it’s the same decline

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com his publications include
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, & Moon selected Audio Textual Poems available at Amazon.com as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)
Cowboys & Injuns. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop
return the pastureland to nature
we ask too much of the cow
given the little we give back
let the predator the herbivore the pollinator
return
let the buffalo roam
O detritus spreader – but no
let the cow provide
the anthropocene is not only importuning
it is invading
there could be in the world
a discourse worldwide
but who speaks first
why does a plant become a tree
the forest is an orchestration
an instrumentation
not a tool
our hunger is as the hunger of the polar bear’s
eating us
more than a threat to an endangered species
we were that
that made you what you are
on a shoal of whales
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com his publications include
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, & Moon selected Audio Textual Poems available at Amazon.com as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)
Beluga. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop
white dolphin without wing
homing drawing succour beneath the ice floe
where the river meets the sea
downstream from the forest
song of the ocean a sonic alphabet
a web of sound we have yet to know
moving northward with nowhere to go
until the gulf of mexico
here today gone tomorrow
your palace of ice
i listen now for your call lost to us
still i am here upon the shore
or perhaps you outlive us all
deep upon the sea bed’s eddies
don’t you already know? we listen
but do not understand at all
in those warm seas where you might roam
who is the predator & who is the prey?
beyond our simulation
our simulacra
anthropocene
Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com his publications include
All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, & Moon selected Audio Textual Poems available at Amazon.com as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.
You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)