Robin Ouzman Hislop

I SHALL FIND YOU TO TELL YOU. A Poem by AMALIA IGLESIAS. Translated from Spanish by Robin Ouzman Hislop & Amparo Arrospide.

April 9, 2015March 7, 2015 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

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 This is an original and unpublished English version of the original poem written in Spanish.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

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

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

I will find you to tell you
that I am in love with life,
that I love in the agony
its lip that ignores me,
aimlessly I seek its sweet guillotine,
its blade of a thousand edges cutting my surf.

I love life
which grieves, keeps me late
in the night with bitter waking liquor
like a thread of morning fog amidst willows,

that I love its torn cyst of mandragora,
the glass lagoon which wrecks the years,
I love the uncertainty of moss and autumn,
the tenderness and sourness which flow.

In spite of this blinded fear of slopes
where I seek you
because I too evade death
and dawn.

All the fowls of the air drink glycine in your eyes,
all the fowls of the air love your body unsheltered,
all the fowls of the air inhabit your organs of alcohol without aqueducts,
all the wings burn in your combustible mind…

All the fowls of the air
leave the ruins
to search weeping that lives North of your breast,
to search the scorching fire that inhabits it,
now that they know you as a first person singular,
verb to be, time present , mode indicative.

In another violet sky, I show
that pleated girl, her bags
blue and empty.

UNTIL the sea you are the condition of the geyser
and the flaming arpeggio.
Here awaits you the subjective couch of memory which oscillates.
It now pronounces the malediction,
reconstructs that psalm
I write in beacons.

Decode the fire:
lie down on water,
whisper to the breeze your memorable eyes,
tell it that tenderness is a fleeting blow in each wave,
tell it that the undercurrent
only reaches the waistline.
why the wind remains in its penultimate looks.

WHEN this song
is no more a sign in the imagination of an ambiguous wind.
When the streets play with a seditious jungle
with you your legs in mist
in the tortured embrace of an estuary.
Or when on another day you gaze at the Mediterranean
wishing no longer to return and begin
no longer to be a wave,
nor a propitious coast,
nor a sailor’s orphanage without a dawn.

The wind, only the wind
sheltering the madness of birds,
those, others,
which die from the light beneath the willows,
those that lived because of you under a Romanesque sky,
those that pass by now
and die in the sea,
in the water fermenting an abundance of names.
When this song is only
spectre and mirage,
searched unremembered,
my heart
as a bridge between times
resting on the twilight will await you.

MY steps search lethal passports,
white lethargies for the flame which comes
and without pity burns my pupils out.

I write letters and split moons
believing in Hadrian’s serenity to await death.

I have seen how the night opens an abyss curtain
and returns me to the blows of space.
I appear at the profound birth
that intoxicates the bonfire’s sensitive latitudes
— grass playing fatuous fire
the glass lip eclipsed towards the Orient.

I have seen the tenderness inside Aries
fulfil the equinox,
border madness tracing a periphrasis, crossing the flank
when the moon lies in wait
and the north wind tames bridges’ eyes.
I have left myself, naked, to the rain
to the algid gleam of glass streets.

Through the candle you burn in the retina of the night,
in the hidden abodes
where on another day we stole with open hands.

Behind the empty volume and the vulnerable hollow
inhabited by frost trembling among nettles
another multiple bird
turns into unlikely alchemy.

SINCE never I love you and always,
from everything, perhaps, forever,
from the emphatic lightning which climbs hours’ ditch
towards the rising whip in my setting pupils,
my prompt voice, my wind:
a final vertigo —
and the most ungrateful delta to finish the journey.

Until nothingness I wait,
until remoteness of useless memory and crater without a sunset,
until doubt intoxicated by heavenly signs,
in fever and an August magnetized moon.

AUTOR:
TÍTULO: TE BUSCARÉ PARA DECIRTE

Te buscaré para decirte
que estoy enamorada de la vida,
que amo en la angustia
su labio que me ignora,
busco sin cauce su dulce guillotina,
su espada de mil filos tajando mi oleaje.

Amo la vida
que me pesa y me trasnocha,
con el licor amargo que despierta
como un hilo de bruma entre los sauces,

que amo su quiste roto de mandrágora,
la laguna de vidrio que naufraga los años,
amo la incertidumbre del musgo y del otoño,
la ternura y el ácido que fluyen.

Que amo la vida,
a pesar de ese miedo cegado de vertientes
donde te busco,
porque aún esquivo la muerte
y amanece.

TODAS las aves beben glicinas en tus ojos,
todas las aves aman tu cuerpo a la intemperie,
todas las aves habitan tus órganos de alcohol sin acueducto,
todas las alas incendian tu mente combustible.

Todas las aves
salen de las ruinas
para buscar el llanto al norte de tu pecho,
para buscar el fuego caliente que lo habita,
ahora que te saben primera persona singular,
verbo ser y presente indicativo.

Aquella niña plegada a otro cielo violeta
me enseña sus bolsillos
azules y vacíos.
HASTA el mar tu condición de géyser
y de arpegio incendiado.
Aquí te espera el lecho subjetivo de memoria que oscila.
Pronuncia ahora la maldición,
reconstruye el salmo aquel
escrito en las antorchas.
Descodifica el fuego:
acuéstate en el agua,
susúrrale a la brisa sus ojos memorables,
dile que la ternura es un golpe fugaz en cada ola,
dile por qué la marejada
sólo sabe trepar a su cintura,
por qué se queda el viento en sus penúltimas miradas.

CUANDO esta canción
ya no sea un signo en la imaginación ambigua del viento.
Cuando las calles jueguen a selvas sediciosas
y tú te pierdas en la niebla,
en los tortuosos brazos de la ría.

O cuando otro día mires el Mediterráneo
y ya no quieras volver a empezar
y ya no quieras ser ola
ni costa propicia
ni asilo marítimo de niños sin aurora.

El viento, sólo el viento
acogiendo la locura de los pájaros,
aquellos, otros,
que morían por la luz bajo los sauces
aquellos que vivían por ti en la frente románica del cielo,
los que ahora pasan
y mueren en el mar,
en el agua donde fermenta la espesura de los nombres.
Cuando esta canción ya sólo sea
espectro y espejismo,
buscado desrecuerdo,
mi corazón,
como un puente entre los tiempos,
te esperará sentado en el crepúsculo.

MIS pasos buscan pasaportes letales,
letargos blancos para la llama que viene
y sin piedad me abrasa las pupilas.

Escribo cartas y lunas demediadas
mientras creo en la serenidad de Adriano para esperar a la muerte.

He visto cómo la noche abre una cortina de abismo
y me regresa de golpe a los espacios.
Me he asomado a la eclosión profunda
que embriaga las latitudes sensibles de la hoguera
y al pairo el césped jugando a fuego fatuo,
el labio de vidrio eclipsado hacia Oriente.

He visto entrar la ternura en Aries,
cumplirse el equinoccio,
bordear la locura trazando una perífrasis, cruzando de costado
cuando la luna acecha
y la tramontana domestica los ojos de los puentes.
Me he dejado a la lluvia desnuda y permeable,
al álgido destello de las calles en vidrio.

A través de la vela que tú enciendes en la retina de la noche,
en los ocultos ámbitos
en que otro día robamos con las manos abiertas.

Detrás del volumen vacío y el hueco vulnerable
donde habita la escarcha tiritando entre ortigas
y otro pájaro múltiple
se hace alquimia improbable.

DESDE nunca te quiero y para siempre,
desde todo y quizá y para siempre,
desde el rotundo rayo que sube por la acequia de las horas
al látigo crecido en mis pupilas ponientes
veloz mi voz, mi viento:
vértigo de desembocadura –
y el más ingrato delta para acabar el viaje.

Hasta la nada espero,
hasta lo lejos de la memoria inútil y el cráter sin crepúsculo,
hasta la duda embriagada de rótulos celestes,
en la fiebre y la luna imantada de agosto.

Amalia Iglesias was born in Menaza, in the province of Palencia, in 1962. She won the prestigious Adonais prize in 1985 for Un lugar para el fuego and has published several other books of poetry. She lives in Madrid, where she edits Revista de Libros and La Alegría de los Naufragios. Her work has been widely anthologized amediavoz.com/iglesias.htm

Poeta española nacida en Menaza, Palencia, en 1962.Desde 1970 se trasladó con su familia a Bilbao donde se licenció en Filología Hispánica por la Universidad de Deusto.Actualmente vive en Madrid donde ha sido coordinadora del suplemento Culturas de «Diario 16». Dirige desde su creación,en 1996, de Revista de Libros, de la Fundación «Caja Madrid» y además colabora en la revista de poesía La alegría de los naufragios y en la sección Contemporáneos del suplemento cultural del periódico «ABC». Su obra poética está compuesta por «Un lugar para el fuego» 1984, «Memorial de Amauta» 1988, «Mar en sombra» 1989,«Dados y dudas» 1996, «Tótem espantapájaros», «La sed del río» y «Lázaro se sacude las ortigas» 2006. Ha sido galardonada con los premios de poesía Adonáis en 1984, Alonso de Ercilla del gobierno Vasco 1995, con el accésit del Jaime Gil de Biedma en 1996 y el Premio Francisco Quevedo de poesía 2006.

Robin Ouzman Hislop Editor of the 12 year running on line monthly poetry journal Poetry Life and Times. (See its Wikipedia entry at Poetry Life and Times). He has made many appearances over the last years in the quarterly journals Canadian Zen Haiku, including In the Spotlight Winter 2010 & Sonnetto Poesia. Previously published in international magazines, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review, Appalachian University N Carolina, Post Hoc installed at Bank Street Arts Centre, Sheffield (UK), Uroborus Journal, 2011-2012 (Sheffield, UK), The Poetic Bond II & 111, available at The Poetic Bond and Phoenix Rising from the Ashes a recently published Anthology of Sonnets: Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. He has recently completed a volume of poetry, The World at Large, for future publication. He is currently resident in Spain engaged in poetry translation projects.

Amparo Arrospide (Argentina) is a Spanish poet and translator. She has published four poetry collections, Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and Presencia en el Misterio as well as poems, short stories and articles on literary and film criticism in anthologies and both national and foreign magazines. She has received numerous awards. Together with Robin Ouzman Hislop, she worked as co-editor of Poetry Life and Times, an E-zine from 2008-2012

robin@artvilla.com
PoetryLifeTimes
Poetry Life & Times
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Creatures of Joy . A Poem by Amparo Amoros. Translated by Robin Ouzman Hislop & Amparo Arrospide

April 9, 2015February 18, 2015 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

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

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

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

To Edith Zipperich & Antoni Marí.

It would be useless for us to wonder
why the summer joined us as a nest
of woven hair between its bright hands
to decipher the emblem of the name
over fields of wheat,
to open in branches
to the wakes of chance,
or the fated date,
which summoned us there
or by whom.
To know? What for?
To feel, know and no more!
Everything still lives
and is sufficient now
because the skin of this truth
makes the word and time translucent.

The dovecote. The island. A bonfire of honey
where only we listened to the murmur of the light.
Like that morning
seeping through the earth today was music
its white aroma canvass in the arc
of memory
that recognizes an identical space
yet distinct
in which dwelt the miracle:
here grew an ivy
veins of surprises,
the bay a burst
in a clamor of quartz
and the still pool grew
yellow flowers.

Now, we will never die.
In spite of the pain we will never die.
Even though surrender is a flight
of full hands and nimble feet
and even though the world scarcely lasts
the absolute caress
of transparently winged truth.
How sad temporal chords of perfection!

But listen to the voice
born discarded
in the cave:
we cross its moss green lips
and descend laughing into its dark spring
of desolation.

Destiny left the door half-open
and we learnt from its hinge
the rusted song of complaint:
rags of charity initiated us.

But outside, the buzz of burning crickets calling us,
sunflowers unanimously crackled
like a diaphanous chorus of splinters
and an amber bird
suddenly crossed the sky.

We were simply creatures of joy
freed of pain for an instant,
not intact, but unharmed
from so many occurrences,
full and surrendered
to the flame which momentarily sates
shortage of excess,
to the branch which wreathes the crown of joy,
and warm dates smiled upon by evening’s
apron splashed with handfuls of water,
in the fresh innocence
of what has spilt its measure
and brimming overflows
by the grace of this truce,
which at times life gifts us:
to be and to be us, merely
and to be everything
to justify the universe.

AUTORA: AMPARO AMORÓS
TíTULO: CRIATURAS DEL GOZO
A Edith Zipperich y Antoni Marí

Fuera inútil ahora preguntarnos
por qué el estío nos reunió entre sus manos claras
como cabellos que trenzaran un nido,
descifrar el emblema del nombre sobre campo
de trigos,
abrir en gajos
las estelas del azar
o la cita acordada
y ¿por quién?
que allí nos convocaba.
¿Conocer? ¿Para qué?
Sentir, saber, y basta.
Todo está vivo aún
y es suficiente
porque vuelve palabra
la piel de esta certeza
y traslúcido el tiempo.

El palomar. La isla. Una hoguera de miel
donde sólo escuchábamos el rumor de la luz.
Como aquella mañana
hoy trasmina la tierra y era música
su blanco aroma a lienzos en el arca
de la memoria
que reconoce idéntico el espacio
y tan distinto
en que habitó el milagro:
aquí creció una yedra
de venas asombradas,
estalló la ensenadaa
en un clamor de cuarzos
y el remanso crujió
de flores amarillas.
Ya nunca moriremos.
A pesar del dolor ya nunca moriremos.
Aunque es la entrega huida
de manos llenas y de pies ligeros
y apenas dura un mundo
la caricia total con que nos roza
como ala transparente la verdad.
¡Qué triste es el acorde fugaz de lo perfecto!

Pero escucha la voz
que nacía empozada
de la cueva:
franqueamos sus labios de verdines musgosos
y bajamos riendo al manantial oscuro
de la desolación.
Entreabría el destino la puerta
y aprendimos en su bisagra
el oxidado canto de la queja.
Pliegues de caridad nos iniciaban.

Pero afuera, cigarras calcinadas llamándonos a gritos,
crepitaban unánimes todos los girasoles
como un coro diáfano de astillas
y un pájaro de ámbar
cruzó de pronto el cielo.

Éramos puramente criaturas del gozo
a salvo del dolor por un instante,
no intactos, sino indemnes
porque al regreso ya de tantas cosas,
entregados y plenos
a la tea que sacia momentánea
la escasez del exceso,
a la rama estañada que corona de dicha,
a los dátiles tibios que sonríe la tarde
con el mandil cuajado de manojos de agua,
en la fresca inocencia
de lo que ha derramado su medida
y grávido, rebasa y se concede
por gracia de esa tregua
con que a veces la vida nos regala:
ser y sernos tan sólo
y serlo todo
para justificar el universo.

Amparo Amorós was born in Valencia, Spain, in 1950.She has published articles and poems in literary magazines such as Insula, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, Cuadernos del Norte, Litoral, El País, La Vanguardia and others. She was awarded an accesit to the Adonais Literary Prize in 1982, for her poetry book Ludia (1983). Other published books include Al rumor de la luz (1985), La honda travesía del águila (1986), El cálculo de la derrota, La cicatriz del agua, Quevediana (1988), Visión y destino, poesía 1982-1992 (1993), Árboles en la música (1995) and Las moradas (2000) as well as her essay La palabra del silencio (la función del silencio en la poesía española a partir de 1969) (1991).Her books have been translated into several languages.

Robin Ouzman Hislop Editor of the 12 year running on line monthly poetry journal Poetry Life and Times. (See its Wikipedia entry at Poetry Life and Times). He has made many appearances over the last years in the quarterly journals Canadian Zen Haiku, including In the Spotlight Winter 2010 & Sonnetto Poesia. Previously published in international magazines, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review, Appalachian University N Carolina, Post Hoc installed at Bank Street Arts Centre, Sheffield (UK), Uroborus Journal, 2011-2012 (Sheffield, UK), The Poetic Bond II & 111, available at The Poetic Bond and Phoenix Rising from the Ashes a recently published Anthology of Sonnets: Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. He has recently completed a volume of poetry, The World at Large, for future publication. He is currently resident in Spain engaged in poetry translation projects.

Categories Amparo Amoros, Amparo Arrospide, Poets, Robin Ouzman Hislop, Translation Tags Poem, poet, poetry, Spanish, translation

A Pet of your Own. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

April 9, 2015February 14, 2015 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

Stray dog on the straw wind –
Heaven & earth are ruthless,

Yelp, yelp –
Where’s your tag, tab & chip!
You’re not even an exile,
You’re banned,
Perhaps you’ll get rabies & infect us.

This is my seat, my place, my corner,
I’m here, I’ve got my coat & bag
Next, see, when you get on,
I’m next to the window.

Get back to your kennel, with a number on.
Running loose. So we know where you are.
Maybe someone will leash you in.
Leash you from the lash.
Going to make it to the hill!
Borders are patrolled here.

A few chickens in the backyards
On the way. No way.
Our helicopter’s sniper
Will take you out & kill, kill, kill.

Poor thing, looks about all in,
What a shame, that beggar
Down the road looks as if he’d eat it.
I wouldn’t be surprised,
Poor thing.

What, sit here?
The bus is full?
Really, Oh well, if you must,
You must.
Mutter, utter,
(My Space:) ((so small)).

Here we are, at least, aren’t we.
Pets, but a stray’s a stray.
It’s raining cats & dogs.

Straw dog on the stray wind.
& treats the myriad creatures as straw dogs.

(Lao Tzu)

Robin Ouzman Hislop Editor of the 12 year running on line monthly poetry journal Poetry Life and Times. (See its Wikipedia entry at Poetry Life and Times). He has made many appearances over the last years in the quarterly journals Canadian Zen Haiku, including In the Spotlight Winter 2010 & Sonnetto Poesia. Previously published in international magazines, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review, Appalachian University N Carolina, Post Hoc installed at Bank Street Arts Centre, Sheffield (UK), Uroborus Journal, 2011-2012 (Sheffield, UK), The Poetic Bond II & 111, available at The Poetic Bond and Phoenix Rising from the Ashes a recently published Anthology of Sonnets: Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. He has recently completed a volume of poetry, The World at Large, for future publication. He is currently resident in Spain engaged in poetry translation projects.

robin@artvilla.com
PoetryLifeTimes
Poetry Life & Times
editor@artvilla.com
www.artvilla.com
Artvilla.com

East of Eden. A Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

July 19, 2015February 8, 2015 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

The killing machine kills more animals a day
for consumption
than ipso facto, we in a year’s killing fields.

God made in our image, the anonymous
crowd, knotted
through with confections washed up on

Our coast of humanity, which windows
onto a Zoo
life thrives on deception. A moral mind

An infallible judgement, where everyone
is dead
every tomb unearthed, then resealed

Animal, human remains heaped in fields
as tipped
dumps, where even the horizon’s clouds

Are vapid incineration, a house of cards
crumbling, falling
into one another, into the pit that blots us out.

Robin Ouzman Hislop Editor of the 12 year running on line monthly poetry journal Poetry Life and Times. (See its Wikipedia entry at Poetry Life and Times). He has made many appearances over the last years in the quarterly journals Canadian Zen Haiku, including In the Spotlight Winter 2010 & Sonnetto Poesia. Previously published in international magazines, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review, Appalachian University N Carolina, Post Hoc installed at Bank Street Arts Centre, Sheffield (UK), Uroborus Journal, 2011-2012 (Sheffield, UK), The Poetic Bond II & 111, available at The Poetic Bond and Phoenix Rising from the Ashes a recently published Anthology of Sonnets: Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. He has recently completed a volume of poetry, The World at Large, for future publication. He is currently resident in Spain engaged in poetry translation projects.

robin@artvilla.com
PoetryLifeTimes
Poetry Life & Times
editor@artvilla.com
www.artvilla.com
Artvilla.com

TRIUMPH OF ARTEMIS OVER VOLUPTA . A Poem by Ana Rossetti. Translated by Robin Ouzman Hislop & Amparo Arrospide

April 9, 2015February 4, 2015 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

For Olga. A Poem by Blanca Andreu. Translated from Spanish by Robin Ouzman Hislop & Amparo Arrospide.

September 4, 2019January 16, 2015 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

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

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

For Olga

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

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

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

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

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

Para Olga

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Awards

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

Translators:

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

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

All the Babble of the Souk , Cartoon Molecules and Next Arrivals, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande´s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist and the recently published Tesserae , a translation of Carmen Crespo´s Teselas.

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

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

A WITCH FOR HALLOWEEN. A Narrative Poem by Robin Ouzman Hislop

April 9, 2015November 1, 2014 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

-Well, what kind of witch, is it then?

It is an indestructible witch, that one, who lives in a city at the end of the world, which must be nameless.

-How so!

For the sake of its inhabitants who know her & those who don’t, for that’s how terrible this witch is. She lives at the end of a street in this city, which ends in a stair, which ends in the air.

-You mean-

Ay, a black thing, all crooked & twisted, a misshapen enormous runny thing, as inside out, as outside in & more like a shadow than a thing on the stair. In fact, it’s reported, those who followed her on the stair, like the little children…

-She fascinated them, I expect.

Those that returned, those she didn’t eat alive & leave their bones splattered all over the place, say when they crawled up the stair behind her, they couldn’t see whether she wasn’t some hideous shadow or some perfidious object before them.

-They’d find out soon enough.

So she, with a terrible screech, would leap out at them, all hooked & fanged, & kick like stilts with great clob- -bering boulders on the nearest to pulp, whilst the some she’d snatch & swallow in chunks spitting out their little bloody bits, as the others howled helpless screaming in the air, whilst her gruesome faces leered at each, licking their odious lips from where exhaled foul putrescent odour.

-& those that survived?

Became old men & women overnight, always selfaffrighted.

-& what of the witch?

She, every time, after her orgy, rises to the top of the stairs & jumps not up into the cold black sky but into a pit below, where she joins with all manner of rank creatures in such cavorts & cacophonies, that those neighbours nearby are faint faded fey.

-& you say she’s indestructible?

That’s the snag of it, they’d thought to hang a great net from under the stairs & over the pit, but what to do with her after! You see, it’s known she has a place of exit from the pit & from there crosses the city to the stairway but no one knows where it is.

-Is that so important?

If they could find the exit they could fill it with glue and stitch the lot of them so that they’d never so much as twitch a snitch again.

-Why even then she might just become gum & goo & cover everything.

The net it must be, we thought to attach it to a balloon & send her to hover under the highest stratosphere of the globe, but she may bust the biosphere & swallow us all in a black hole.

-Or again drop her into the sea & what unfathomable semblance may arise from its depths to walk upon the land.

Or volcano, she’d blow the earth to smithereens.

-Truly indestructible, but what to do ?

Placate her, you arch an eyebrow, it is indeed a heinous affair, the whole city given over to the production of children simply to feed her, the people are not so virile, whilst the whole process takes somewhat longer than farming piglets, it comes to the same thing.

-Tonight is Halloween.

& the children will carry pumpkins in procession, dressed up as little ghouls to see the witch at the bottom of the stairs.

-& tomorrow a bigger mess than usual.

It’s funny how they like human flesh, isn’t it, why can’t they be satisfied with insects or rotten fish, children at that!

-Put a curse on her to turn her to ashes & burn the ashes.

Our greatest bards have composed rhymes that would jinx any moving or still thing, “O most wicked bitch, may you hitch in stitch so that you never twitch a snitch, witch”

-Very mighty

To no avail, she seems immune to words.

-We must find the exit.

But to enter by the exit is to be consumed by hell, there’s always an obstacle, she herself is nothing but an obstruction, we’re under forced development & we can’t block the exit.

-To close the pit forever would be a solution, you’d walk on top of it & never know there was a witch underneath raving with rage & wanting to rip you apart.

You’d go to the top of the stair & just jump into the air.

It’s Not a Phantom from a Distant Past.Poem Robin Ouzman Hislop. Translation Amparo Arrospide.

April 9, 2015September 23, 2014 by Robin Ouzman Hislop

It’s not a phantom from a distant past
present in a time frame like a shadow
hiding something remote, intangible
in the myth of now, which habit sustains,
even as it fades. What is it then, this veil
that haunts beyond the place periphery?
You gaze yonder knowing there is no yore
enticing us from a space we can’t leave,
but only deepen where we’re conceived.
What enters then in this frame’s perception,
alluring because it’s beyond approach,
that cheats memory and never lets it go,
a holographic cosmic horizon
or death always reminding us we die?

No es de un lejano pasado fantasma

No es de un lejano pasado fantasma
la sombra en el presente actualizada
que oculta lo remoto e intangible
en el ficticio ahora, rutinario

hasta al desvanecerse. ¿Qué es el velo
que ondula fascinante tras el límite?
Más allá atisbas, sabiendo que no existe,
a lo inescapable confinados,

inútil es luchar por traspasarlo.
¿Qué se revela, pues, inalcanzable
y sin poder nombrarse nos atrae

con imposible recuerdo de nostalgia:
un horizonte cósmico holográfico
o muerte en la frontera y al acecho?

Robin Ouzman Hislop (Reino Unido)
Traducido por Amparo Arróspide y Robin Ouzman Hislop

This sonnet together with its translation appeared in The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes: Exciting new sonnet anthology edited by Richard Vallance now available on Barnes & Noble: Phoenix Rising from the Ashes BN ID: 2940148833628 Publisher: FriesenPress Publication date: 11/20/2013 Sold by: Barnes & Noble

Robin Ouzman Hislop Editor of the 12 year running on line monthly poetry journal Poetry Life and Times. (See its Wikipedia entry at Poetry Life and Times). He has made many appearances over the last years in the quarterly journals Canadian Zen Haiku, including In the Spotlight Winter 2010 & Sonnetto Poesia. Previously published in international magazines, his recent publications include Voices without Borders Volume 1 (USA), Cold Mountain Review, Appalachian University N Carolina, Post Hoc installed at Bank Street Arts Centre, Sheffield (UK), Uroborus Journal, 2011-2012 (Sheffield, UK), The Poetic Bond II & 111, available at The Poetic Bond and Phoenix Rising from the Ashes a recently published Anthology of Sonnets: Phoenix Rising from the Ashes. He has recently completed a volume of poetry, The World at Large, for future publication. He is currently resident in Spain engaged in poetry translation projects.

robin@artvilla.com
PoetryLifeTimes
Poetry Life & Times
editor@artvilla.com
www.artvilla.com
Artvilla.com

Amparo Arrospide (Argentina) is a Spanish writer and translator. She has published four poetry collections Mosaicos bajo la hiedra, Alucinación en dos actos y algunos poemas, Pañuelos de usar y tirar and Presencia en el Misterio as well as poems, short stories and articles on literary and film criticism in anthologies and both national and foreign magazines, such as Cuadernos del Matemático, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, Linden Lane Magazine, Espéculo, Piedra del Molino, Nayagua. She has received awards. Together with Robin Ouzman Hislop, she worked as co-editor of Poetry Life and Times, a webzine, and coordinated the Spanish sonnets section for the international anthology The Phoenix Rising from the Ashes (ed. Richard Vallance, 2014).

editor@artvilla.com
robin@artvilla.com

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