Poems by Luz Pichel Translated from Spanish by Amparo Arróspide & Robin Ouzman Hislop

Editor’s Note: although we include the originals in this text, to introduce the poems of Luz Pichel, she is a Galician poet, a region in Spain with its own language (Gallego) which although bears similarities to Spanish (Castellano) is strikingly different. Luz Pichel mixes both languages in her work, but we as translators, have translated both into English, (apart from the little French ditty On The Bridge of Avignon in the first poem) hence the footnotes will often indicate the original Gallego scripts in the texts.

(1.)  

the south mama maría

i did not take you to the south     nor to the southern station      so you could see     floor 0
floor 1    floor 2      the general view 1       prices maps tickets tours
southern pages      news      the such a pretty cross

I have to go one summer with you to the heavens to see the southern
cross mama
the south in all the languages of the world      your name
mother in all the stars      in all
the ways of milk
in our lovely rude tongue mother 2
south in french listen well        sur la table 3

a girl opened on the sacrificial table 4

sur le pont d'avignon
l'on y danse         l'on y danse 

sur-face
what do they make?
who makes the south?
who builds the south?
who profits from the south?
who profits? 5

les beaux messieurs font comme ça
et puis encore comme ça
(bang bang bang
a piggy gesture)
sur le sable 6      the cobra of fear crawled
on the sand he left engraved his     SS

the general view mama        these will be the plots of memory
l'on y dance tous en rond

les militaires font comme ça
(bang, bang bang
a homicide     a child)
et puis comme ça
les beaux messieurs e les militaires

the building of the south mama patricia mare mâe 7
our south their south les belles dames

les belles dames dansent
elles font comme ça
et puis encore comme ça

the south mama  eva   mamá   álvaro   rafa         guadalupe        francisca
rosalía     alfonsina     federico   emily  luis
chámase mamá manuel
mamá manuela/
where your migrant shins       grew
skinny on the sacrificial table 8

one day we will go all together there to the south mamai
they still have to see us dance on the cobra's SS
e puis encore 9    dance
we're all going to be prima ballerinas mama
noelina

the musicians will do like this like this like this
and still again if it is the case like this another time / comme ça 10 

**
vista xeral 1
na nosa lingua ruin bonita nai 2
on the table 3
sobre da mesa do sacrificio abríase a rapaza aquela 4
que fan?
quen fai o sur?
quen constrúe o sur? quen aproveita o sur?
quen se aproveita? 5
on the sand 6
mother mama 7
onde medraron as túas canelas migratorias
fracas na tabla do sacrificio 8
and then again 9
e os músicos farán así e así e así
e despois aínda si es caso outra vez así/ comme ça 10

(1.)

el sur     mamá maría

al sur no te he llevado     ni a la estación del sur      para que vieras     planta 0
planta 1         planta 2     vista xeral      los precios los mapas los tickets los recorridos las
páginas      del sur         las noticias         la cruz  tan guapa

he de ir un verano contigo al cielo a ver la cruz del sur mam
el sur en todas las linguas do mundo         tu nombre
de madre     en todas las estrellas     en todas
las vias de la leche     para que veas
na nosa lingua ruín bonita nai
sur en francés escucha bien         sur la table

sobre da mesa do sacrificio abríase a rapaza aquela

sur le pont d’avignon
l'on y danse         l'on y danse

sur--face
que fan?
quen fai o sur?
quen constrúe o sur? quen aproveita o sur?
quen se aproveita?

les beaux messieurs font comme ça
et puis encore comme ça 
(bang bang bang
un gesto guarro)
sur le sable se arrastraba la cobra del miedo
sobre la arena dejaba grabadas     sus eses

vista general mama           estas serán las eras de la memoria
l'on y dance tous en rond

les militaires font comme ça
(bang, bang bang
un homicidio     un niño)
et puis comme ça
les beaux messieurs e les militaires

construcción del sur mamá patricia mare mâe
el nuestro el de ellas les belles dames

les belles dames dansent
elles font comme ça
et puis encore comme ça

o sur mamá   eva   mamá   álvaro   rafa         guadalupe        francisca
rosalía     alfonsina     federico   emily  luis
chámase mamá manuel
mamá manuela/
onde medraron as túas canelas          migratorias
fracas na  tabla do sacrificio

un día vamos a ir todas juntas allá hasta el sur   mamai   para que sepas
aún nos han de ver danzar sobre la ese de la cobra e puis encore danzar
vamos a ser todas unas bailarinas de primera mamá noelina

e os músicos farán así e así e así
e despois aínda si es caso outra vez así/ comme ça 

(2.)

Now that you aren’ t here I want to tell you

of my land from before
Not the valleys you saw nor their so sweet accent.
I want you to know the muddy trails that you never trod
to seek  the warm mares of the night.
I want to strike you with a blow that tells
of the slow grit of roads 
where a song wet and hoarse is cooking
without bread for rocking cradles.
I met a woman with a dozen sons
who said she’d never loved anybody.
Another who hid her voice in mailboxes
and nailed her hope to the earth.
Another who loved, gave birth and kissed the bread she made.
And I met the man who loved her so much
he lived in stables of straw.
From a single cabbage he could get seven glasses of milk
that tasted like cabbage.
Children and cows shared all his songs
and he never told them about the war.
He will never die, because the land  needs his voice.
On winter nights he still bites a chestnut 
for each of the children who left.

(2.)

Ahora que no estás quiero contarte

mi paisaje anterior.
No los valles que viste ni el acento tan dulce.
Quiero que sepas los senderos del barro que no pisaste nunca
para buscar las yeguas templadas de la noche.
Quiero a golpes contarte el lento pedregal de los caminos
donde se cuece, húmeda y ronca,
una canción sin pan para cunas de alambre.
Conocí una mujer con doce hijos
que decía no haber amado a nadie.
Y otra que escondía su voz en los buzones
y clavaba en la tierra la esperanza.
Y otra mujer que amó y parió y besaba el pan que hacía.
Y conocí al hombre que la quiso tanto,
habitante de establos de paja.
De una sola col podía sacar siete vasos de leche
que sabían a col.
Compartían los hijos y las vacas todas sus canciones 
y jamás les habló de la guerra.
No morirá nunca, porque el paisaje necesita su voz.
En las noches de invierno, todavía muerde una castaña
por cada uno de los hijos que se fueron.

(3.)

I give you a herb
 
you said
inside a letter

take this leaf grandma I found it
it has dust
her name is luz  1

a tiny green thread an oval drawing
and the moon rolling down a rock
smell of orange blossom

this is called orange he said it is something to eat
I bought it at the cattle fair for you

a chick being hatched is not easy either
if there is no ear of wheat
if there is no waiting
if there is no space

some when they are hatched their roost is spoiled
they go

luz      but the leaf       has nerves covered
in dust but
do not then get confused      but blow

the woman picked up an ear of wheat from the ground
an ear of wheat has little flour but
it will make sense

orange falls the moment you passed by
it rolls       smells

I wanted to make a simple thing to give you
to give them
to give you
to make an old age
a death even
a thing like the spiral peel of an orange
unspoiled
(unlike the pedros´ baby girl
who came badly)
sometimes the peel is torn

take      luz       an orange look I found it in the air
and luz is not luz either
neither is a leaf that falls
- hayu hayuná hayunaí there! (someone celebrates something)

a woman on the door step gazes out
to far far away
her name was orange         she peeled well        she came out unspoiled
she had been learning simply to fall
in a spiral       on herself 

1. Light.

(3.)

te regalo una hierba
 
dijiste
dentro de una carta

toma esta hoja abuela la encontré
tiene polvo
se llama luz

un hilito verde un dibujo ovalado
y la luna rodando por una roca
olor a azahar

esto se llama naranja dijo es cosa de comer
en la feria la compré para ti

un pollito naciendo tampoco es fácil
si no hay espiga
si no hay espera
si no hay espacio

algunos cuando nacen se les rompe la casa
se van

luz pero      la hoja tiene los nervios       cubiertos
de polvo entonces
pero no confundirse           pero soplar

la mujer recogía del suelo una espiga de trigo
una espiga de trigo poquita harina tiene pero
tendrá sentido

naranja cae en el momento en que tú pasabas por allí
rueda          huele

yo quería hacer una cosa sencilla para darte
para darles
paro daros
hacer una vejez
una muerte incluso
una cosa así como la piel en espiral de una naranja
cuando se logra entera
(la niña de los de pedro no se logró tampoco
venía mal)
a veces se desgarra la piel

toma luz una naranja mira la encontré en el aire
y luz tampoco es luz
tampoco es una hoja que cae
-- ¡hayú hayuná hayunaí allá! (alguien celebra algo)

una mujer en el umbral se asoma al otro lado
mira desde muy muy lejos
se llamaba naranja         pelaba bien          salía entera
había ido aprendiendo a caer sencillamente
en espiral           sobre sí misma 

(4.)

Babe       take flowers to Chekhov´s grave
 
take        a little branch
if you go to russia one day       do that
you go and take flowers        but there
when you grow up
a seagull         at a beach       give her flight
so when you go to russia you ask
do you know where´s          Chekhov´s grave
it must have a painted         sea bird

he went cold

she was the apple of his        eye
she closed his eyes
wide open           like
portals of a house                 without people
like a hot cross bun she crossed his eyelids
and she said to herself        said      told herself
I´ll go dad      I´ll go             leave
in peace
I ´ll go
even if it rains

then        the little one put four
slices
of bread inside a bag
a small bottle of water        only four of bread only
´cos it would get hard         inside a bag
she started walking            into the hill
without anyone seeing her
´cos it was not proper         to wait to grow up
to go and put some flowers                over a
grave in russia 

(4.)

nena       llévale flores a la tumba de chejov
 
llévale      un ramito
si vas a rusia un día tú        lo haces
vas y le llevas flores            pero allá
cuando seas grande
una gaviota         en una playa         échala a volar
después vas a rusia            preguntas
usted sabrá dónde             la tumba de chejov
debe de tener pintado un                pájaro marino

se quedó

ella era la niña de los ojos               de él
le cerró los ojos
que los tenía                      así
portales de una casa                      sin gente
le hizo la cruz del pan                    sobre los párpados
y se dijo a sí misma          dijo       dijo para sí
he de ir papá                    he de ir                 marcha tranquilo
he de ir
aunque llueva

entonces                        la pequeña              cuatro rebanadas
de pan en una bolsa
botellita de agua           sólo cuatro de pan sólo
que se iba a poner duro                                 en una bolsa
echó a andar                 monte adentro
sin que la viera nadie
pues no era del caso                                      esperar a ser grande
para ir a poner unas flores                             encima de una
tumba en rusia 

(5.)

harriet tubman was born araminta ross
 
maria was born agnieszka
norma was born conchita
fernán was born cecilia
pocahontas was born matoaka
álvaro was born álvar
raphaël was born rafita
hypatia of alexandria was born a martyr
annika was born anita
rachael was born raquel
andrzej naceu 1 andrés
christine was born george
carla was born carlos
lucas naceu lilia
mary shelley was born mary godwin
dolly naceu dolly non saíu / she never left
the roslin institute 

1. was born

(5.)

harriet tubman nació araminta ross
 
maría nació agnieszka
norma nació conchita
fernán nació cecilia
pocahontas nació matoaka
álvaro nació álvar
raphaël nació rafita
hypatia de alejandría nació mártir
annika nació anita
rachael nació raquel
andrzej naceu andrés
christine was born george
carla nació carlos
lucas naceu lilia
mary shelley nació mary godwin
dolly naceu dolly non saíu / no salió nunca
del roslin institute 

(6.)

harriet tubman       rests her head        lays it

on the train track       and sleeps      she leads ahead      because she knows languages 
​​understands the signs    bears the beatings      knows the underground rail ways and sees 
what cannot be seen      and dreams what cannot be dreamt     next to harriet       all the 
others sleep     over the track    non return trips are long    forests are very scary bugs 
and smugglers are very scary   some countries are far too far they are so far away    some 
mornings never reach a train station   never never arrive    they pass by   in the darkness 
things look like bundles    the ones who move carrying linen bags or with a little old lady 
on their  shoulders     they look like wolves     mist    on her palm a woman has written a 
verse in orange ink     the train track is not a cosy pillow      the cold doesn´t let you 
keep your ideas safe      sleep and dream      the message read      the deeper the dream     
the farther it takes you     little foreigner 

(6.)

descansa a cabeza harriet tubman póusaa

na vía do tren     e dorme     ela vai por diante     porque sabe linguas     entende os 
letreiros     aguanta os paus / los palos     coñece os camiños de ferro sub da terra     
e ve o que non se ve   e soña o que non se soña     a caronciño / a la vera de harriet     
as outras dormen todas    sobre da vía    as viaxes sen retorno fanse largas   as fragas/
bosques meten moito medo meten medo os bichos e os estraperlistas     algúns países 
están lonxe de máis/  quedan tan tan lejos    algunhas mañás/mañanas non chegan 
nunca á estación dun tren/  no llegan nunca nunca   pasan na escuridade as cousas 
semellan vultos   os que se moven cargando con sacos de liño/ lino ou cunha velliña ao 
lombo/  una viejecita sobre los hombros      semellan lobos     néboa/  niebla     na 
man aberta ten escrito a muller un verso con tinta de cor laranxa    a vía do tren non 
é unha almofada xeitosa/ una almohada agradable no es la vía de un tren    o frío non 
permite acomodar as ideas sen perigo/ peligro     durme e soña  dicía a mensaxe    o 
soño canto máis fondo máis lonxe te leva/   más lejos te transporta     extranxeiriña 

 
 
Translations Amparo Arróspide & Robin Ouzman Hislop
 
 
Bio Photo. Luz Pichel & Amparo Arróspide. November 2017. Madrid.
 
 

 
 
Luz Pichel was born in 1947 in Alén (Lalín, Pontevedra), a tiny village in Galicia. Alén means “beyond” and also means “the beyond”. There she learned to speak in a language that could die but does not want to. Those who speak that language think that it is always others those who speak well.

She is the author of the poetry books El pájaro mudo (1990, City of Santa Cruz de la Palma Award), La marca de los potros (2004, XXIV Latin American poetry prize Juan Ramón Jiménez), Casa pechada (2006, Esquío Poetry Award ), El pájaro mudo y otros poemas (2004), Cativa en su lughar / Casa pechada (2013), Tra (n) shumancias (2015) and Co Co Co Ú (2017).
Part of her work Casa pechada was translated into English and Irish in the anthological book To the winds our sails: Irish writers translate Galician poetry, Salmonpoetry, 2010, ed. Mary O’Donnell & Manuela Palacios.

Neil Anderson translated into English Casa pechada. Several poems appeared in his blog (re) voltas; July, 2014.

Several poems from Casa pechada appeared in the American magazines SALAMANDER, No. 41, year 2015, and PLEIADES, vol. 36, Issue 2, p. 117, year 2016, in English translation by Neil Anderson.
 
 
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) .

 

Approach. An Audio Textual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

approach	 approach	approach
alone in my heart
let the day sail away
i shall stay in exaltancy
the dust track leads 
nowhere	in twilight she disrobes
anywhere's a gradient		nowhere
dawn is like this stray dog
two years ago		crying somewhere
they had bulldozed		afraid	lost		
their way through this
the local alcalde believed
the dust track		it would improve the economy
little did he know elephants return to the wilderness
wilderness wilderness wilderness	leads nowhere		
			in exaltancy	
			at great heights
at twilight		
the grandeur of the boulders		she disrobes
hovering upon the hillside		alone in my heart
approach	approach	approach
will hurtle down to unfathomble
the day sails			depths
now extends their itness
as we approach	approach	approach

 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

 

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

Dead Stars Flash Back. Poem Excerpt from Next Arrivals by Robin Ouzman Hislop

 	dead stars flashback         the rest must rise 
		to an unknown helplessness 
                    an earthbound memory 
                      savanna to tundra 
         each day                    a commanded homage 
		     to kao tao of fate 
		     to its fled ancestor 

      but i brimmed in apocalypse    under the welter of bones
	                yield to the inevitable 
	             in its charnel house brain  
          as panic stricken packs      sudden rain blaze 
                            an earthbound memory  
		         thwarted in its choked cry

    ancestor in its death     but inevitable     more than bones
		     sudden rain blazed dead stars 
	a homage to 	      until it fled	in its brain 
	each day commanded 	brimmed in apocalypse 
		to yield to the flashback with the rest 
		the welter choked cry charnel house

		      as panic stricken packs 
			  kao tao of fate 
                         savanna to tundra
	      i must rise to an unknown helplessness 
                      each day commanded of fate 

		     i must rise to an earthbound 
      memory to kao tao 	            yield to the inevitable 
    more than a homage to death 	to an unknown helplessness 
		     
		       brimmed in apocalypse

          i flashback 		         to my then thwarted ancestor 
          its choked cry 			      as sudden rain 
			  blazed in its brain 
	until it fled with the rest 	panic stricken packs 
			   savanna to tundra 
       under the welter of dead stars 	 charnel house of bones  

 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

 

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

The Split. An Audio Textual Poem. Excerpt from All the Babble of the Souk


 

He knew not, he said, whether he was a butterfly 
	who awoke to find he was a man 
or a man who awoke to find he was a butterfly. 

To begin in the image, he kills for in his dreams 
	he wakes from half forgotten 
to the commotion of the day sealed by a story. 

To begin in the image, a view before the abyss 
	from old familiar haunts 
what clings, where there’s neither choice nor chance 
	yet beckons, to the impossible impasse. 

The Breach. 


Wu Ch Eng En descends 
	the mountain of the five elements 
bearing the moon as his lamp 
	forever grows longer, he muses 
leaving no footprints in the snow. 

	At daybreak the view is emptiness 
the truth of truth is its lie, he muses 
	to a lamp without a night. 

Wu Ch Eng En rested 
	to speak with the world on emptiness. 
He looked at the village’s railings 
	their fierce barbs pointing to the sky 

between which shadows peered 
	as if to promise through tricks of light 

Mystery but revealing only bondage 
	to landscapes in whose labyrinths 
you could believe you were in a place 
	you’d never left 
where to return was just deception. 

Must not you and i be inside emptiness 
	for we cannot both be outside 
but the world made no reply 
	lost to a fleeting memory 
that may never return or may. 

Wu Ch Eng En said 

	Day dreams the wandering mind 
as lonely as a cloud, flower and song 
	but not without blood 
the lifeless, Terra-Cota army 
	marches over our groundless days 
outwards from the tomb. 

Nature Thrives on Deception. 

Chuang Tze perched 
	on his usual precipice and reflected 
on to suicide or not to suicide. 

He recalled he had worn a dark suit 
	dark glasses, returned 
on a crowded summer’s night to a past 
	whose memories 
he could no longer remember 
	there he had sown his wild seed 
what had they come to now 
	but the way of all nothingness. 

There are those who maintain 
	creation is a purposeless drift 
those who maintain its entelechy 
	can simulate a deity of divine attributes. 

Chuang Tze  rocked to, fro 
	would not such deities grow perplexed 
about their state of affairs 
	traces of white fleece trailed 
across that blue emptiness called the sky 
	thus in that fall 

from that exalted simulation 
believe they were immortal souls. 

Chuang Tze said 

Even the wind is flawed 
	as it speaks through the leaves of trees 
the moment of history. 

Now caught in time evermore 
	yet the leaves belong to the branches 
to make small patterns in infinity. 

And we, where do we belong 
	with our swan song, as if we were going home 
the day after tomorrow. 

*(in homage to Ezra)
 
 
 

 

 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

 

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

Yellow Blues. An Audio Textual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

yellow dust flights of hazes present as absent abstractions
as dawn breakings
as the ache of unfathomable memories
hauntings in a trackless desert of signs we make believe
each moment the better to kiss it goodbye like a butterfly
trapped beneath the sky

our entangled fate moves us only to wait the next entrapment
a seizure of happen stance dreams

as spectres of the day before its fall
and all we slay have slain after the birth of name
across that vast indifferent drift
that once seen we trembled in awe before

the arbitrariness of fate we now articulate
in our indentured voice amidst the tumult

& how could we ask for more when before us is only wall
we splatter our graffiti on
we threw our amazed cries like spears on the fresh wind

flights of hazes in the yellow dust
present in their absent abstraction
we make believe each moment the better to kiss it
                                                                      it goodbye


 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

 

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

 

Strange Fruit. Audio Textual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop


 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

Millenium. An Audio Textual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop


 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is on line Editor at Poetry Life & Times at Artvilla.com. His numerous appearances include Cold Mountain Review (Appalachian University, N.Carolina), The Honest Ulsterman, Cratera No 3 and Aquillrelle’s Best. His publications are collected poems All the Babble of the Souk, Cartoon Molecules, Next Arrivals & Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems. A translation from Spanish of poems by Guadalupe Grande Key of Mist and Carmen Crespo Tesserae, the award winning (X111 Premio César Simón De Poesía), in November 2017 these works were presented in a live performance at The International Writer’s Conference hosted by the University of Leeds. UK. A forthcoming publication of collected poems Off the Menu is expected in 2020

You may visit Aquillrelle.com/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)

For Olga. An Audio Textual Poem by Blanca Andreu. Translated from Spanish by Robin Ouzman Hislop and Amparo Arrospide

 

 

This work comprises in an excerpt from the anthology on contemporary Spanish female poets entitled Las Diosas Blancas. Madrid, 1985. Copyright Ed. Ramon Buenaventura. Hiperion. This is an original and unpublished English version of the original poem written in Spanish. Translators Robin Ouzman Hislop and Amparo Arrospide would like to thank Casa del Traductor, in Tarazona and the British Literary Translation Association, East Anglia University Campus.

From this Spanish anthology –compiled by the well-known scholar and translator Mr. Ramón Buenaventura, whom we contacted earlier– a few selected authors were chosen for our joint translation work: Amalia Iglesias: Te buscare para decirte (I Will Find You To Tell You) , Ana Rossetti: Triunfo de Artemis sobre Volupta (Triumph Of Artemis Over Volupta) and Isolda (Isolda) , Blanca Andreu: Para Olga (For Olga) , Isla Correyero: Los Pajaros (Small Birds), Amparo Amoros: Midas (Midas) and Criaturas del gozo (Creatures Of Joy) , Rosalia Vallejo: Horno en llamarada (A Furnace In Flames) , Maria del Carmen Pallares: Sisargas (Sisargas), Margarita Arroyo: Era el mar lejos del mar ( It Was Sea Away From Sea).

We would like to thank Mr. Ramón Buenaventura and the above name poets, in advance, and let them rest assured that their work is protected by a legal Creative Commons Licence, by virtue of which the above named translators are willing to provide excerpts from their original translation work, provided that readers agree to use it under the terms of such licence. We strongly recommend reading the entire work and the poets’, who have continued evolving during these decades.

For Olga

Girl of delicately golden tresses,
girl obsession of the virgin stork
with tufts of damask feathers
that splashed death,
of the crazy stork with wings
of golden strychnine
which flew off leaving you with a corporeal perfume,
a neat smell of lilacs, already golden and rude dreams.
Girl who obeyed the apostle scops owl
and the murky look of real eyes,
with puerile drawings of Selene and the rest.
Girl of non-existent concert,
girl of cruel sonatines and malevolent books by Tom Wolfe,
or witch lace to bandage wounded deer ulcers,
of fallow deer gazing from mystical knolls,
or places like that.
Pluperfect girl, girl we never were,
tell it now,
tell it now, you, now that it’s so late,
spell out the sombre tempo,
spell me the tear
the purple silhouette of the mare,
the foal that lay at your feet waking up foam.

Abandoned recite the words of yesteryear,
shadow of Juan Ramón: Solitude, I am true to you.
Scornful recite the words of yesteryear,
but not that courtly verse,
don’t talk of queens white as a lily,
snow and Joan burning
and interwoven melancholy
of dear Villon,
speak clear verbs where you can drink the saddest liquid,
jars of sea and relief, now that it is already so late,
raise your tiny voice and summon up the song:
tell life that I remember her,
I remember her.

This small death is definitely lost in a nascent forest,
the shoot of an arrested comet,
that nobody saves
young volcano of novice gust and bones
made of bird, eyelid and thinking wave
that no stella book
no book painted with Italien solar gold,
no book of lava
will seal for me.

And so death so many times written
becomes radiant,
and i can talk
of desire and the unseeing beam of the lighthouse,
of the chimerical corpse of the crew.
And so death
becomes the story
of that mute girl who hanged herself
with boreal harp’s strings
because of nuptial poison on her tongue.
I definitely get lost cradling litters of rare epitaphs,
girl of golden tresses,
I will tell life that you remember her,
I will tell death that you remember her
that you remember their lines conjuring your shadow,
that you remember their habits and tempo solo,
bitter laurel, deep bramble, brazen error and sorrowful hordes,
while Ephesian cats are crying at my feet,
while lost silver cats
go curdling their ancestry in genealogical cypress and poplar,
I will tell life to remember you,
to remember me
now,
when I rise with loops and hair strings
up to the disaster of my head
up to the disaster of my twenty years,
up to the disaster, lammergeier light.

De una niña de provincias que se vino a vivir en un Chagall, 1980

Para Olga

Niña de greyes delicadamente doradas,
niña obsesión de la cigüeña virgen
con mechones de plumas de damasco
que salpicaban muerte,
de la cigüeña loca con alones
de estricnina dorada
que viajaba dejándote un corpóreo perfume,
un pulcro olor a lilas, ya dorados y rudos sueños.
Niña que obedeció al autillo apóstol
y a la mirada turbia de los ojos reales,
con pueriles dibujos de Selene y demás.
Niña de inexistente concierto,
niña de crueles sonatinas y malévolos libros de Tom Wolfe,
o de encajes de brujas para vendar las llagas de los corzos heridos,
de ciervos vulnerados asomados en los oteros místicos,
en los sitios así.
Niña pluscuamperfecta, niña que nunca fuimos,
dilo ahora,
dilo ahora tú, ahora que es tan tarde,
pronuncia el torvo adagio,
pronúnciame la lágrima,
la silueta morada de la yegua,
la del potro que se tendió a tus pies despertando la espuma.

Declama abandonada las palabras de antaño,
sombra de Juan Ramón: Soledad, te soy fiel.
Declama desdeñosa las palabras de antaño,
pero no aquella estrofa cortesana,
no hables de reinas blancas como un lirio,
nieves y Juana ardiendo,
y la melancolía entretejida
del querido Villon,
sino los verbos claros donde poder beber el líquido más triste,
jarros de mar y alivio, ahora que ya es tarde,
alza párvula voz y eco albacea y canta:
Dile a la vida que la recuerdo,
que la recuerdo.

Definitivamente se extravía en un bosque naciente esta muerte pequeña,
el brote del cometa detenido,
esto que nadie salva,
joven volcán de huesos y ráfaga novicia
hecha de pájaro y de párpado y de ola pensante
que ningún libro estela,
ningún libro estofado de oro solar de Italia,
ningún libro de lava
viene a sellar por mí.

Y así la muerte tantas veces escrita
se me vuelve radiante,
y puedo hablar
del deseo y del lacre rubio y ciego en los faros,
del cadáver quimera de la tripulación.

Y así la muerte
se convierte en historia
de aquella niña muda que se ahorcó
con las cuerdas boreales del arpa
porque tenía en la lengua un veneno nupcial.
Definitivamente me extravío acunando camadas de raros epitafios,
niña de grey dorada,
diré a la vida que la recuerdas,
diré a la muerte que la recuerdas,
que recuerdas sus líneas conjurando tu sombra,
que recuerdas sus hábitos y su carácter solo,
su laurel ácido, su profunda zarza, su descarado error y sus hordas dolidas,
mientras gatos efesios van llorando a mis pies,
mientras gatas perdidas plateadas
van cuajando su alcurnia en ciprés genealógico y en álamo,
diré a la vida que te recuerde,
que me recuerde,
ahora,
cuando me alzo con cuerdas capilares y bucles
hasta el desastre de mi cabeza,
hasta el desastre de mis veinte años,
hasta el desastre, luz quebrantahuesos.

“De una niña de provincias que se vino a vivir en un Chagall”1980

AUTHOR: BLANCA ANDREU (1959)
Bibliography:
– De una niña de provincias que se vino a vivir en un Chagall (awarded the 1980 Adonais International Poetry Prize) (Ediciones Rialp, Madrid, 1981).
– Báculo de Babel (awarded the Fernando Rielo International Poetry Prize) (Hiperión, Madrid, 1983).
– Elphistone (Visor Libros, Madrid, 1988)
– El sueño oscuro: (poesía reunida, 1980-1989) (Hiperión, Madrid, 1994).



Blanca Andreu (born 1959 A Coruña) is a Spanish poet. She grew up in Orihuela, where her family still resides, and attended El Colegio de Jesus-Maria de San Agustin, followed by studies in philology in Murcia. At age 20, she moved to Madrid without formally completing her education. Here, she met Francisco Umbral, who introduced her to the literati of the city.

In 1980, she was awarded the Premio Adonáis de Poesía for her work entitled, De una niña de provincias que se vino a vivir en un Chagall. Her use of surrealism is considered the beginning of the Post-Modern Generation. Her later work has tried to shy away from the surrealist tendencies of her early pieces.[2]

In 1985, she married novelist Juan Benet. After he died in 1993, she returned to La Coruña where she now lives a semi-reclusive life.

Awards

1980: Premio Adonáis de Poesía
1981: Premio de Cuentos Gabriel Miró
1982: Premio Mundial de Poesía Mística, Fernando Rielo
1982: Premio Ícaro de Literatura
2001: Premio Internacional de Poesía Laureà Mela

Translators:

Amparo Arrospide (Argentina) is a poet and translator. She has published seven poetry collections, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar, Presencia en el Misterio, En el Oido del Viento, Hormigas en Diáspora , Jaccuzzi, and Valle Tiétar, as well as poems, short stories and articles on literary and film criticism in anthologies and in both national and foreign magazines. She has received numerous awards.

 

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; his publications include

All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, 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)

 

 

Editor’s Note: see also Poetry, National Literature Prize 2018, Francisca Aguirre, Translated from Spanish by Amparo Arróspide & Robin Ouzman Hislop

Crocuta crocuta. Excerpt from Cartoon Molecules Collected Poems An Audio Textual Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

The spotted hyena      aka the laughing hyena         both male and female genitals are strikingly similar

Natural History Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79)       ab uno animali sepulchra erui inquisitione corporum

–     it was more jackals that were prone to digging bodies out of shallow graves and eating them    Robert Graves     White Goddess  –   The Jackals, sacred to Anubis, Guardian of the Dead, because they fed on corpse like flesh and had mysterious nocturnal habits.

the hyena is of feline descent

hyenas were hermaphrodites bearing both male and female organs         Aristotle declared in the Historia animalium    “this is untrue.”

medieval bestiaries drew a moral lesson from the depravity of beasts excluded from Noah’s ark     in 1614 God had only saved the purely bred          hyenas were reconstituted after the flood through the unnatural union of a dog and cat

female hyenas virtually indistinguishable from males      their clitoris enlarged and extended to form an organ of the same size shape and position as the male penis can also be erected

high foetal androgen levels responsible for male sexual facies in adult female spotted hyenas

an unfair stereotype of hyenas in reality fascinating intelligent even beautiful creatures

Disney animators sketches for The Lion King the trio of hyenas in the movie reinforce the common stereotype of hyenas as cowardly skulking lowlifes

Ernest Hemingway, – Fisi, the Hyena, hermaphroditic self-eating devourer of the dead, trailer of calving cows, ham-stringer, potential biter-off of your face at night while you slept, sad yowler, camp-follower, stinking, foul, with jaws that crack the bones the lion leaves, belly dragging, loping away on the brown plain –

“Hyenas” movie      an urban legend account of human encounters and attacks by a sub-culture of predatory cryptohuman hyenas      shape-shifting human-like creatures prowl the rural back roads and forests of North America           thought to exist by cryptozoologists

folklore and sightings persist even as mainstream science denies their existence

Rudyard Kipling:   The wise Hyenas come out at eve to take account of our dead,… they know the dead are safer meat than the weakest thing alive… and tug the corpse to light, the pitiful face is shown again, an instant ere they close in.

UK Teaching Resources TES     Edwin Morgan enters the mind of the hyena      English National 5 Poetry he describes its patient menacing personality      Morgan adopts the persona of a hyena    I sing and am the slave of darkness, my place is to pick you clean and leave your bones to the wind.

a hunters  poem from Lesotho description shifts to the first person singular to give the hyena’s own words          I growl being a poor body, I am small, I am hunched up like the elephant…

hyena of the Mmankala of Kone-land     a group whose symbol is the hyena     when it says ngou!   it devours even man

a Yoruba hunting poem      the hyena is regarded as the ultimate scavenger there being nothing it won’t eat      oral poetry from Africa    Hyena   who is there when the mourner buries the corpse eats fat and bone, scabbard and hide

spotted hyena strongest jaws in proportion to body size across the entire mammal kingdom cunning hunting tactics    nocturnal nature     nefarious reputations      frontal cortex of their brains thought to regulate social intelligence

the largest of the other three species brown striped and aardwolf     spotted hyenas are among Africa’s most vocal animals

 

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Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com his publications include

All the Babble of the Souk Cartoon MoleculesNext Arrivals, Collected Poems, and the recently published Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, 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)

 

 

Next Arrivals. An Audio Textual Poem, Excerpt from Next Arrivals Collected Poems by Robin Ouzman Hislop

Author’s comment: this is a technically constructed work from texts  both edited & derived from Yuval Noah Harari’s   Sapiens & Homo Deus  with interpolations and additions made by the author   (2017)

*

we invent them to serve us        controlling our existence

to create virtual worlds with hells and heavens

myths domesticate science

fiction and reality blur        shaping our reality

an assembly of biochemical algorithms      flash fade     flash fade

*

spinning

*

epidemic is business economy grows

human experience as any other item

in the supermarket a designable product

intelligence mandatory consciousness optional

individuals = dividuals

in carbon or silicon

*

owned by imaginary gods

who     what you are     how to turn you     on and off

*

beyond control

beyond

the opaque wall

algorithms can command empire

or an upper class ruling the planet

if words could make dreams come true

a simultaneous instant in the brain of seven billion

emerges the beautiful androgynous face of the serial killer

wheat eater          bread winner

*

& the deluge of data

millions of nano-robots coursing humankind’s veins

an Orwellian police state

splits into

the chosen hi-tech Noah’s Ark

a new religion information flow

Datism

A Brave New World

*

to merge or not to merge

the human genome as a digital processor

where overwhelming data

garbles the message in dystopian double talk

will the defeaters prevail

or cometh utopia from outer space

our post human descendants

*

do as you would be done by Datism

as we condemned the mammoth to oblivion

your every action

but where no human can follow or need to understand

in the matrix     the inter net of all things

*

where has the power gone

the cosmic data God draweth nigh

the great flow

to maximise    to plug you in    voters of the world unite

a colossus astride this narrow world

free market       big brother

watches over every breath you take

invisible hand that flies in the night

*

between laboratory & museum

voice of a million ancestors

a ripple in the cosmic data flow

shifts homo centric view to data centric view

knowing us better than we know ourselves

*

forager

scavenger of carrion follower in fear & flight

big brained

Neanderthal Denisovan Sapiens

what drove you for 2 million years

a big bum?

*

what bound

small divergent groups of differing tongue & taboo

into the framework of humankind

but fiction

collective myths woven into our reality

from money to the nation state

imprisoned

by the archetypes

we’ve identified them with          a virtual reality of cartoon molecules 

https://www.facebook.com/PoetryLifeTimes

https://www.twitter.com/PoetryLifeTimes

Robin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times ; at Artvilla.com his publications include

All the Babble of the Souk Cartoon MoleculesNext Arrivals, Collected Poems, and the recently published Moon Selected Audio Textual Poems, 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)