“After the rain there were those birds and small clouds. The sunset came quietly, with a lot of colour. A kind of pink trembled on the water, side by side with orange. Strange, he said, that there are colours, that we see.”
— Yannis Ritsos, “After Rain”, Exile and Return: Selected Poems, 1967-1974 (tr. Edmund Keeley)
Passio Discerpta XVII. “Monumenta aperta” – George Herbert (1593-1633)
While, My Life, you were dying, The buried dead themselves arose, And in exchange for one man bound The throng was set free. But you do not so much die for yourself As live in them, and Death, Now given breath, lays claim to your life. By all means, go and seek The Crucified among the tombs – he lives! Many sepulchers overmaster A single Cross. Thus, it is fitting That God, in accord with His Majesty, Should not lose the life He bestowed, but multiply it.
Dum moreris, Mea Vita, ipsi vixere sepulti, Proque uno vincto turba soluta fuit. Tu tamen, haud tibi tam moreris, quam vivis in illis, Asserit et vitam Mors animata tuam. Scilicet in tumulis Crucifixum quaerite, vivit: Convincunt unam multa sepulcra Crucem. Sic, pro Maiestate, Deum, non perdere vitam Quam tribuit, verum multiplicare decet.
The Dead Appear in the Temple, James Tissot, between 1886 and 1894
Anthologia Palatina 9.24 = Leonidas of Tarentum (320-260 BCE)
The fiery sun, whirling its axis, Dulls the stars and the moon’s holy circles; Just so Homer has plunged into night All the songsmiths in a mass, Holding high the Muses’ brightest light.
En Barcelona, hay catedral inconclusa. Hace más que un siglo, pálidos cuerpos de santos y agujas sin resolución se han formado como coral.
¿Cuántos manos la tocaron? ¿Cuánto tenemos que esperar para el coronamiento? Perdemos la paciencia. Muchas personas nos han hecho promesas y cada incompleta nos merma.
Sin embargo, todo el mundo la visita. Quizás la gente cree en la promesa de su mármol. Quizás mitad-maravilla es mejor que nada. Cuando te vengo, sagrada, traigo ladrillo.
Don’t you know?
This country is like returning to my childhood home and finding bodies in the drywall. Like learning I’ve been bred on bone-dust
and martyr marrow. Not my parents’ strong hands. Not my spine. This country’s concrete lullaby makes my mind a petri dish: replicate and replicate. It makes a coroner of me.
The sins I’ve eaten embarrass me, this genteel cannibal feast. How could I not know whose marbled meat? America, you cauldron. You sacred vein. You tourniquet.
Miss Translated is an exploration of identity, language, family history, and the things that get lost in translation. If you like this work, consider buying the Miss Translated chapbook. Proceeds benefit the New Sanctuary Coalition, an immigrant rights group based in NYC. You can also support the author on Patreon.
[my attempt at a translation of the Spanish – op, ask me to delete it if you disapprove.]
the flag / American elisa chavez
You know what?
In Barcelona, there is an unfinished cathedral. For over a century, Saints’ pallid corpses* and spires without resolution have formed themselves like coral.
How many hands have touched her?** How long must we wait for the crowning?*** We are losing patience. So many people have made us promises and each one unkept diminishes us.****
Nevertheless, the whole world***** visits her. Perhaps people believe in the promise of her marble. Perhaps half a marvel is better than nothing. When I come to you, sagrada,****** I am bringing brick.
________
*or just bodies **antecedent is the cathedral, so could also translate this as it,but i thought personification of the cathedral was fitting *** or culmination but i wanted to keep that crownroot in there; i also imagine the poet intends this play on words **** i had trouble with this line so it might be wrong; also diminishes us could also be translated reduces us or even uses us up. ***** or just everyone ******I keep this word untranslated since we’re talking about the Sagrada Familia here, but in English it’d be sacred.(Also, i suppose sagrada’s antecedent might not be the cathedral but instead the speaker, if the speaker is feminine)
Our fall season includes two bilingual collections of poetry newly translated from the French, by Alice Paalen Rahon and Claire Malroux—both poets who occupy the space between two worlds, be they of language, nation, culture, sexuality, or philosophy.
Alice Paalen Rahon was a shapeshifter: a surrealist poet turned painter who was born French and died a naturalized citizen of Mexico. Bicultural, bisexual, and fiercely independent, her romantic life included affairs with Pablo Picasso and the poet Valentine Penrose. This new selection of Rahon’s poems celebrates the visionary work of a woman who defied easy definition.
Claire Malroux holds a unique place in contemporary French poetry, with influences from both the French and Anglophone traditions—especially the work of Emily Dickinson. Her subtle, intimate poems move between an intense, abstract interiority and an acute engagement with the material world. This new volume is a bilingual selection by the award-winning poet and translator Marilyn Hacker.
