Author: anmly_mpusod

Kenji C. Liu

Descending, throttle early, savagely

frankenpo1 (for Prince)2

He’s a beautiful bird again. Desperately funk, tornado gorgeous, heart thick with furious glide,
and me his dessert. A conspiring body of heavy love, a whole dusk package. He sits and
moistens, a ripeness in him, black as sobs. Glisten he rises, a burning of bites and roses. A
flushed, trembling hollow across his lush. See his national pouty-lip, a skin-tight, slightly welling
back door swinging all piano wide. His bikini simmers, his cheeks jump, honey face staring
wickedly over lustrous flower shoulder. He crushes my diamonds, stains my quiver on the spot. I
muzzle his leopard face. The night furrows its savage, purple coat. Waters my sleeping
moonlight Cadillac. Drowning looks like light, a meaningless swim. Here, lustrous racked
chrome, passport of spandex lips. His pompadour bird, plunging into my wild Minnetonka.

Empire strikes3

frankenpo1

Citizens of the civilized galaxy, on this day we mark a transition. Billions of helpless
factors wind us into blinding, black-gloved sparks. The pain constantly beautiful,
omnipotence ripped by a giant jedi abyss. Great ears of the people stolen, deathly half
governors, and bureaucracy, that unstoppable depletion. Nation of my gracious
physiognomy, once we prospered entire, every fiction time! Our last infrastructure
collapses black, we sink wicked, a feeble station, infused by a never-ending crawl. Our
regions are semi-darkness, with scarred and weak edges, groans along our peace
borders, ripped, scattered, dimly white. Against the reaped verdict, stormtroopers ignite,
my dark hood star attacks, lord I. Your unbearable boy emperor—my force fictitious
flashes out, unstoppable bleed. My carnage grown from exaggerated disrepair. Seven-
foot-tall in the well of a mob. Towards a cold room, our body staggers.

Letter to Chow Mo-­wan4

frankenpo1

Dear Mr. Chow,

Cherished seed. A sesame kiss, and you mend the distance between us. That deep
dissonance. When will our smoke overlap again なの? Together we are a pair of lonely
questions, differentiated, two who whisper open a category. Plural, argus-eyed. Divination is a
meaningful mesh. We call us home, multi-capillaried. We promise a beautiful object. A rare
orientation わね

Unthreatened can still be afraid. No injury is respectful. This is because the caress is not a
simple stroking; it is a shaping. I am obsessed with the feeling of a house on fire. Do you agree
なの? I’m never going to end in a field of reason. Truth can’t go in the gaps. We are fool things
わよ, precisely alive, mountainous.

1frankenpo [frang–kuh n-poh]
noun
1. an invented poetic form

verb
to create a new poetic text by collecting, disaggregating, randomizing, rearranging, recombining, erasing, and
reanimating one or more chosen bodies of text, for the purpose of divining or revealing new meanings often at odds
with the original texts

2“Descending, throttle early, savagely” is a frankenpo of the screenplay of Purple Rain (1984).

“Letter to Chow Mo-wan” is a frankenpo of screenplay for In the Mood for Love + transcription of “Yumeji’s Theme” by Shigeru Umebayashi from the same film + Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s Greatest Hits (梁 朝偉精選) + a quote from Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick. Uses “feminine” gendered Japanese sentence endings.

3“Empire strikes” is a frankenpo of Emperor Palpatine’s speech to the Galactic Senate (Star Wars Ep 3 – Revenge of the Sith) + POTUS 45’s inaugural speech + selected dialogue involving the Emperor from Star Wars Ep 4-6.    

Frankenpo of screenplay for In the Mood for Love + transcription of “Yumeji’s Theme” by Shigeru Umebayashi from the same film + Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s Greatest Hits (梁朝偉精選) + a quotes from Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick. Uses “feminine” gendered Japanese sentence endings

June 26, 2015. Kundiman retreat at Fordham University, Bronx NY. Photoggraphy Margarita Corporan

Kenji C. Liu (劉謙司) is author of Map of an Onion, national winner of the 2015 Hillary Gravendyk Poetry Prize. His poetry is in American Poetry Review, Action Yes!, Split This Rock’s poem of the week series, several anthologies, and two chapbooks, Craters: A Field Guide (2017) and You Left Without Your Shoes (2009). A Kundiman fellow and an alumnus of VONA/Voices, the Djerassi Resident Artist Program, and the Community of Writers, he lives in Los Angeles. @kenjicliu.

M.L. Martin translates An Anonymous pre-10th c. Anglo-Saxon Feminist

WULF AND EADWACER

My people offer themselves as a gift.
They will devour him
who moves toward the army.
We are different.
Wulf is one island, I am the other.
The island is secure & surrounded by fen.
Bloodthirsty, the men on that island.
They will devour
if he comes toward this band of men.

We are different.
I think of Wulf’s long departures—
when it was dark skies & I sat sobbing—
when the battle-bold arms embraced me—
that which brought me joy also brought misery.

Wulf, my Wulf! The thought of you
between seldom comings has made me sick.
An anxious mind never goes hungry.
Listen now, Ead: the cowardly cub of “us”
lured this wolf from its woods:
A thing easily falls to threads
that never was entwined—
the tale of us together.

WULF AND EAD

the thought of you
never goes

we are
the cowardly cub

the woods will devour
what never was tied

I think of Ead—
the bloodthirsty island

the misery
that joy brings

Wulf! the dark skies
embraced me

wulf, draft

the forest
is moving

I am
the island

surrounded
by blood

the men
devour

long skies
when the battle

brought
joy / pain

Wulf, the cub
never was

WULF AND EAD


my ruler
as if one offers herself

We are different—
I, heavily-guarded

the other
slaughter-cruel

when the arms
embrace me
I think of wandering


those seldom
visits of joy

Listen now, : o
ur wretched c ub

Your fearful heart
drives a wolf from the woods

E., —

I am surrounded
bloodthirsty, sobbing—

when the battle
that whi ch
brought me joy.

The mind
goes hungry

the cub
was whi ch

The wolf returns


mīn giedd
my song

the battle
that brought me
misfortune

the battle of lāð
and seldom comings
has ended

mīn renig weder
is over

The wolf
has returned

WULF OND EADWACER

Lēodum is mīnum swylce him mon lāc gife;
willað hȳ hine āþecgan gif hē on þrēat cymeð.
Ungelīc is ūs.
Wulf is on īege, ic on ōþerre.
Fæst is þæt ēglond, fenne biworpen.
Sindon wælrēowe weras þǣr on īge;
willað hȳ hine āþecgan gif hē on þrēat cymeð.
Ungelīce is ūs.
Wulfes ic mīnes wīdlāstum, wēnum hogode,
þonne hit wæs rēnig weder ond ic rēotugu sæt,
þonne mec se beaducāfa bōgum bilegde,
wæs mē wyn tō þon, wæs mē hwæþre ēac lāð.
Wulf, mīn Wulf! wēna mē þīne
sēoce gedydon, þīne seldcymas,
murnende mōd, nales metelīste.
Gehȳrest þū, Ēadwacer? Uncerne eargne hwelp
bireð wulf tō wuda.
Þæt mon ēaþe tōslīteð þætte nǣfre gesomnad wæs,
uncer giedd geador.

Translator’s Note:

We know the Old English poem “Wulf ond Eadwacer” due only to its survival in the Exeter Codex, the largest existing anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry, which dates back to the 10th century. Since no original manuscript for the poem exists, the date of its composition, its provenance, and the identity of its composer are all unknown.

Even within the poem itself, ambiguities abound: the identity of the speaker is unknown, while the relationship of the speaker to both Eadwacer and Wulf, the poem’s setting, and its narrative content are all subject to conflicting interpretations. Most scholars think that the poem describes a love triangle in which the unnamed speaker (who is represented as “&” in my translation) is separated from her lover, Wulf, by threat of violence from Eadwacer, who is commonly viewed as either her husband and/or captor. It is also ambiguous if the ‘cub’ to which the speaker refers is her and Wulf’s lovechild or her and Eadwacer’s legitimate son. However, the poem has also been interpreted as a riddle, a ballad, a wen charm, an elegy, and a beast fable. As Peter S. Baker notes in “The Ambiguity of Wulf and Eadwacer,” half of the poem’s nineteen lines “pose lexical, syntactical, or interpretive problems.”[1]

But the challenge of interpreting the poem is only part of what makes “Wulf ond Eadwacer” an anomaly. The poem is also formally radical, both for its departures from Anglo-Saxon prosody, and for its inclusion of elements like repetition, and refrain, which were uncommon in Old English poetry. For this, and other reasons, some scholars even believe that this compellingly mysterious lyric poem might itself be a translation from the Old Norse.

As the act of translation cannot be divorced from interpretation, the mysteries of “Wulf ond Eadwacer” would seem to begird the translator, to restrict the strategies and outcomes available to her. Indeed, it seems sensible to decide what a thing is and what kind of effect it should have on the reader before translating it. But the reader should not have to pay for the translator’s convenience, and perhaps the least faithful translation of this enigmatic, polyvalent anomaly of an Old English poem that might have been born Scandinavian in the first place would be to present it in the absence of its complexity, to pin the poem down to a definitive interpretation, to lock it into a linear narrative that it never loved.

The poems at hand are part of a translation that aims to release the poem back into its radical complexity—to restore the lacunae, the indeterminacy, and the strangeness that make the Anglo Saxon version so haunting. Code-switching between the original Anglo-Saxon and Modern English, Wulf & Eadwacer embraces this proto-feminist, disjunctive voice so that its enigmatic plurality can fully be explored for the first time.

[1] Baker, Peter S. “The ambiguity of ‘Wulf and Eadwacer.’” Studies in Philology, Vol. 78, No. 5, Texts and Studies, 1981. “Eight Anglo-Saxon Studies.” University of North Carolina Press.

M.L. Martin is a prize-winning poet and translator whose experimental translations of Old English can be found in Waxwing and The Literary Review. Her poetry has appeared in Denver Quarterly, DIAGRAM, The Fiddlehead, The Massachusetts Review, PRISM international, and many other Canadian and American literary journals. She is the recipient of the Theresa A. Wilhoit Fellowship, the Bread Loaf Translators’ Fellowship, and the Inprint Verlaine Prize in Poetry. She currently lives in Tulsa, where she is a 2018 Literary Arts Fellow with Tulsa Artist Fellowship.


Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro

Translated by Raquel Salas Rivera

Diosa te salve, Yemayá

Diosa te salve, Yemayá
llena eres de ashé
la babalawo sea contigo
bendita tus hijas que toman la justicia en sus manos
y bendito es el fruto de tu océano-río Oshún

Santa Yemayá
madre de diosas
consentidora de todos los amores
de todas las lenguas y enjambres de labios
de toda hembra que ama a otra mujer

Ave Purísima Yemayá
santificada por criar a nuestras hijas e hijos
y enseñarles a devolver el golpe del marido borracho
maltratador
abusador
llena eres de balas
y cuchillas
prestas para el ajusticiamiento

rueguen por nosotras los orishas
Obatalá
Orula madre y padre
los dioses del santo hermafroditismo Eleguá y los ángeles transexuales
ahora y en la hora
de la libertad
de la desobediencia civil
de los defensores
de nuestra entrega por la patria
y nuestra bandera borincana
amén

Hail Yemayá

Hail Yemayá
full of ashé
the babalawo is with you
blessed are your daughters that take justice into their own hands
and blessed is the fruit of your river-ocean Oshún

Holy Yemayá
mother of gods
spoiling us with all the loves
all the languages and swarms of lips
of each woman who loves another woman

Our Yemayá, who art in heaven
hallowed be thy name for raising our daughters and sons
and teaching them to hit the drunk husband back
abuser
full of bullets
and knives
ready to enact justice

pray for us, orishas
Obatalá
Orula mother and father
the gods of the hermaphrodite saint Eleguá and the trans angels
now and in the hour
of our freedom
of our civil disobedience
of the defenders
of our complete surrender to our patria
and our borincana flag
amén

Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro (Guaynabo, 1970). Es escritora puertorriqueña. Ha sido elegida como una de las escritoras latinoamericanas más importantes menores de 39 años del Bogotá39 convocado por la UNESCO, el Hay Festival y la Secretaría de Cultura de Bogotá por motivo de celebrar a Bogotá como Capital Mundial del libro 2007. Fue premiada Escritora Puertorriqueña del Año 2016 en Literatura Queer por el Centro LGBT de Puerto Rico. Ha publicado libros que denuncian y visibilizan apasionados enfoques que promueven la discusión de la afroidentidad y la sexodiversidad. Es Directora del Departamento de Estudios Afropuer-torriqueños, un proyecto performático de Escritura Creativa con sede en la Casa Museo Ashford, en San Juan, PR y ha fundado la Cátedra de Mujeres Negras Ancestrales, jornada que responde a la convocatoria promulgada por la UNESCO de celebrar el Decenio Internacional de los Afrodescendientes. Ha sido invitada por la ONU al Programa “Remembering Slavery” para hablar de mujeres, esclavitud y creatividad en 2015. Su libro de cuentos Las negras, ganador del Premio Nacional de Cuento PEN Club de Puerto Rico en 2013, explora los límites del devenir de personajes femeninos que desafían las jerarquías de poder.Caparazones, Lesbofilias y Violeta son algunas de sus obras que exploran la transgresión desde el lesbianismo abiertamente visible. La autora ha ganado también el Premio del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña en 2015 y 2012, y el Premio Nacional del Instituto de Literatura Puertorriqueña en 2008. Su libro Animales de apariencia inofensiva fue declarado Libro del año 2015 y su libro Ojos de luna fue declarado Libro del año 2007, ambos por el Periódico El nuevo día. Ha ofrecido conferencias en Ghana, Africa, FIL Guadalajara de México y Casa de las Américas en Madrid, España. También ha sido Escritora Invitada para NYU, Vermont University, Florida State University y la Universidad de Pennsylvania. Ha sido incluida en la plataforma TED Talk como conferenciante con la charla magistral “Y tu abuela, ¿a dónde está?” Su obra se ha traducido al alemán, francés, italiano, inglés, portugués y húngaro. http://narrativadeyolanda.blogspot.com/

Raquel Salas Rivera is a Puerto Rican poet who lives in Philadelphia. Their work has appeared in journals such as the Revista del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Apogee, BOAAT, Círculo de Poesía, Cosmonauts Ave, Waxwing, Dreginald, and the Boston Review. They are the author of Caneca de anhelos turbios (Editora Educación Emergente), oropel/tinsel (Lark Books), and tierra intermitente (Ediciones Alayubia). Their book lo terciario/the tertiary is forthcoming in 2018 from Timeless, Infinite Light. Currently, they are Co-Editor of The Wanderer, and Co-Editor of Puerto Rico en mi corazón, a collection of bilingual broadsides of contemporary Puerto Rican poets. If for Roque Dalton there is no revolution without poetry, for Raquel, there is no poetry without Puerto Rico. https://raquelsalasrivera.com/

Vincent Toro

Traducción de Urayóan Noel

PROMESA (HR 4900)

      Song to ward off venture capitalists.

              The tinto shipped
from our ancestors in Galicia
       flirts unabashedly with giggling hens
on the veranda. Tio Frank
              is praying to his pipe, the smoke
                     cradles his bajo sexto
       as he croons, conjuring the flota

              that dislocated us from the last
century. Junior rocks the ricochet
       like a sorcerer of Brownian
motion. He is a garrison perched
              across the ping pong table
                     like an eight limbed
       colossus. In the kitchen, cards

              are slapped like sinvergüenzas
round after round in an endless
       game of Texas Hold ‘Em that holds
the cousins hostage. The winner
              is never the sucker
                     with the ace, the winner
       is he who talks shit with Fidel’s

              fuerza bruta, an eight hour
fusillade of slick digs and relentless
       boasts. Beside them abuelita
plays Zatoichi with the lechon
              asado, ropa vieja is swallowed
                     by vagrant cangrejo
       and bored nieces running

              on fumes from chasing
the dog around the chicken coops.
       This party was supposed to evanesce
long before sun up, but the coquito
              is still spilling, the tias
                     still stalking the counter-
       rhythms of the timbale like Bolivar

across the Andes. The road
at the end of the driveway is shrapnel,
       the privatized water too steep
for our pockets, but we got tariffs
              on this tanned euphoria
                     so no vulture
       funds can raid and strip

              the assets from our
digames, our ‘chachos, our
       oyes, our claros, our
‘manos, our oites, our carajos,
              our negritos, our vayas,
our banditos,
       our pa que tu lo sepas!

PROMESA (HR 4900)

     Canto para protegerse de los capitalistas de riesgo.

              El tinto que enviaron
nuestros ancestros en Galicia
       coquetea descarado con gallinas que se ríen nerviosas
en el balcón. Tío Frank
              le está orando a su pipa, el humo
                     arropa a su bajo sexto
       mientras canturrea, conjurando a la flota

              que nos dislocó del siglo
pasado. Junior le mete al rebote
       como un mago del movimiento
browniano. Él es un centinela velando
              la mesa de ping-pong
                     como un coloso con
       ocho brazos. En la cocina, las barajas

              son golpeadas como sinvergüenzas
ronda tras ronda en un eterno
       juego de Texas Hold ‘Em que mantiene
a los primos secuestrados. El ganador
              nunca es el pendejo
                     con el as, el ganador
       es el que habla mierda con la fuerza bruta

              de Fidel, ocho horas
descargando indirectas mañosas y alardes
       sin fin. A su lado abuelita
hace de Zatoichi con el lechón
              asado, la ropa vieja se la tragan
                     cangrejos vagabundos
       y sobrinas aburridas corriendo hasta morir

              de cansancio de tanto perseguir
al perro por los gallineros.
       Se supone que esta fiesta se disipara
mucho antes del amanecer, pero el coquito
              sigue fluyendo, las tías
       siguen acechando los contra-
                     ritmos del timbal como Bolívar

              cruzando los Andes. La carretera
al final de la entrada es metralla,
       el agua privatizada demasiado cara
para nuestros bolsillos, pero le hemos puesto tarifas
              a esta euforia bronceada
       para que ningún fondo
                     buitre nos ataque y nos arranque

              los valores de nuestros
dígames, nuestros ‘chachos, nuestros
       oyes, nuestros claros, nuestros
‘manos, nuestros oítes, nuestros carajos,
              nuestros negritos, nuestros vayas,
                     nuestros benditos,
       nuestros pa’ que tú lo sepas!

Vincent Toro is the author of Stereo.Island.Mosaic., which won the Sawtooth Poetry Prize and The Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. He has an MFA in poetry from Rutgers University and is a contributing editor for Kweli Literary Journal. He is recipient of a Poet’s House Emerging Poets Fellowship, a NYFA Fellowship in Poetry, and the Metlife Nuestras Voces Playwriting Award. A two time Pushcart Prize nominee and a finalist for the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize, the Alice James Book Award, the Andres Montoya Poetry Prize, and the Cecile De Jongh Literary Prize, Vincent’s poems have been published in The Buenos Aires Review, Codex, Duende, The Acentos Review, The Caribbean Writer, Rattle, The Cortland Review, Vinyl, Saul Williams’ CHORUS, and Best American Experimental Writing 2015. Vincent was an artist in residence at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida and at Can Serrat in Spain. He is a Macondo Foundation writer and a board member for GlobalWrites, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting literacy through technology. Vincent teaches at Bronx Community College, is Writing Liaison at Cooper Union’s Saturday Program, and is a poet in the schools for The Dreamyard Project and the Dodge Poetry Foundation.

Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Urayoán Noel lives in the Bronx, teaches at NYU, and is a 2016-2017 Howard Foundation fellow in literary studies, as well as the author, most recently, of Buzzing Hemisphere/Rumor Hemisférico (Arizona) and In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (Iowa). Learn more at urayoannoel.com, urayoannoel.bandcamp.com, and wokitokiteki.com, a bilingual, improvisational poetry vlog.

Urayoán Noel

ijla kontinente      aksilaj i kueroj     kueroj i aksilaj     anunsioj de deteljente     fantajmaj mochileroj     ke peldieron suj mochilaj    dokumentando suj biajej     pol la amérika nuejtra     komo selajej de otra     ijkielda siniejtra     ke suplanta y sekuejtra     a la anteriol     i otro gobielno en flol     se malchita     i otro potro de derecha kabesea i se enkabrita     asumiendo la mueka maltrecha     de laj masaj de ejtrasa     i ai filaj en todoj loj beltederoj      bajo el sol de la mañana     i ya se siente ke van dejpeltando     i de kuando en kuando     se abre una bentana     i ej ke akí todo sana     lentamente

fonetikanto

áilan’ kóntinen’     pit an’ jaid      jaid an’ pit     ditéryen’ komérchols     bákpaker gousts     ju lost dear bákpaks    dókumentin’ dear bóyech     akrós aur amérika     laik kláudskeips of anódel     lef’-bijáind lef’     dat suplants an’ jáiyaks     de príbius wan     an’ anódel góbelmen’ in blum     wíders awei     an’ anódel ráitwing koult chímis and cheiks     wéring de báterd grímes     of de braun-péiper máses     an’ dear ar lon’ lains in ol de dómpin’ graunds     óndel de mólnin’ son     an’ wan kan fil dem awéikenin’     an’ ébri wans in a wail     a wíndou óupens     an’ so yu si ébrisin biguins tu jíal     ibéntuali

Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Urayoán Noel lives in the Bronx, teaches at NYU, and is a 2016-2017 Howard Foundation fellow in literary studies, as well as the author, most recently, of Buzzing Hemisphere/Rumor Hemisférico (Arizona) and In Visible Movement: Nuyorican Poetry from the Sixties to Slam (Iowa). Learn more at urayoannoel.com, urayoannoel.bandcamp.com, and wokitokiteki.com, a bilingual, improvisational poetry vlog.

Pó Rodil

Translated by Raquel Salas Rivera

Cuir de extraño

Extraño
para la doña del tren,
para tu mamá,
tu papá,
tu abuela,
tu ex,
tú,
un extraño para ti,
solo para ti.

Un día decidí tragarme la duda,
respirar profundo,
abrazarme
un poco
o un mucho.

El mundo está hecho para ser cuir,
pa’ uno mirar su reflejo,
decidir quién vas a ser hoy.
No nací mujer.
Nunca lo fuí,
andando sin camisa en la casa,
escuchando regaños,
pechos pre-pubertos
negándose a crecer.

No hay miedo en sobresalir,
en ser.
No hay miedo en querer ser una pluma más en una boa,
Rosada.

Odiando mi nombre,
queriendo orinar de pie,
queriendo los tacones más altos que me pudiera poner.

Qué alternativa:
LA VIDA
////Queer////
alternativa a extrañar
////queer////

La alternativa:
asumir una identidad
extra.
Bien extra.

Otra vez, en el reflejo
voy a preguntarme, “¿Quién soy?”
o mejor:
“¿Qué soy?”

Una cosa
e x t r a ñ o,
gigante,
llamando la atención.
¿Qué soy?
¿Qué soy?
¿Qué soy?

Nada.
“SOY NADA.
NO PEDÍ ESTE CUERPO.
NO LO QUIERO.”
Miro al reflejo.

Salir.
Hay que salir.
Una identidad tengo que asumir,
un nombre muerto.
Eso.
Solo soy un nombre muerto,
las tripas desilusionadas,
revolcadas
se revuelcan.
No entienden que no les toca ser.
No les toca la tranquilidad.

No.

No.

Me niego.
Me niego a vivir así,
a tener que rogar respeto,
a tener que salir,
a ser alguien que no soy.

Quiero llenarme de escarcha,
llenarme de amor,
llenarme de querer ser yo,
llenarme de hacer,
ser cuir,
no un extraño.

Queer as in Strange

Strange
for the old lady on the train,
for your mamá,
your papá,
your abuela,
your ex,
you,
a stranger to you,
only to you.

One day I decided to swallow doubt,
breathe deeply,
hug myself
a little
or a lot.

The world is made for queerness,
to look at one’s reflection,
to decide who you are going to be today.
I wasn’t born a woman.
I was never a woman,
roaming the house shirtless,
receiving scoldings,
with prepubescent breasts
that refused to grow.

There is no fear in standing out,
in being.
There is no fear in wanting to be another feather in the pink
boa.

Hating my name,
wanting to piss while standing,
wanting the highest heels.

What an alternative:
LIFE
///Queer///
alternative to missing the estranged
///queer///
The alternative:
to assume an identity
that is extra.
So extra.

Once again, in the reflection
I’m going to ask myself, “Who am I?”
or better yet:
“What am I?”

A huge,
shiny,
s t r a n g e
thing.
What am I?
What am I?
What am I?

Nothing.
“I AM NOTHING.
I DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS BODY.
I DON’T WANT IT.”
I look into my reflection.

Go out.
You have to go out.
I have to assume an identity,
a dead name.
That.
I am only a dead name,
the disillusioned guts,
tousled,
are tousling.
They don’t understand that they can’t exist.
They don’t get peace.

No.

No.

I refuse.
I refuse to live like this,
to have to beg for respect
to have to go out,
to be someone I am not.

I want to fill myself with glitter,
fill myself with love,
fill myself with wanting to be myself,
fill myself with doing,
with being queer,
not a stranger.

Pó Rodil is a very queer caribbean trans/multi-diciplinary performance artist, anti-drag performer who loves to shine a light on the mind and body otherness.




Raquel Salas Rivera is a Puerto Rican poet who lives in Philadelphia. Their work has appeared in journals such as the Revista del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Apogee, BOAAT, Círculo de Poesía, Cosmonauts Ave, Waxwing, Dreginald, and the Boston Review. They are the author of Caneca de anhelos turbios (Editora Educación Emergente), oropel/tinsel (Lark Books), and tierra intermitente (Ediciones Alayubia). Their book lo terciario/the tertiary is forthcoming in 2018 from Timeless, Infinite Light. Currently, they are Co-Editor of The Wanderer, and Co-Editor of Puerto Rico en mi corazón, a collection of bilingual broadsides of contemporary Puerto Rican poets. If for Roque Dalton there is no revolution without poetry, for Raquel, there is no poetry without Puerto Rico. https://raquelsalasrivera.com/

Nicole Sealey

Traducción de Mara Pastor

Hysterical Strength

When I hear news of a hitchhiker
struck by lightning yet living,
or a child lifting a two-ton sedan
to free his father pinned underneath,
or a camper fighting off a grizzly
with her bare hands until someone,
a hunter perhaps, can shoot it dead,
my thoughts turn to black people—
the hysterical strength we must
possess to survive our very existence,
which I fear many believe is, and
treat as, itself a freak occurrence.

Fortaleza histérica

Cuando oigo noticias de un mochilero
al que le cae un rayo, pero sobrevive,
o del niño cargando un sedán de dos toneladas
para salvar a su padre atrapado debajo,
o de un campista peleando contra un oso
solo con sus manos hasta que alguien,
tal vez un cazador, le dispara y lo mata,
pienso en la gente negra—
la fortaleza histérica que debemos
poseer para sobrevivir nuestra existencia
que me temo muchos creen es, y
tratan como, otro suceso insólito.

Born in St. Thomas, U.S.V.I. and raised in Apopka, Florida, Nicole Sealey is the author of Ordinary Beast and The Animal After Whom Other Animals Are Named, winner of the 2015 Drinking Gourd Chapbook Poetry Prize. Her other honors include an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant, the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from The American Poetry Review, a Daniel Varoujan Award and the Poetry International Prize, as well as fellowships from CantoMundo, Cave Canem, MacDowell Colony and the Poetry Project. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times and elsewhere. Nicole holds an MLA in Africana Studies from the University of South Florida and an MFA in creative writing from New York University. She is the executive director at Cave Canem Foundation, Inc.

Mara Pastor is a Puerto Rican poet, editor, and translator. She lives in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where she teaches literature and collaborates as a writer with a number of publications and magazines in Puerto Rico and abroad. Her works include the chapbooks As Though the Wound Had Heard (Card Board House Press, 2017) and Children of Another Hour (Argos Books, 2013). She is also the author of several books in Spanish, including Sal de magnesio (2015), Arcadian Boutique (2014), Poemas para fomentar el turismo (2011), Candada por error (2009) and Alabalacera (2006). Her poems have been partially translated into English and, recently, to German. Her dexterity as a live performer of poetry out loud has given her a place in renowned festivals such as Festival de Poesía de Rosario, Argentina; Latinale, Berlin (2016); Festival de la Palabra, San Juan (2015); Festival de la Lira, Ecuador (2015); La Habana International Book Fair, Cuba (2014) and Festival del Caracol, Tijuana (2013). Her poetry is included in several anthologies and her work has appeared at the Boston Review, 80 grados, Clarín, El País, and elsewhere. She is the co-editor of the anthology of Puerto Rican contemporary poetry Vientos Alisios, that was originally published in Mexico City, followed by revised editions in Spain and Cuba. 

Nicole Delgado

Translated by Carina del Valle Schorske

con el cuerpo leo los ciclos de la naturaleza

de pronto me siento árbol
y me crecen las hojas

mi corazón palpita
bombea sangre por todas sus ramificaciones

los días se acumulan de formas diferentes

a veces
uno simplemente
no está listo

listo para la muerte

de alguna forma
tomo en la boca la palabra brindar
y después es el momento
de no esperar

nada
de nadie

with my body i read the cycles of nature

soon enough i feel tree like
and grow leaves

my heart palpitates
and pumps blood
thru all these branches

the days accumulate in different ways

some days
one is simply
not ready

ready to die

somehow i take
in my mouth the word
offering and then
it’s the moment
i won’t wait for

nothing
from nobody

Nicole Delgado (Puerto Rico, 1980) Poeta, traductora, guionista, diseñadora y organizadora cultural. Estudió Literatura Comparada en la Universidad de Puerto Rico y completó una maestría en Estudios de América Latina y el Caribe en la Universidad del Estado de Nueva York (SUNY Albany). Ha trabajado como facilitadora de talleres de creación literaria, poesía, periodismo, encuadernación y libro objeto en Puerto Rico, Nueva York, México, Ecuador y Panamá. Formó parte del colectivo internacional de escritoras Las Poetas del Megáfono en la Ciudad de México entre el 2008 y el 2009. Actualmente desarrolla junto a Xavier Valcárcel el proyecto editorial Atarraya Cartonera de Puerto Rico y organiza la Feria de Libros Independientes y Alternativos (FLIA) en Puerto Rico. Su poesía ha sido parcialmente traducida al inglés, catalán, gallego, polaco, alemán y portugués.

Carina del Valle Schorske is a poet, essayist, and Spanish language translator at large in New York City. Her work has appeared at the Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Yorker online, Lit Hub, The Point, The New York Times Magazine, The Offing, The Awl, and elsewhere. She recently won Gulf Coast’s 2016 Prize for her translations of the Puerto Rican poet Marigloria Palma. She is the happy recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo, the MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf, and Columbia University, where she is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature. Find her @fluentmundo on Twitter.

Mara Pastor

Left

Translated by Carina del Valle Schorske

I climb the stairs,
I burn down the house,
I decide to fly,
I speak an unspeakable
language, palm leaves
snap, electric trunks
fall in a mute city,
the muteness is wise,
the voice makes us
animals, the animal
drowns in the water,
in all of us, the sea is
sometimes tsunami.

Siniestra

I climb the stairs,
I burn down the house,
I decide to fly,
I speak an unspeakable
language, palm leaves
snap, electric trunks
fall in a mute city,
the muteness is wise,
the voice makes us
animals, the animal
drowns in the water,
in all of us, the sea is
sometimes tsunami.

Mara Pastor is a Puerto Rican poet, editor, and translator. She lives in Ponce, Puerto Rico, where she teaches literature and collaborates as a writer with a number of publications and magazines in Puerto Rico and abroad. Her works include the chapbooks As Though the Wound Had Heard (Card Board House Press, 2017) and Children of Another Hour (Argos Books, 2013). She is also the author of several books in Spanish, including Sal de magnesio (2015), Arcadian Boutique (2014), Poemas para fomentar el turismo (2011), Candada por error (2009) and Alabalacera (2006). Her poems have been partially translated into English and, recently, to German. Her dexterity as a live performer of poetry out loud has given her a place in renowned festivals such as Festival de Poesía de Rosario, Argentina; Latinale, Berlin (2016); Festival de la Palabra, San Juan (2015); Festival de la Lira, Ecuador (2015); La Habana International Book Fair, Cuba (2014) and Festival del Caracol, Tijuana (2013). Her poetry is included in several anthologies and her work has appeared at the Boston Review, 80 grados, Clarín, El País, and elsewhere. She is the co-editor of the anthology of Puerto Rican contemporary poetry Vientos Alisios, that was originally published in Mexico City, followed by revised editions in Spain and Cuba. 

Carina del Valle Schorske is a poet, essayist, and Spanish language translator at large in New York City. Her work has appeared at the Los Angeles Review of Books, The New Yorker online, Lit Hub, The Point, The New York Times Magazine, The Offing, The Awl, and elsewhere. She recently won Gulf Coast’s 2016 Prize for her translations of the Puerto Rican poet Marigloria Palma. She is the happy recipient of fellowships from CantoMundo, the MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf, and Columbia University, where she is a doctoral candidate in Comparative Literature. Find her @fluentmundo on Twitter.

Kenyatta JP García

Rain

Rain,
It’s strumming down
     the shingles
    as a celestial guiro.
We know this sound Jibaro,
    this and the goat’s toes
    and the splashing
        castanets.
Gitano,
    it sounds like the first
        day of exile.
It plucks as we did
those strings
    when we knew
    that the poets were 
        disappeared 
    forever.
Sephardito,
it’s the same
    knock
heard for centuries
    back to the reason
    for Passover.

But,
It’s a change from the snow
    of troikas
    and Cossacks,
It’s a change 
    from the winds
        that filled 
            every sail
from Agamemnon
    to the Conquistadors
to under wing 
of stukkas 
to the whistling caverns,
    alleys
        and berms.
Sopranos to the bass
    of explosions.
Rain,
    was it ever in Eden?
Only in the Exodus
    the first exodus?
But it’s a change 
        from the arid
the aridity 
that turns one 
    to dance
even when 
they can hear 
        the hooves
    and rifles
leaving from cities back east
bound for them.

But it’s also
    the humidity
    the home of mosquito
        and malaria
    and the weapon
    of those
        certain places
            where no 
                conqueror won.
Those swamps
        and jungles
    left to
        animal
        and aborigine-
Right Jibaro?
    Hermanx under plantain leaves
    Beside yucca roots
        and cane.
Hermanx run off
    for survival-
    for freedom-
        for the homeland.
Hermanx who welcomed rain
    just as those
        on mountaintop
    prayed for landslides
        to stop the pursuers
And to make each of their footsteps
                unsure.
Rain,
    Gitano,
        it’s never enough
            to extinguish
                those fires
    we made
    to eat
    to stay warm
        to signal our kin
Our family
    on Bedouin trail,
        in moccasins,
            in the rice paddy 
Our clan who know
        walls are worthless
    and legacy
    is a story 
        which only grows
            stronger.
Sephardi,
    There’s a language
        as rain
    which keeps coming
        to sink
Noah
    and his chosen animals.
It keeps coming
    for those without boats
to drown 
those who do.
It’s in the Highlands
    and in the notes
        passed cell to cell.
It’s on the street corner
    and it’s more song 
    than the drums,
fife and strings.

And Moro,
    rain washes
        your blood
    through it all
so you can suffer
    same as you conquered.
Rain washes
    your script
        away,
    takes the faces
        off coins
    but never turns copper skin
        to green
Never makes the swarthy
            and olive
         welcome
    but free,
at liberty 
    to let the rain
        wash the grease 
            away,
    the cooking oil,
        the mechanic’s fuel,
            the lubricants
                of guns,
    the sweat
        of wearing
            the wrong color
    collar,
Makes the hair 
    momentarily 
straight
    as those dashes 
        between the dots
used to surrender
    and plead
        for help
and also deceive.
Straight as fibers
    crossing on the loom,
As arrows
    and oars.
Rain, it erodes mortar and
    takes foundation
        from the houses
    we wish to forget.
It’s the ocean
    that’s never angry 
        with us.  

Kenyatta JP García is the author of Slow Living (West Vine Press), This Sentimental Education and Enter the After-Garde.