Kim A Jensen & Judith Santopietro translate Roxana Crisólogo

This is a Forced Trip

a forced landing that forces me to spend six hours in Kiev 
when the plane approaches the runway 
and it seems we’re entering a storage site that leads to other sites 
more sophisticated more lonely more sad 
Too much has been written already about people forced to stay in one place 
forced to leave without explanation    forced to flee 
a forced geography 
genetically modified foods 
forced to abandon their essence 

I am from K   a forced country 
She speaks in statistics   
and can’t stop staring at an Orthodox Jewish family 
dragging several kids and a bunch of suitcases  

The number of dead has now surpassed the number of those who struggle 
for the liberation of any forced country of the world 
Which side are you from? 
from the ones who travel out of necessity or curiosity?  
who remove cartridges  projectiles  mines?   
leave messages   decode   decompose? 
stockpile gunpowder?  

From the ones who burn or are burned? 
From the military-technical cooperation? 
From the United Nations or NATO? 
From the photograph of a country that isn’t a country? 
From the postcard? 
From the botany of not taking sides with anyone? 
From the seeds of flowers that have no territory? 
From laboratories? 
From experiments? 
From cellular chemistry? 
From the contaminated nation? 

From all the girls with eyebrows mapped out like solar systems 
that live inside of me 

To be or not to be is not a dilemma but rather to align with an army on one side 
or the other–of the river Jordan 

 

 

I like knowing there’s someone else walking inside of me  
like an anchor-dog inside my footprints  
a built-in spirit who steps and coughs along with me 
who falls down and gets back up  
who corrects me    feeds me  
and sees me in the forced future  
[its parade of dust]     
my prehistoric side 
I used to stand at the door of my house waiting for the moment of detachment 
eye contact with that other part 

a forced root listening to itself grow  
doesn’t listen to the house invaded by other forced roots  
to be sympathetic  

They came to Lima to study   
they brought their neon colors and music in order to multiply and grow 
they picked a piece of land or invented it or invaded it 
and perhaps afterwards they also invented the river surrounded by stones 
without water     maybe even the house   

Poetry sold whatever was expelled by the air  
it nourished the scraps that denied its own existence 
filled silences with the strategies of an architect who empties cities   
poetry wanted beauty        they wanted cleanliness    
it trundled a wheelbarrow that filled up with ideals and mirrors     
forced to dispense with the basics: oxygen and water 
I saw myself transporting those who were wounded by its words  

I healed their lesions    brought them back to the world of broken wings    
brought them back to the demands of the market   

I used to ask my father and not my mother      she was worse off 
to sharpen the knives    
Poetry walked all day long pushing her discordant machine  
trailed by her grandson who was learning the trade and served as her eyes    
her Andean eyes had such small hands   
but everything: oxygen and water fit into her depths  
he was the future but I called him her eyes    
the eyes of poetry that looked at the present  

 

 

The woman says 
we refer to god with the words of god 
in other words    there’s a language for pleasure  
a special vocabulary for defining nuclear waste    
there’s electricity if you can pay for it      pleasure  
but the census doesn’t talk about that 
                                                             god and pleasure  
like first love like the first time  
they become a drowned chorus 

She’ll improvise a vocabulary for pleasure 
from her hands I’ll take the air      the butterflies 
I’ll save my breath 
to explain to the soldier that his statistics  
are useless 
there’s no way to justify massacres 
femicides      corruption     homophobia 
endangered species that with any luck 
will be turned into sheets of stickers  

A plan to industrialize Chernobyl should include  
maximum security for investors 
discretion 
and a country forced to endure it  

The woman says I am a forced country 
showing off her muscle yes I can  
             she is neither tall nor blonde 
doesn’t wear a turban     and she won’t say it in English 
there’s a distance  
though she is right in front of me that’s all 
there’s a distance that reminds me 
of what we forget when living in a forced country   

Before god      there were few words   
She says      there was god before  

 

Este es un viaje forzado

un aterrizaje forzado que me obliga a pasar seis horas en Kiev 
cuando el avión se acerca a la pista de aterrizaje  
y parece que entramos a un almacén que conduce a otros almacenes  
más sofisticados más solitarios más tristes 
Se ha escrito demasiado sobre gente forzada a quedarse en un lugar 
forzada a partir sin explicación    forzada a dejar 
geografía forzada  
alimentos genéticamente manipulados  
forzados a abandonar su ser 

 Soy de K     un país forzado 
Ella habla en estadísticas  
no le quita la mirada a una familia judío-ortodoxa  
que arrastra varios niños y muchas maletas 

El número de muertos es tal que sobrepasa a los que lucharán  
por la independencia de cualquier país forzado del mundo  
¿De qué lado estás? 
¿del que viaja por curiosidad o por necesidad?  
¿remueve cartuchos   proyectiles   minas? 
¿deja mensajes   descifra   descompone? 
¿acumula pólvora?  

¿De los que queman o son quemados? 
¿De la cooperación técnico-militar? 
¿De la United Nations o de la OTAN? 
¿De la fotografía del país que no es el país? 
¿De la postal? 
¿De la botánica de no tomar partido por nadie? 
¿De las semillas de las flores que no conocen de territorios?  
¿De los laboratorios? 
¿De los experimentos?  
¿De la química celular? 
¿De la nación impura?   

De todas las muchachitas con las cejas demarcadas como sistemas solares  
que habitarán en mí  
Ser o no ser no es un dilema sino alinearse en un ejército de un lado  
o del otro del río Jordán  

 

Me gusta saber que hay alguien más que camina en mí  
como un perro ancla en mis huellas    
un ánima pegadita que pisa y tose después de mí  
que se cae y se levanta  
que me corrige   que me alimenta  
que me ve en el futuro forzado  
[su desfile de polvo]     
mi lado fósil  
yo me paraba en la puerta de mi casa a esperar ese desprendimiento 
el contacto visual con mi otra parte 

 

una raíz forzada escuchándose crecer  
no escucha la casa invadida por otras raíces forzadas  
a ser simpáticas 

 Llegaron a Lima para estudiar   
trajeron los colores fosforescentes y la música para multiplicarse y crecer 
eligieron un campo o lo inventaron o lo invadieron 
y quizás entonces también inventaron el río rodeado de piedras 
sin agua y la casa  

La poesía vendía lo que expulsaba el aire  
alimentaba la chatarra que le negaba un lugar 

 llenaba los silencios con la estrategia del arquitecto que vaciará ciudades    
quería belleza   querían limpieza    
empujaba una carretilla que llenó de ideales y espejitos     
forzada a prescindir de lo fundamental: oxígeno y agua 
me imaginaba trasladando a los heridos de esas palabras    
les curaba los hoyos y los devolvía al mundo de las alas rotas    
los devolvía a la necesidad del mercado  

Le pedía a mi padre y no a mi madre   a ella le tocó la peor parte   
que afilara los cuchillos    
La poesía caminaba todo el día empujando su máquina desafinadora  
seguida de su nieto que aprendía el oficio y era sus ojos    
sus ojos aindiados tenían unas manos pequeñas    
pero todo: oxígeno y agua cabían en su profundidad  
era el futuro pero yo le llamaba sus ojos    
eran los ojos de la poesía que miraban el presente   

 

 

La mujer dice 
a dios te refieres con las palabras de dios 
en otras palabras   hay un idioma para el placer  
hay un vocabulario especial para definir residuos nucleares    
hay electricidad para el que paga   hay placer  
pero de eso no habla la encuesta 
dios y placer  
como el primer amor como la primera vez  
se transforman en un coro ahogado 

Ella improvisará un vocabulario para el placer 
de sus manos tomaré el aire   las mariposas 
dejaré lo preciso  
para explicarle al soldado que sus estadísticas  
no sirven 
no hay forma de justificar masacres  
feminicidios   corrupción   homofobia 
especies en extinción que con suerte  
convertirán en láminas stickers  

Un plan para industrializar Chernóbil debería incluir  
máxima seguridad para los inversionistas 
discreción 
y un país forzado a soportarlo 

 La mujer dice soy un país forzado 
mostrando el músculo yes I can    
no es alta ni rubia 
no usa turbante   ni lo dirá en inglés 
hay una distancia  
aunque está frente a mí that´s all 
hay una distancia que me recuerda 
lo que se olvida viviendo en un país forzado  

Antes de dios   había pocas palabras   
Ella dice   antes estaba dios 

 

Translators’ Note:

Roxana Crisólogo’s latest book Kauneus: la belleza (Beauty) is a distinguished collection of provocative and formally innovative poems that give voice to the alienation and ironies of exile and migration—within a leftist framework that is embedded within the global struggle against structural racism and inequality. Set in Peru, Finland, and other regions from Mozambique to Palestine to Turkey, the poems offer a transnational, intergenerational feminist poetic, irrigated from the vein of 20th century defeats. 

The challenging yet beautiful sequences in Kauneus delve into her family’s experience of internal displacement, replicated across Peru which has seen waves of migrants leaving rural communities in search of opportunities in Lima. Crisólogo brings this diasporic sensibility as she writes about other “forced countries” and the refugees who flee poverty, violence, and climate catastrophe.  

One of the challenges of translating these poems that others have deemed as “untranslatable” is the swift thematic upheavals, the ever-shifting subjectivities, and the rhetorical leaps that mark her style. While not inaccessible at the level of grammar, the poems are multivalent and invite a synaptic, intuitive reading. Having studied law, Crisólogo deploys then subverts an ironic form of ‘legalese,’ drawing attention to the thick cushion of illogic that undergirds the dichotomies between the global north and the global south. Ultimately the seemingly unrelated strands coalesce into a mosaic that is both figurative and abstract. 

Judith and I have spent a great deal of time and care in rendering the complexities and the lyrical dexterity of these sometimes-bewildering texts, especially this one and its complex middle section, which Crisólogo would describe as muy, pero muy aindiado: I mean really Andean/Indian/Indigenous.

 

Roxana Crisólogo is a poet, translator, and cultural director who studied law. Her books of poetry include Abajo sobre el cielo (Lima, 1999) whose Finnish translation was published by Kääntöpiiri, Helsinki, 2001; Animal del camino (Lima, 2001); Ludy D (Lima, 2006); Trenes (Mexico, 2010, republished by Ediciones Libros del Cardo, Chile in 2019); and Eisbrecher (Icebreaker) Hochroth Verlag (Berlin, 2017). An anthology of her poetry has been translated into Italian, Sotto sopra il cielo (Down above the Sky) was published by Seri Editore. Kauneus: la belleza (Intermezzo Tropical, Lima, 2021) is her latest book of poetry, republished by Ediciones Nebliplateada, Buenos Aires, 2023. Crisólogo is the founder of Sivuvalo Platform, a multilingual literature association based in Helsinki. She was president of the association of Finnish left-wing artists and writers, Kiila. She was recently awarded a grant from the Finnish Kone Foundation to work on the Sivuvalo project. Crisólogo literary work and projects have been supported by the Finnish foundations, Kone Foundation, Finnish Literature Exchange, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Kari Mattila Säätiö and the Finnish Cultural Foundation. She lives and works in Helsinki. (Photo: Dirk Skiba) 

Kim Jensen is a Baltimore-based writer, poet, educator, and translator who has lived in California, France, and Palestine. Her books include an experimental novel, The Woman I Left Behind, and two collections of poems, Bread Alone and The Only Thing that Matters. Active in transnational peace and social justice movements for decades, Kim’s writings have been featured in Transition, International Human Rights Arts Festival, Another Chicago Magazine, Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, Extraordinary Rendition: Writers Speak Out on Palestine, Gaza Unsilenced, Bomb Magazine, Sukoon, Mizna, Revista el Humo, Left Curve, Liberation Literature, and many others. In 2001, she won the Raymond Carver Award for short fiction. Kim is currently professor of English and Creative Writing at the Community College of Baltimore County, where she co-founded an interdisciplinary literacy initiative that demonstrates the vital connection between classroom learning and social justice in the broader community.  

Judith Santopietro is a Mexican writer who was awarded the writing residency at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 2022. She was a finalist for the 2020 Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation for her book Tiawanaku. Poems from the Mother Coqa, translated by Ilana Dann Luna. She has published in the Anuario de Poesía Mexicana 2006 (Fondo de Cultura Económica), Rio Grande Review, and The Brooklyn Rail, andhas also participated in the PEN America’s World Voices Festival in New York in 2018. Santopietrohas carried out research residencies in the Sierra de Zongolica and Tecomate, Veracruz; theTeresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, Texas; and the University of Leiden, The Netherlands; as well as in New York and Bolivia. She is writing a novel on indigenous migrationin the US, and a documentary poetry book on enforced disappearance in Mexico. 

 

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