ONE-HANDED. Poetry by Mexicans, Translators, Scots and Google ( 2018). J. Adcock & R. Bery (Eds)

ONE-HANDED poetry by Mexicans, Translators, Scots and Google edited by Juana Adcock & Rahul Bery

HEBEL

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edited by Juana Adcock & Rahul Bery ONE-HANDED POETRY BY MEXICANS, TRANSLATORS, SCOTS AND GOOGLE HEBEL

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ONE-HANDED poetry by Mexicans, Translators, Scots and Google edited by Juana Adcock & Rahul Bery

HEBEL ediciones Cuadrá-Tú | Poesía 5

ONE-HANDED. POETRY BY MEXICANS, TRANSLATORS, SCOTS AND GOOGLE edited by Juana Adcock & Rahul Bery, 2018. © HEBEL Ediciones Colección Cuadrá-Tú |Poesía Santiago de Chile, 2018 www.issuu.com/hebel.ediciones Fotografía de portada y contraportada © Hugo Godoy Diseño y collage: Luis Cruz-Villalobos.

Qué es HEBEL. Es un sello editorial sin fines de lucro. Término hebreo que denota lo efímero, lo vano, lo pasajero, soplo leve que parte veloz. Así, este sello quiere ser un gesto de frágil permanencia de las palabras, en ediciones siempre preliminares, que se lanzan por el espacio y tiempo para hacer bien o simplemente para inquietar la vida, que siempre está en permanente devenir, en especial la de este "humus que mira el cielo".

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ONE-HANDED poetry by Mexicans, Translators, Scots And Google

This book is the result of a playful investigation into questions of translation, authorship and the possibilities of Google Translate in poetry. We paired Mexican poets with Scottish poets, and asked them to each produce their own version of the same source poem originally in Spanish. Because we don‘t believe in the stability of the original, we gave it to the Mexican in its rough draft form. The Mexican wrote a version of it, which was then both translated into English by one of our very dear literary translator friends, and also fed through Google Translate and sent to a Scottish poet for their own versioning.

This was done in a deliberate attempt to arrive at translations that diverged from each other as widely as possible while still being able to intuit a shared spirit and origin. Only the English texts are presented here, leaving the originals to the imagination of each reader, while downplaying the importance of the source material. To quote one of the Mexican poets included in the anthology, Cristina Rivera Garza, ―all writing is a process of self-translation.‖

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This is the first anthology (that we know of) that puts Mexican and Scottish poets side by side. We see points of contact between the two countries in their ways of seeing and seeking; in their own specific experiences of colonialism, oppression, rebellion, autonomy and lingüistic identity. The works were commissioned, written, translated and compiled over a period amidst the furore and heartbreak of the Scottish and Brexit referendums, during which the above subjects were being passionately discussed. We thought there could be a really interesting dialogue with Mexican poets, who so often focus on being transgressive, rebellious and non-conformist, and often display a decidedly Europhile worldview. At the same time, we were interested in how the more subtle, nature-loving aspects of Scottish poetry might come into play when confronted with machine-generated translations of Mexican poems that could seem at odds with the mainstream Scottish literary tradition.

This book promotes literary translation as an art in its own right, and also wishes to go beyond anxieties around fidelity or infidelity in translation, hoping to create space for more collaborative, open-ended translation practices, whilst putting Mexico and Scotland into each others‘ literary consciousnesses. The source texts have been lost, decaying and falling away like a perishable item cast in plaster. Or alternatively, they can be found in another version in the pages of Juana Adcock‘s Manca, a collection first published in Mexico in 2014 by Fondo Editorial Tierra Adentro, with a re-print forthcoming in 2019 by Argonáutica, which will include Robin Myer‘s translation.

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We are grateful to the editors of Mexico City Lit, Anomalous Press, Glasgow Review of Books, and Girasol Press for publishing earlier extracts of this book, and are pleased to bring the whole collection together for the first time here.

The editors Juana Adcock & Rahul Bery Glasgow, 2018

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CONTENTS 1.

Cuchillo : : knife

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Survival : : Journey into exile

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Garden : : Gairden

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Afternoon light : : A house within a house

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Your seams hurt me : : The Western Sierra Madre

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ID number : : Facks o life

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Ill will : : My bad one

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Papi : : The hospital was not a cartoon

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Sitting Indian style : : Hero pose

10. Extinction of the Mexican Wolf : : Cuetlachcoyotl 11. Awkward momentum : : (untitled) 12. Opiumpoppyman : : Ana-apollo

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Cuchillo PAULA ABRAMO & Lucy Greaves

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Knife ETTA DUNN

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PAULA ABRAMO translated by Lucy Greaves CUCHILLO The dictionary is the universe. It drools explanations, but at first sight it is stupefying, like the bustle of large unknown cities.

Raul Pompeia

It wasn‘t clear if they were glorifying or or recording themselves or just drooling but they were, in any case, stupefying.

So, at first sight, the winding alleys of Lexico City.

I, first of all, lived in a house called cuchillo.

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The word cuchillo drooled at the edges, the brand new tongue poked out through the fresh cut licking soft fat and milk and games in bed from the corners. It was a house made of silver, with blades that recorded, crawled drooled in a room, at seven pm, in that neighbourhood called San Miguel Chapultepec.

It was a cuchillo. It wasn‘t a curved knife, it was a cuchillo, it wasn‘t a machete, it was a blunt breakfast knife, a cuchillo for spreading honey on bread, but it cut, the first word I said in another tongue.

It was a serrated blade, the word

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had minute teeth, it cut like a plough marking the boundaries of a piece of land: on this side of the wall is cuchillo (but it‘s not polite to wield a cuchillo when others are around), on that side are the streets and their dandies and their Indians, and the real cuchillos, the knives of this world, but the cuchillo stays at home.

It is the house: the book on the shelf, the bedtime story, cut by the cuchillo, by a wall of silence: the cuchillo buttering our daily bread.

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Etta Dunn KNIFE In a mist with medication, salivation, automation.

Thus, I search the maze of pages of words.

In new language knife leaps forward, ends trailing seductively, licks my flesh, shrinks back to its home,

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a salivating sliver of silver, at seven pm in a room in San Miguel Chapultepec.

It was a knife, a curved knife not a machete, a sickle shaped blunt breakfast knife that spreads butter on toast.

My first word in another language knife had a serrated edge, tiny teeth, cut like a plough furrowing a field: you are my inner wall knife, beyond the outer wall

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are the busy streets with fools and foes and who knows what.

Knives are true, they know their place.

His knife is here, in his home.

The book back on the shelf.

Cut by knife, battered by a wall of silence: his knife will go on buttering bread daily.

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Survival AMARANTA CABALLERO & Lawrence Schimel

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Journey into exile ETTA DUNN

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Amaranta Caballero translated by Lawrence Schimel SURVIVAL "where the dogs rule/ seven to one above/ the humans /the cats don't count/siamese or whatever/ surplus of sparking eyes/ dreaming survival."

Alurista From the book: Et tú‌raza pg. 32

1) Survival: The gums survive. And the teeth within an envelope.

The tongue crawls a mollusk and an echo in the brain like hundreds of birds rebel squatters in the trees. Squabbling. The same ones who were heroes before.

The Central Intelligence Agency lives behind the gums, within the brain and above the teeth but more along the tongue. Well do you know that. What can I tell you?

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The acacias of Guanajuato remind me a little of you: Their branches cut the air dryly. And remain there. And will remain there. Just like the dogs, who from behind every door bite.

Alberto Baltazar my gallbladder filled up with stalactites.

Alberto Baltazar I am a hoodless mummy of Guanajuato. Shoddy hood.

Alberto Baltazar.

2) Survival: When I discovered that L.A. is the true Aztlån I thought I don’t want more fights. And I went to gather stones from the Palos Verdes peninsula where I found smooth, pinkish sea star covered in niter upon the igneous rock and where I found a sleeping igneous man, vomiting upon a bench in the middle of a multimillion dollar golf course. The homeless black man's forehead was wounded and he slept. The star resisted the sea waves that whipped it and the stones are eight to fifteen million years old. How obscene. Excuse me, I meant to say Miocene. The fourth period of the Cenozoic Era. 3) Survival: Alberto Baltazar, do you know why I am not there today?

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4) Survival: I told you about my Guanajuatal gallbladder. It filled up with stalactites.

I can't hide my mineral origin.

Now here on the border, in recent years, I devote myself to bilious jewelry.

Rings, lockets, brooches, diadems, earrings and even purses inlaid with those cold stones.

I never thought my pains would be so profitable.

5) Survival: We are above the experience. And where are we going?

Let's ask Cojolite. Or King Zopilote. Or the Blind Fish.

My nahual is my doppelgänger. It has told me that some of us species are in danger of extinction.

6) Alurista: To your health! For all the seven to one, for those who don't count and for the sparking eyes.

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7) Survival: Soon, the solvency of knowing how to live: The dream.

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LA Callery JOURNEY INTO EXILE I am dog-tired kerosene lamplight flickers illuminating distant landscapes punctuated by elements darkest fears lurk in shadows black-gold glinting in moonlight cowering in corners like rabid dogs until they escape the periphery unpredictability grows like a cancer overpowering senses with utter conviction sinks teeth into nerve endings and the ending is blackness full stop it‘s every man for himself when the hunger comes

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survive the animal stay entire part of empire colonise the soul place shining coins upon my lids blind the weak with monarchy‘s profile it takes a brave man to remove the coins of Hades venture into the unknown like a new-born blinded by the future rising all the black-gold in the world could not falter the iron will of men work-weary endangered species ground-down into coal-dust indigenous language creeps unstated: in the beginning was the sound and the revolution is coming

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Garden NADIA ESCALANTE & Ben Dawlatly

Gairden CHRISTINE DE LUCA

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Nadia Escalante translated by Ben Dawlatly GARDEN We walked through the garden full of insects, the humid morning, nearing its end, the fertile rotting of the summer, the comfort broken by the buzzing, the flight of languages no longer spoken, lines that very few read, slowly so that they resonate.

You spoke to me about dead things that you had read the day before, would they live again, return to the womb? You stopped to show me the slowness so the grass would not be crushed when sitting, to listen to the opening of the pority

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on the chrysalides, preparing hands to be soaked in the weight of memories and premonitions, changing them, shedding their lichen, mending their letters, speaking to them until they respond, transform.

My body was a closed garden, deaf and numb, seductive like an unknown tongue; some names, you knew, their root as old as the idea of foreign words that, little by little, fasten themselves to the landscape, the quotidian noises.

I learnt the rings in my back, the itinerant arch of my feet, the stubbornness of my knee pits, the balance of my belly and shoulders to build a house.

Your words, linking maritime cities, have a meridian breezy smell,

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of keeling freighters, consonants falling into the archipelago, Silvern, my harrowed rhyming art.

You opened yourself like an inland sea, docks of saltpetre, coves of lead, memories of voyages in the midday anchor.

Cross them like stepping onto solid ground, onto the continent of unknown, voracious tongues: utter them like the green fear of the dead, faces behind hands on the train windows of each fast and murky pane: frozen cinema, your tenacious reflection facing that which disappears.

About the garden there was no cloud giving modest signs piled up like clothes hung out to dry on the cables.

And you looked at me, come here, lips sealed it was the itching in the palm of my hands, and the doubt

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what is this, it’s ridiculous, a breeze behind the ears to dwell upon; I wanted to learn how to write on the earth words that still live, feeding on locked up languages.

In the black escarpments insects are born, we saw them on the fence, under the buzz of something similar to the fever on your red shirt.

You smelt, I thought, of a poisonous order.

I gave you a sprouting bulb like a disparate gasp, a hot tightness in the belly.

You said inaudible words to burst the clouds, to welcome the rain between the dead languages, the pollen.

To learn to stay, and expect, with you, to bid farewell to images that disappear, reflections, buttercups on the water. Here, the earth welcomes us, it gives us feet,

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and mountain ranges, where was your poison, red thing, after you taught me your words?

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Christine de Luca GAIRDEN We wir i da gairden, a footh o flechs, a drushie moarnin, a waarm mulder o mรถld, da aesy-osie o basket shairs an da bizzin comin tae a end; a flicht o languages fae livin tongues, twartree lines, slow to ring i mi head.

You telt me o dead things you wir read yesterday, Wid dey live again, aroond me, a new birth? I whet tinkin ta shaa dem at hes nae veesion foo no to brack da blades o girss; jรถst ta set dem doon, hark at foo ta oppen da auld secrets o pupatin;

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mak again da letters möv dem aboot, scraep aff aald man‘s baerd til da wirds stand prood again, can hadd da weicht o memory da dreams; spaek wi dem till dey anse till dey mak sense.

Mi boady wis a closed gairden, deaf an numb; as winnin an wilsom as a uncan tongue; some names you ken, tö-names, röts as owld as da hills dat hae a wye o makkin sense o laand, o da noises aroond wis.

As I turned awa I hüld tae da notion dat ta bigg a hoose, ta bigg onythin you need a göd foond: feet steadyin da upper-boady, belly an shooders.

Dy wirds hark back ta tyin up in ports, niffin da breeze, da aest or wast-ness, cargo ships heelin, consonants da sharp shaep o island chains

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Fierro, cabbó, mi gunfire o soonds.

Du opened up as a shaltered sea, saaty springs, dulskit houbs mindin on far awa places anchorin at da heicht o da day.

Gyaain trowe hit, lik gyaain sooth tae da mainland, da continent o tongues, desperate ta glunsh dem doon: read dem alood for faer dey‘ll disappear, mizzle awa lik a glisk o faces half-hoidit ahint haands i da mistit-up filmic dash o train windows: dey canna hadd apö dem dy insistent eemage; hit‘s gien.

Abön da gairden brash cloods croodit in, busy as da flaachter o a claes line.

An I gaaned, come, wi nae mention dat I wantit ta cloor baith mi löf an mi doots whit is dis, hit’s a coarn mad, affa da sile, a laar o wind i mi lugs;

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I wantit ta laern foo ta scrieve apö da grund words still foo o life, ta feed affa secret languages.

I da black banks da flechs we saa apö da fence, anunder der fevered soond, dy red sark, sabbin wi taers.

A‘m sure hit wis pooshin I could smell ..

I gied dee a bulb aboot ta sproot as a parteeclar lung-foo, a warm-bellied tichtness.

Du balled wirds beyond hearin ta burst da cloods, ta mak hit rain da dead languages, da pollen.

Wait, bide, but da meltin eemages du left, da reflections, lik blugga apö watter, dey gud, dey mizzled awa.

Here, we stoiter on wi peerie steps apö dis aert, Did du poor me a daeth draft, a red pooshin, eftir teachin dy wirds?

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A house within a house RACHEL MCCRUM

Afternoon light OMAR PIMIENTA & Rosalind Harvey

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OMAR PIMIENTA translated by Rosalind Harvey AFTERNOON LIGHT You were hanging a picture of your opened hands on the wall that always looks to the window the sun moves forward its warmth on the painting five in the afternoon winter time little by little we noticed the cold more this house dark box where we arrived, photosensitive I directed you: left right bit higher not so much memory of illumination with little retention effort to recall what the afternoon and the wall are murmuring in the ear of the girl of my eyes

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you listened to me, frustrated, your arms tired your painted hands fingering the traces of the memory when we‘d finished we sat down under the window you wanted to see how your hands were bathed in colour The light spilling out between your fingers.

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Rachel McCrum A HOUSE WITHIN A HOUSE the shore rolled under his hands and her lines faltered went weak at the knees she keeled and beached he was sand stuck folded in on [himself] [himself] [himself] she flitted past a crumpled paper ghost sodden with September drizzle past where he would not extend his fading reach

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Your seams hurt me [24 propositions] CRISTINA RIVERA GARZA & Jessica Sequeira

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The Western Sierra Madre RICHARD PRICE

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Cristina Rivera Garza Translated by Jessica Sequeira YOUR SEAMS HURT ME [TWENTY-FOUR PROPOSITIONS] 0.

1.

mother: your seams hurt me 1.1. your absent laughter, 1.2. your excellent songs of sap and metal.

2.

how many times 2.1. in the original whirlwind of the navel, 2.2. the places where we made ourselves ancient, 2.3. did you leave us alone in the regulated night.

3.

the pyramidal lamps, 3.1 the toothless children begging threadbare.

3.2 this alchemic magic, 3.2.1. so different, 3.3. this ovary that twists in its tube, 3.4. this hand that reaches and pulls cables, 3.4.1. crushes cushions,

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4.

5.

3.4.2. awakens vertebral columns 3.4.2.1. like a long and ancient lizard nearly stone. i would like to sing lullabies in the exact night, 4.1. some of them beautiful, others wearisome.

4.2. centaur-sharp needles, 4.3. aluminum stylisers, 4.4. glasses that leave marks on us, 4.5. varicose veins that show us forests, 4.6. one here tired, childless, 4.7. a wing pulled off, 4.7.1. an albino girl. how can one continue 5.1. with these screws 5.1.1. fitted in the hip sockets.

5.2. one albino girl, 5.3. two ladies in waiting, 5.4. four corners, 5.5. five meridians, 5.6. here, 5.6.1. there, 5.6.1.1. everywhere, 5.6.1.1.1. wherever.

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6.

these beings with whom we slept, 6.1. to whom we went, 6.2. to dress ourselves in mourning 6.2.1. suddenly divide into four, 6.2.2. black skulls, 6.3. and these conversations in which i put you in the mouth 6.3.1. of my imagination, 6.4. in which I call to you, 6.4.1.

I explain to you, 6.4.2.

I forget.

6.5. and this cloud where we saw the waves of force pass, 6.5.1. something very alive beating within me,

7.

8.

how fascinating it would be to discover how he does it, how god, 8.1. the constellations, 8.2. the echoes in my fallopian tubes, 8.3. the stars in the nests that I make you, 8.4. all that sleepy weaving, 8.4.1. absorbed, 8.4.2. equidistant from fear.

9.

ten years later and i haven‘t advanced 9.1. one step,

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10. ten years later and i‘ve crossed all 10.1. the deserts, 11. searched all the oceans, 12. eaten tumours, 12.1. sharks, 12.2. rebellions, 12.3. unexpected things, 13. so much that i want to be ill, 13.1. so much that i want to relieve myself, 14. so many strange knots carry us along strange avenues 1.4.1. of understanding.

15. i cried and in my cries i saw you leave, 15.1. a planned look, 15.1.1. a round goodbye.

16. medallion faith or cultivated faith.

17. trodden on, 17.1 bound by the standards of vanity 17.1.1. and your parents, 17.1.2. ancestors and their incessant incests,

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17.1.3.

infantile laments.

18. i cried and in my cries i saw you leave, 18.1. a planned look, 18.1.1. a round goodbye.

19. then she came in and she felt 19.1. the harshness of a wave, 19.2. the severe words pronounced between the sheets, 19.3. the sadness of someone that doesn‘t respect you, 19.4. the humiliation of knowing oneself to be understood 19.4.1. in such an obvious and sarcastic way.

20. i felt her anger.

21. (mental note: don‘t eat sugar when they come to visit.)

22. you‘d bought a cake for me; 22.1. not even a smile for her, 23. the most tremendous injustices begin in the solitude of the couple, 24. and return, 24.1. for a second

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24.2. and a third each time 24.3. picking up one of the things 24.3.1. forgotten 24.4. not really wanting to come detached 24.4.1. like a scab from the wound 24.4.2. of her husband 24.4.3. that teaches her 24.4.3.1. so proud

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mother: your seams hurt me your absent laughter, your excellent songs of sap and metal. how many times in the original whirlwind of the navel, the places where we made ourselves ancient, did you leave us alone in the regulated night. the pyramidal lamps, the toothless children begging threadbare. this alchemic magic, so different, this ovary that twists in its tube, this hand that reaches and pulls cables, crushes cushions, awakens vertebral columns like a long and ancient lizard, nearly stone. i would like to sing lullabies in the exact night, some of them beautiful, others wearisome. centaur-sharp needles, aluminum stylisers, glasses that leave marks on us, varicose veins that show us forests, one here tired, childless, a wing pulled off, an albino girl. how can one continue with these screws fitted in the hip sockets. one albino girl, two ladies in waiting, four corners, five meridians, here, there, everywhere, wherever. these beings with whom we slept, to whom we went, to dress ourselves in mourning, suddenly divide into four, black skulls, and these conversations in which i put you in the mouth of my imagination, in which i call you, i explain to you, i forget. and this cloud where we saw the waves of force pass, something very alive beating within me, how fascinating it would be to discover how he does it, how god, the constellations, the echos in my fallopian tubes, the stars in the nests that I make you, all that sleepy weaving, absorbed, equidistant from fear. ten years later and i haven‘t advanced one step, ten years later and i‘ve crossed all the deserts, searched all the oceans, eaten tumours, sharks, rebellions, unexpected things, so much that i want to be ill, so much that i want to relieve myself, so many strange knots carry us along strange avenues of understanding. i cried and in my cries i saw you leave, a planned

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look, a round goodbye. medallion faith or cultivated faith. trodden on, bound by the standards of vanity and your parents, ancestors and their incessant incests, infantile laments. i cried and in my cries i saw you leave, a planned look, a round goodbye. then she came in and she felt the harshness of a wave, the severe words pronounced between the sheets, the sadness of someone that doesn‘t respect you, the humiliation of knowing oneself to be understood in such and obvious and sarcastic way. i felt her anger. (mental note: don‘t eat sugar when they come to visit.) you‘d bought a cake for me; not even a smile for her, the most tremendous injustices begin in the solitude of the couple, and return, for a second and a third each time picking up one of the things forgotten, not really wanting to come detached like a scab from the wound of her husband that teaches her so proud

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mother: me dolieron tus costuras tus risotadas de ausencia, tus excelentes trinos de savia y metal. cuántas veces en el torbellino original del ombligo, de los lados donde nos we made antiguos, nos dejaste solos en la regulada noche. las lámparas piramidales, los toothless chilren pidiendo sin hilos. esta magia alquímica, tan diversa, este ovario que se twists en su trompa, esta mano que alcanza y tira de cables, aplasta cojines, despierta vertebral columns como un largo y antiguo lagarto casi pétreo. quisiera arrullar en la exact noche, unos bellos, otros cansinos. agujas de centioperio, estilizadores de aluminio, vasos que nos inculcan señas, venas varicosas que nos demuestran bosques, one here cansado, sin niños, una ala extricada, albina. cómo poder continuar con estos tornillos encajados en los hip sockets. una alborina, dos tremendinas, cuatro esquinas, five meridians, acá, allá, acuyá, patiayá. estos seres de donde dormimos, a donde we went, a vestirnos de luto se cuatrifucan de sobresalto, de calaveras negras, y estas conversations in which i put you in my mouthde de mi imaginación, donde te llamo, te explico, me olvido. y esta nube donde vimos pasar las oleadas de fuerza, algo muy vivo latiendo within me, sería fascinante averiguar cómo le hace, cómo dios, las constelaciones, los echos en mis falopios, las estrellas en los nidos que te hago, todo ese tejido somnoliento, absorto, equidistante del miedo. diez años después y no he avanzado un paso, diez años then y he atravesado todos los desiertos, buscado en todos los mares, comido tumors, sharks, alzamientos, abruptos, tanto querer estar enferma, tanto querer aliviarme,so many strange knots que nos llevan por extrañas avenidas del entendimiento. Lloré y en mis lloriqueos te vi salir, una mirada planeada, un

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adiós rotundo. Fe medalla o fe cultivo. Apisonada, amarradita por los listones de la vanidad y de sus padres, los ancestros y sus incesantes incestos, infantiles lamentos. Lloré y en mis lloriqueos te vi salir, una mirada planeada, un adiós rotundo. Luego entró ella y se sintió the harshness de una oleada, las palabras severas pronunciadas entre sábanas, la tristeza de alguien que no te respeta, la humillación de saberse comprendidos de una manera tan obvia y tan sarcástica. Sentí su rabia. (Nota mental: no comer azúcar cuando vayan a haber visitas.) Un pastel me habías comprado a mí; ni una sonrisa para ella, las más tremendas injusticias comienzan en la soledad de la pareja, y vuelve, por una segunda y una tercera cada vez recogiendo una de las cosas olvidadas al no querer realmente to come detached como una costra de la llaga de su maridoque la enseña tan orgull

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madre: me dolieron tus costuras tus risotadas de ausencia, tus excelentes trinos de savia y metal. how many times en el torbellino original del ombligo, de los lados donde nos hicimos antiguos, nos dejaste solos en la regulada noche. las lámparas piramidales, los niños sin dientes pidiendo sin hilos. esta magia alquímica, tan diversa, este ovario que se tuerce en su trompa, esta mano que alcanza y tira de cables, aplasta cojines, despierta espinas dorsales como un largo y antiguo lagarto casi pétreo. quisiera arrullar en la exacta noche, unos bellos, otros cansinos. agujas de centioperio, estilizadores de aluminio, vasos que nos inculcan señas, venas varicosas que nos demuestran bosques, uno aquí cansado, sin niños, una ala extricada, albinhow can one continue con estos tornillos encajados en los hip sockets. una alborina, dos tremendinas, cuatro esquinas, cinco meridianos, acá, allá, acuyá, patiayá. estos seres de donde dormimos, a donde fuimos, a vestirnos de luto se cuatrifucan de sobresalto, de calaveras negras, y estas conversaciones que te pongo en la boca de mi imaginación, donde te llamo, te explico, me olvido. y esta nube donde vimos pasar las oleadas de fuerza, algo muy vivo latiendo dentro de mí, sería fascinante averiguar how does he do it, how god, las constelaciones, los ecos en mis falopios, las estrellas en los nidos que te hago, todo ese tejido somnoliento, absorto, equidistante del miedo. diez años después y no he avanzado un paso, diez años después y he atravesado todos los desiertos, buscado en todos los mares, comido tumores, tiburones, alzamientos, abruptos, tanto querer estar enferma, tanto querer aliviarme, tantos nudos extraños que nos llevan por extrañas avenidas del entendimiento. Lloré y en mis lloriqueos te vi salir, una

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mirada planeada, un adiós rotundo. Fe medalla o fe cultivo. Apisonada, amarradita por los listones de la vanidad y de sus padres, los ancestros y sus incesantes incestos, infantiles lamentos. Lloré y en mis lloriqueos te vi salir, una mirada planeada, un adiós rotundo. Luego entró ella y se sintió el rigor de una oleada, las palabras severas pronunciadas entre sábanas, la tristeza de alguien que no te respeta, la humillación de saberse comprendidos de una manera tan obvia y tan sarcástica. Sentí su rabia. (Nota mental: no comer azúcar cuando vayan a haber visitas.) Un pastel me habías comprado a mí; ni una sonrisa para ella, las más tremendas injusticias comienzan en la soledad de la pareja, y vuelve, por una segunda y una tercera cada vez recogiendo una de las cosas olvidadas al no querer realmente desprenderse like a scab de la llaga de su marido que la enseña tan orgulloso

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madre: me dolieron tus costuras tus risotadas de ausencia, tus excelentes trinos de savia y metal. cuántas veces en el torbellino original del ombligo, de los lados donde nos hicimos antiguos, nos dejaste solos en la regulada noche. las lámparas piramidales, los niños sin dientes pidiendo sin hilos. esta magia alquímica, tan diversa, este ovario que se twists in su trompa, esta mano que alcanza y tira de cables, aplasta cojines, despierta spines dorsales como un largo y antiguo lagarto casi pétreo. quisiera arrullar en la exacta night, unos bellos, otros cansinos. agujas de centioperio, estilizadores de aluminio, vasos que nos inculcan señas, venas varicosas que nos demuestran bosques, uno aquí cansado, sin niños, una ala extricada, albina. cómo poder continuar con estos tornillos encajados en los hip sockets. una alborina, dos tremendinas, cuatro esquinas, cinco meridianos, acá, there, acuyá, patiayá. estos seres de donde dormimos, a donde fuimos, a vestirnos de luto se cuatrifucan de sobresalto, de calaveras negras, y estas conversaciones que te pongo en la boca de mi imaginación, donde te llamo, te explico, me olvido. y esta nube donde vimos pasar las oleadas de fuerza, algo muy vivo latiendo dentro de mí, sería fascinante averiguar cómo le hace, cómo dios, las constelaciones, los ecos en mis falopios, las estrellas en los nidos que te hago, todo ese tejido somnoliento, absorto, equidistante del miedo. diez años después y no he avanzado un paso, diez años después y he atravesado todos los desiertos, buscado en todos los mares, comido tumores, tiburones, alzamientos, abruptos, tanto querer estar enferma, tanto querer aliviarme, tantos nudos strangers that nos llevan por extrañas avenidas del entendimiento. Lloré y en mis lloriqueos i saw you leave, una mirada

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planeada, un adiós rotundo. Fe medalla o fe cultivo. Apisonada, amarradita por los listones de la vanidad y de sus padres, los ancestros y sus incesantes incestos, infantiles lamentos. Lloré y en mis lloriqueos te vi salir, una mirada planeada, a goodbye rotundo. Luego entró ella y se sintió el rigor de una oleada, las palabras severas pronunciadas entre sábanas, la tristeza de alguien que no te respeta, la humillación de saberse comprendidos de una manera tan obvia y tan sarcástica. Sentí su rabia. (Nota mental: no comer azúcar cuando vayan a haber visitas.) Un pastel me habías comprado a mí; ni una sonrisa para ella, las más tremendas injusticias the lonelinesspareja, y vuelve, por una segunda y una tercera cada vez recogiendo una of things olvidadas al no querer realmente desprenderse como una costra de la llaga de su marido que la enseña tan orgulloso

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Richard Price THE WESTERN SIERRA MADRE We gutted ourselves, hurt your seams, your excess sap and metal trills, our life without birdsong.

Again and again the original navel vortex, we‘re all aged now, alone in the regulated night.

We gutted ourselves – it‘s laughter, a translation error, and pyramid lamps, children tuning the radio with their gums.

This ovary twists on its trunk, this hand reaching and pulling cables, the spine‘s awake, as long as an ancient lizard and just about as stony.

I‘d howl some beautiful, I‘d howl some weary – a hundred perfect needles I guess and that would be aluminium styling, blood-vessels we‘re teaching from a baby-book, demonstrating varicose forests.

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Someone‘s tired, no children, one wing‘s pulled off, albino.

How to go on. How to go on with the bolts screwed into the kneecap.

Grief is split four ways – startle, black skull, and ready-mades for the mouth (where you call, we explain, we forget).

Just for the sake of it I‘d love to find out how He does constellations, how God synthesises echoes in fallopian tubes, stars in those little nests, all that sleepy tissue, absorbed, equidistant from fear.

Ten years later and we haven‘t advanced a step, ten years later and yes    

crossed every desert, eaten tumours, sharks, hoists

(abrupt, both wanting to be sick, both wanting relief, so many treetops, tips of the pines)

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It‘s not complicated, it‘s beautiful.

Stephen Mear squatting between wet ferns.

And a huge old fire – that young mother screaming the word – and that would have located your poppy for you, opened your gifts their par-tic-u-lar ways.

Cinderfella‘s at home in shackles of houseplants (in dreams we curl up our noses like snails edging out of the night).

And maybe we do have echoes needles enclosed in the belly, flaps, tidal books, wetlands in all languages, cactus thorns in the heels, mourners to walk again, to feel the bones of being whole – that sustains us. All this is here to appease the fog, the angry ‗intellectual power of the soul‘, so voice and alcoholic mouthwash can burn stronger, deeper, tell it more straight.

If we knew why. If we knew why.

Why do we divide, right up to infinity?

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ID number MÓNICA NEPOTE & Julia Sanches

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Facks o life LIZ NIVEN

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Monica Nepote translated by Julia Sanches ID NUMBER I will leave a blank space. Like a simple indication, with no other intention but to guide and to describe.

You can‘t begin like that, you tell me. A blank space where shape will take shape, where its expanse lies. Where the censoring voice will appear as soon as it can, black fist. I am going to leave, I am going to stop speaking. I am going to scratch out message sent, message received. I am going to deprogram.

Heart in darkness.

Come, tell me again. Tell me I cannot say, that sitting in silence I am a useless number, tell me you need my status, my profile, no more than a matter of numbers.

I am going to leave a blank space.

Between my leaving note, and the dust I spill on the return envelope, over your hands, let‘s see who wins in this race through space, my locker number, your last breath.

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Liz Niven FACKS O LIFE A‘ll lea a tuim bit.

Jist as a wee space, dead easy fir noo.

Jist waitin tae steer ye in the richt wey.

Ye didnae stert weil, ye telt me.

Bit A‘ve a tuim bit whaur yer bodie wull growe.

Whaur ye‘ll get mair muckle.

Whaur yer vyce wull pipe up, Suin as it can.

A wee bleck nieve tappin ma wame.

A‘ll gan oan fir a bit.

A‘ll keep schtum.

A‘ll sen a message, get a message back.

Ower an oot.

Hairt o derkness.

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Come oan. Tell me wance mair.

Wance mair ye cannae say A‘m sittin schtum.

Waitin.

A usefu nummer. A statistic. No real yet.

Tell me ye need ma biog., ma profile.

No jist nummers an facks.

A‘ll lea a tuim space fir that an aw.

Until ma cry oot, keep yer pouder dry, pit it back in, till we‘re reddie.

We‘ll see who wins this race fir space.

Ye‘ll cin pit in ma details then, fir A‘m jyned wi ye, as lang as yer furst an last braith.

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Ill will ÓSCAR DAVID LÓPEZ & Kymm Coveney

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My bad one JL WILLIAMS

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Oscar David Lopez translated by Kymm Coveney ILL WILL Dear pseudopolyp, cockroach of my blood, you died from a case of open-ulcer love and shrouded in morphine (needles, most of all your celery smile) they plucked you from me like a bird embroidered on a cushion through the streets, dragged by celestial horses and the neighbor women chucked pails of water after you but it wasn‘t you, just a superstition like love.

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JL Williams MY BAD ONE

I love you cockroach, exquisite date precocious boy with poignant patent leathers, cravats, points of diamond (a single, sugared tear) bird embroidered on the street-found cushion what a sham, celestial scorpions, when you dip your hooves in the clouds

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The hospital was not a cartoon KATE TOUGH

Papi ÓSCAR DAVID LÓPEZ & Kymm Coveney

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Óscar David López translated by Kymm Coveney PAPI. EPISODE 3 Elisa. Paola. INT Ren & Stimpy‘s living room. Paola, I don‘t believe in discretion, I‘m part robot and part disease. Elisa, I‘m still three years old. Remember that.

How do you think I would work outside my cancer? Every day my arms cling to my father‘s hips. I‘ll tell you an earlier episode. ―Can I get you some Jack Daniels?‖ are the words that warm my Papi up. Paola, you‘ll trade his heart for a drug that‘s easier to sniff. You‘ll drop your drawers and let the hospital be a caricature. Our story was hitchhiking on a road in a prostitute‘s stocking. Papi isn‘t an alcoholic. He has the usual martini at night. The doctors don‘t realize.

Later he makes love to me reading me a fairy tale. The murmuring is my childish laugh, that of a cancer-ridden boy wanting to be a cancer-ridden girl. Cancer is the least of it. Better to start with my identity being nibbled away by kisses under the sheets. Was grandmother watching out for me? The maid was always blahblahblah ―sorry, Master Daniel, you are not a bottle of whisky, don‘t lie, better lye and pour yourself away.‖ Paola, right now I am not expecting anything. Elisa, when Papi went to his bedroom, I used to open the front door and secretly let out the boy I had been with the whole afternoon.

He was an orderly. He could have been anyone. So tell me to my face if your

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demons coincide with my books. One day Papi said he had something to tell me. My nerves as sharp as glances in a waiting room. ―Do you know who your mother is?‖ I didn‘t want to meet my mother. I wanted to go to sleep and dream of you girls dressed as Ren & Stimpy. You mean when did I start fucking? You know when, Paola. I started when I was fourteen. I didn‘t give a shit who I fucked because they all wanted me. Fucking was love. Elisa, you will always be a crucifix-eating virgin. In-house, the physically, mentally and socially crippled dragged their lonely, grief-stricken teeth over my flesh. The sick eat the sick. All that: love. The first one-armed man I fucked carried a bunch of sharp kitchen knives around on his belt. When he would take his clothes off, the sound of metal blades on the floor used to excite me. One night he went crazy. The one-armed man, Paola. He tried to kill us all. He was nineteen. A romantic. He managed to destroy a poster of Madonna before he left. Today, when I was coming to meet you, I saw him on the subway. He was reading the script of some nineteenth-century soap opera. Being alone is nothing more than a dirty trick, now he‘s in the mud. That‘s why I asked you both to come. You have to trust my Papi. Papi, that was the beginning of this sick world. Papi, a beautiful horse: thick, jet-black hair and big green eyes. All kinds of games. Dear Paola, it‘s wonderful that you came into our lives because now it‘s your turn to be abused by my Papi. I‘ve grown up and the old trick of growing up never fails. Never. Papi, this is Paola and Elisa. Papi, tell us that Ren & Stimpy episode. Which one of them will be the evil fairy godmother? Today I want to be the good one.

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Kate Tough THE HOSPITAL WAS NOT A CARTOON Papi has been told three years cancer eats us both He offers whisky says my heart will swap for an easier void Goes down the panties no cartoon channel this time Drunken Papi forces love on me while reading fairytales Rogue cells replicate as I grow cancer is nothing Kissing under sheets was grandmother caring for me?

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The maid told me not to lie to spill Daddy offered me mother I said no I wanted to sleep in my cartoon t-shirt a virgin eating crucifixes Catch is love everything I need I have.

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Sitting Indian style, giving birth CARLA FAESLER & Sue Burke

Hero pose (virasana) KATHRINE SOWERBY

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Carla Faesler translated by Sue Burke SITTING INDIAN STYLE, GIVING BIRTH What really starts me off is that the sun makes me kneel probing like a dentist digging out roots

I am split on his hooks humbled

so She rolls across the apartment floor kneels before her husband and hugs him his knees press on her belly rejection roars like a hurricane headstand in a lotus flower her thighs watch the

they drive into a tempest the sharpest mind closed perhaps sleeping

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a whirlwind is released by

a wink numbed!

moon close its only eyelid neighbors ask about the anesthesia antiseptic containers of progress flattened

remembering

key people informed

the center of

torment from

attention (I recall Diego's bluegreen figures in The Arrival of CortĂŠs his formless swollen knees) They put the child in the "eye of the storm" and he spoke from the first day with his eyes innocently pointing

outside we were looking in

all around together

I saw you and knew

The snow outside fell faster, a shroud we watched it together

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part of me

My boy my dearest I told him I wanted to weep when I saw you And he knew which part of me meant nothing

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Kathrine Sowerby HERO POSE (VIRASANA) All I really know is the sun scratching through my jeans at the knees like dental hooks: Espantapajara‘s arthritic roots.

She rolls on the wooden floor kneels before her husband, embracing his legs, her stomach tightening.

No heaving, howling hurricane in her head; she sits in lotus.

Her thighs face the moon, its blinking eye.

Why copy next door‘s stupor, their sterile containers, and weary progress?

(I remember descriptions, the colour of Diego‘s bruised and swollen knees.)

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The child was the ―Eye of the Storm‖ and spoke from daylight with bright, upturned eyes.

Enlutecia, the snow outside sped up, the umbilical cord lay twisted like wet socks and salamanders.

Child, my darling. I wanted to mourn when I saw you.

And he knew then, how much of me was worthless.

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Extinction of the Mexican wolf MINERVA REYNOSA & Annie McDermott

cuetlāchcoyōtl / lupus / wolf GERRY LOOSE

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Minerva Reynosa translated by Annie McDermott EXTINCTION OF THE MEXICAN WOLF joints skin kidneys bloodcells brain heart lungs skin heart blood cells kidneys skin joints the blood of the kidney brainlungs in the skin the bleeding jointed cells of the heart sky blue kidney bloody articulate lungskins to the heart's brain as harmful as savage my malar rash shrunk the structureless functionless cell rheumatism is no risk of extinction but a moderate ending muzzle of light as harmful as savage red net those wings of savage malar skin in pain pink stained i crumble my butcher self-esteem is stiff not even to see me to slice me to smear my face creamy cosmetics by this stage of the cross between the wolf tip to the party to the chilli until missouri i constellate like a little unravelled rice cake i constellate into the wings stuck onto my surface i constellate i swell hypertrophic i constellate alopecian as well an animal as harmful as savage tarantulous to the fifth chakra my mask de loup the skin everything that breathes is a constellation

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Gerry Loose CUETLÄ€CHCOYĹŒTL / LUPUS / WOLF A mammal, giving birth to live young who suckle milk from their mother.

True words stolen from various hierarchies who stole from an ancient tongue and in naming tore life from living people Starting with a lie: butcher we butcher ourselves nose to anus we crucify ourselves our pelts flayed our skulls hacked ears as bounty we sweep the abbatoir with our own hair as brooms moving through fear: wild Ending in a lie: harmful

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Awkward momentum ROCÍO CERÓN & Ruth Clarke

snowy egret LILA MATSOUMOTO

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Rocío Cerón translated by Ruth Clarke AWKWARD MOMENTUM (A GRAVITATIONAL SPEED READING OF A POEM BY JUANA A.)

Capsule world.

Foot and summit where the cry vanishes.

Relational voices adjust thermometer.

Under the effects of hydrocodeine with acetaminophen a man mumbles away his life.

On the metal plate, it changes nothing to reveal a star sign.

Body flying over the Antarctic:

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snowy passageways /sharp prick /light submerged in sternum /margins /plague of peninsulas and nervure /veins /secrets of riverbanks and mangroves /pulse concealed in an iris: what sense in acknowledging your own death?

To belong somewhere.

To belong.

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Lila Matsoumoto

snowy egret flying over ice what if its legs were dipped in ink alight on the margin of the land its ribs veins pulsing content cream & black

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opiumpoppyman SERGIO ERNESTO RÍOS & Rahul Bery

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ana-Apolo CALUM ROGER

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Sergio Ernesto RĂ­os translated by Rahul Bery opiumpoppyman opiumpoppyman in a helicoidal bramble vaccine dreaming to papa veraceae, father of truth. opiumpoppyman, alone, in a flock of centaurs and whips and chimneys, or from the sky, the city is a monogamous carbon monoxide chimney. opiumpoppyman adamantium skeleton radioactive spider never, spinach never.

never,

gamma

rays

never,

dear chums, gamma rays are the younger brothers of our elder brother the sun, his sproutlings, his shoots, his nephews, do you know of any other famous nephews? here you go: donald duck and huey, dewey and louie. the sun is a kind of donald duck, also mean and fussy, and does anyone really understand the sun with that voice that sounds like a salted snail? does anyone still torture insects, tell me your favourite ones? do green pygmy kangaroos with powersaw arms and frog tongue noses and stripy pendulum

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ears and turbulent glances on the coast of christchurch come from gamma rays? opiumpoppyman sings to the ornithology of the planets. opiumpoppyman the transsonichighway. opiumpoppyman and two minutes inside a world war one helmet, with horseflies. the opiumpoppyman hymn equals two minutes of tomorrow. i saw opiumpoppyman galloping the fernsehturm like his true centaur (or true self) from the beginning, from wilhelm the second of germany. opiumpoppyman, a northwind monkey, anthropinhalation. opiumpoppyman as painted by daniel johnston: captain america and his babe-at arms, satan, are beaten in a defeat competition in an unmelancholy texas bar. satan made manhole. satan made pisspot. satan made plunger. captain america the chubby spelling book for pre-school protonazis. captain america the adipose screech of mud and gallows-bird stars. captain america the roadrunner guardian of unmanned missiles. beep beeeeep. countdown. a merry go round. psychotic little piano. ulcerated torso-shaped sweeties.

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countdown to zero. opiumpoppyman, their executioner. 666 baby opens up his own head. opiumpoppyman adored by the kgb, adored by sensei miyamoto‘s asianitalian plumbers. opiumpoppyman in the dream of a voltaic blanket, for ten thousand years. opiumpoppyman the only one who would save the hydrochloric acid soaked-man charged by Robocop‘s 1987 taurus patrol car. hail.

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Calum Roger ana-Apollo 1.

Brambles devour green rays.

Man reacts, contests the dream he knows his voltaic favourite whistling, onrushing deals him a parliament and a psychotic church.

Overalls be dreaming of gamma coast duty but boys you can‘t be picky

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with carbon or ferns this is 1987 not 666.

The father cheered the ass cheered proto-friends cheered Apollo‘s bar actor.

2. ―Captain, the gamma-ray spinach monoxide takes minutes and the fluffy kangaroos‘ eyes patrol the spider night.

We‘ve got guardians from here to St. Louis but our flock have lost their necks and are made of jade.‖ – Apollo

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3.

A thousand sons ransom the son protecting the ana- from Apollo where lies the love tomorrow saw my ana-Apollo?

4. ana-snail evil acid ana-centaur ana-breast ana-sun ana-the monogamous ana-torsos ana-radio ana-man ana-never ana-sky ana-tight older sons

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ana-true among the etc. you become ana-you you big man chainsaw!

5. ever petty the becoming

6.

Apollo y u so parliamentary? the petty becoming of never blanket I am alone in the city as a bathed self drawn into Apollo and so his own executioner.

7. own and sing your Robocop scaffold rhino American anthem truth pool Satan

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man is and ana-Apollo

8. farce two KGB nil Apollo one and ana-Apollo is many

9. world is missiles me its offspring voice there from a skeleton come minutes, man and man without his ulcerated syllabary becomes pendulous hatches little arms

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10. ana-Apollo wear your fireplace helmet careful of pygmies and gamma-rays you are the vaccine the stars love a salt-opening equal to insects I need you stormy now because Apollo cannot save my nursery planet cock

11. man whips inside the be only and and are

12. centaur, roadrunner, shape

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man fireplaces melancholy doses to know to know to not know is Captain, Satan ana-Apollo

COMPOSITIONAL NOTES First I wanted to translate the Googlised text through my own utterance, so read the source poem aloud, uploaded a recording to YouTube, turned on the automatic caption function and transcribed the results. Next I wanted to ‗dadafy‘ the poem, so randomised word order and line breaks using the Windows-based poetry generator JanusNode. Finally, I wanted to translate the text back into a more durable and semantically coherent poetic form, so pasted the dadafied text into Microsoft Word, broke it into sections and sculpted it into the present text. Therefore ‗ana-Apollo‘ presents a kind of order arrived at through successive disorderings.

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WHY GOOGLE TRANSLATE? a note on possibilities, by Juana Adcock

In the early stages of planning the project, an unnamed writer and translator of fiction declared contemptuously that nothing interesting could result from using Google Translate as a tool for translating poetry. This elicited in us a suitably defiant sentiment and strengthened our determination to include it as part of the equation.

Google Translate uses a tool called ―statistical machine translation,‖ where re-occurring patterns in large volumes of translated material are extracted to provide the machine translation, rather than getting the computer to learn all the grammar rules and the crazy illogical exceptions of a given language. The more often a given phrase is found in the vast corpora of text available to Google, the more often it will be offered as translation.

Google doesn‘t know who the subject is, or what their object is, or who is speaking — their gender, age, place of origin, ideology. Google knows nothing about poetry. Google knows only the most common combinations of words, and chooses synonyms based on probabilities and algorithms.

Google Translate operates with English as a ―hub airport,‖ flying languages to and from English, because English is the language that most languages will have a direct connection to, in the same way as if you want to

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go to Hungary or Cancun you will probably have to fly via London. Does this mean, by the way, that English syntax bleeds into other languages, as more and more poor translations based on GT are produced? Probably. But it will also offer some glorious errors, fodder for poets.

The more translated text there is available for Google to draw from, the better its translations will be. We can therefore say that translations from Spanish to English by Google give some of the best possible results for this technology at the moment, whereas translations from Maori to Croatian perhaps don‘t fare that well.

As a professional translator, I use GT every day. It is often quicker to dejumble a phrase, drag the nouns and objects into place, correct the gender, stick in a few articles, etc., than it is to type the whole thing. Even though the correct translation comes to my mind at the same speed as I read the original, I cannot either speak or type at this speed. Translation happens very fast. Sometimes, I don‘t even need to read the original, I need only glance at the original while I de-jumble what GT has given me, and double check afterwards when I‘m tidying up the first draft. Because based on my experience with a particular kind of text, I can intuitively tell what the sentence should say. A kind of reverse reading. This is particularly true for technical translation.

For this experiment, we are not so much interested in how much beauty can survive of a poem when passed through the meat grinder of GT. Our purpose is not to lament the linguistic nuances lost — all those beautiful, clever words used to describe a sunset, or the craft of it — but whether some

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part of the essence can still be grasped by someone with little or no command of the original language. We are interested in the shared spirit of the poem, in how (to a greater or lesser degree) the mangled poem can be intuited and reshaped by a poet to produce an English version. Similar to an Oulipian game, only not completely random. There are statistics and intelligent guesses thrown onto something that previously was a poem, and had meaning. Will the heart of the poem still beat after all this surgery? Our theory is, it will.

[text originally published in Glasgow Review of Books, in August 2015]

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