SOMOS EN ESCRITO
  • HOME INICIO
  • ABOUT SOBRE
  • SUBMIT ENVIAR
  • TIENDA
Picture

​
​​SOMOS EN ESCRITO
The Latino Literary Online Magazine

POETRY
​POESÍA

Roque Dalton Tribute, Virtual Reading

5/3/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture

Two Poems and a translation
​by Rafael Jesús González


Click here to join the Zoom meeting and listen to the rest of this virtual reading put on by Bay Area C.I.S.P.E.S. and fmln NorCal on May 9, 2020 at 6 p.m. (Pacific Time).

RSVP at http://bit.ly/RoqueDaltonRSVP
Rafael reads the following poems at the tribute event.

Roque Dalton in Translation

Como Tú
          por Roque Dalton
  
Yo, como tú,
amo el amor, la vida, el dulce encanto
de las cosas, el paisaje
celeste de lo días de enero.
 
También mi sangre bulle
y río por los ojos
que han conocido el brote de las lágrimas.
 
Creo que el mundo es bello,
que la poesía es como el pan, de todos.
 
Y que mis venas no terminan en mí
sino en la sangre unánime
de los que luchan por la vida,
el amor,
las cosas,
el paisaje y el pan,
la poesía de todos.

 
 
Like You
 
 
I, like you,
love love, life, the sweet enchantment
of things, the celestial landscape
of January days.
 
My blood also boils
& I laugh through my eyes
that have known the flow of tears.
 
I believe that the world is beautiful,
that poetry is, like bread, everyone’s.
 
& that my veins do not end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of all who struggle for life,
love,
things,
the landscape & bread,
the poetry of everyone.


English translation by © Rafael Jesús González 2020

Poems by Rafael Jesús González

A Roque Dalton
 
 
Ayer como tú
estudié con algo de tedio
las malas noticias
en un pedazo de periódico
de los crímenes de los locos,
del vanidoso y el cínico.
 
Como tú, canto la revolución
y si mis versos no son suficiente,
recuerdo tú advertencia:
no te pongas bravo, poeta.
  
 
 © Rafael Jesús González 2020
 
 
 
To Roque Dalton
 
 
Yesterday, like you
I studied with some boredom
the bad news
in a piece of newspaper
the crimes of the madmen,
the vain, the cynic.
 
Like you, I sing the revolution
& if my verses are not enough,
I recall your admonition:  
do not fume about it, poet.
 
 © Rafael Jesús González 2020

​Después de carnaval
 
                          a Roque Dalton
 
Después de carnaval
llega la hora de la ceniza,
tiñe las frentes
del humilde devoto
y del arrogante y el vanidoso.
Cae del cielo gris y solemne
de donde llueven bombas
         bobas y listas.
 
Pienso en la alta hora de la noche
que como tú que lees estas líneas
todos amamos la paz
         y aborrecemos la guerra
(pero también
los que aman la guerra leen
y hasta escribirán versos.)
 
No lo sé.
Lo que sé es que siguen las guerras,
la matanza, la injusticia, el sufrir
y que no se logra el descanso
del guerrero ni el de la víctima
si no es que la encuentren
en la muerte donde todo es ceniza
gris y fría sin ningún matiz de carnaval.
  
 © Rafael Jesús González 2020
 (Isla Negra 7/283, mayo 2011; derechos reservados del autor)
After Carnival
                 for Roque Dalton
  
After carnival
comes the hour of ash;
it stains the foreheads
of the humble devotee
& the arrogant & the vain.
It falls from the gray & grim sky 
raining bombs
         stupid & smart.
 
I think in the high hour of the night
that like you who read these lines
we all love peace
         & hate war
(but also those
who love war read
& may even write verse.)
 
I do not know.
What I know is that wars go on,
the killing, the injustice, the suffering
& that rest is not attained
for the warrior nor for the victim
unless they find it
in death where all is ash
gray & cold without shade of carnival. 
 
© Rafael Jesús González 2020
(A Roque Dalton Tribute; San Francisco (Acción Latina) 2017; author's copyrights)
Read more work by Rafael Jesús González on Somos en escrito:
​Day of the Dead (10/28/2019)
Cultivar nuestras propias flores -- grow our own flowers (6/2/2019)
¿Hay algo que es poesía política? (12/5/2018)
Día de los Muertos al estilo Nahua/Day of the Dead the Nahua way (11/2/2018)
To the new season/A la nueva temporada (9/21/2018)
Reflecciones de la Guerra / Reflections on War (5/28/2018)
An Image to Unify the Work for Earth-Justice-Peace (5/30/2016)
Siendo honrado por la ciudad (2/17/2010)
To my Republican brothers & sisters, and to all of us who need to hear it said. (2/2/2010)

Picture
Rafael Jesús González of El Paso, Texas, who now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, is an internationally known poet and peace activist. A professor of Creative Writing and Literature, he taught at the University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas El Paso, and Laney College, Oakland, where he founded the Mexican and Latin American Studies Department. Somos en escrito has also featured his book of poems, La Musa Lunática/The Lunatic Muse. Follow his blog at rjgonzalez.blogspot.com.

0 Comments

El Salvador: Where Tía Tere Knocks Out the First Conquistador

1/14/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
Ferias II (detail) by Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo Mixed media drawing on mylar

I gave up a whole country 
and you keep asking for more 



Tía Tere as Cipactli Tlaltecuhtli: 

A Gang Rape in Six Parts

​I

Where El Pueblo Points Their Thousand Fingers at La Niña Tere
​We did what every pueblo did
    when soldiers came asking
for our children. We hid inside
    barrels of beans and slept
on rooftops. We called the names
    of our gods and our country
hollered back. They found us
   at school, reciting the national
anthem. They found us selling
   conchas a cora on the streets.
They found us between bedsheets,
   nude as newlyweds, asking
for names. And if they gave us
   the choice between their enemy
and our head, we did what every
   pueblo did. We gave them puta
ó pobre. We saved ourselves.
II

Where Tía Tere Knocks Out the First Conquistador and All Else is Unimaginable 
​Spilling colónes on the street
is the closest we will get
to smearing dirt all over

Cristóbal Colón’s gilded face. 
So, when soldiers tear the purse
from her arm and bills rip ragged

as flags from its slapped mouth,
burying coin and conquistador
in shit and mud, we can call it

resistance, a victory for the little
hand that spun and struck midnight
raw against the jaws of soldiers. 

Tía Tere’s wrists were younger
then, stronger than they are now,
puffy and punctured. She caught

the first soldier in the nose and broke
red yolk down his rugged grimace.
Before he raped her, she forced him

to weep a boy’s tears. If he survived
the war, then he still walks today
with the nose the devil gave him.

Best believe she would have merked
him before the gun buckled her neck
and for hours she blinked back black.

III

Love Letter from Tía Tere to a Boy Soldier
​
​n the months dogs dig their dry noses through trash in search
of water, you were the boy who left out tins for the strays to lap,

a chicken bone for muzzles to startle and snap. Papi threatened
to beat us if we stole the fruit that fell from your father’s terreno

into our yard. I hid the mangos you gave me in my shirt and only
got caught once. Later, we shared the bruised seed, our white uniforms

half-translucent in the summer sweat, the pulp, bright and yellow,
stuck thirsty on our lips. I never repaid you for your kindness.        

He had your face,

The man with the fat nose
who dug through me like trash.

Here are my kindnesses in return:                 

      I fucked up his mug, gave him a new nose
      and busted lip before he overtook me.

I told myself you went North instead of enlisting.
You were the one I saw when I closed my eyes.
​IV

Where Tía Tere Faces the Judge 
​If bullet wounds had tongues
to testify, ¿would the judges

believe us then? If the vagina
could speak and write its darkest

name in blood, if she could count
the soldiers and their barrels,

¿would my pain be legitimate?

I gave up water and let my voice evaporate
       in the Chihuahuan desert.

I gave up a language—even the words amor y luz
        --and now my teeth cut
 my lips like rakes.
  
I gave up a good mother who worked like an ass,
a father who starved
      to feed his children.
 
I gave up my body and let its most tender parts
crack to pieces like a clam
full of dirt.
 
I gave up a whole country and you keep asking for more.  

Your honor, dile al presidente, the officials of ICE, the alt-right,
and this nation’s countless slaves: I am here to court each of you.

I brought you all the arm of a child, plucked from the earth
the way some pick a daisy. I apologize for its lack of fingers.

You already know how these games go. He lives, he lives
not. Are your men astute enough to tell me when it’s from:

¿our old war or yesterday’s tiraera? They all look the same.
If it’s not el ejercito, it’s la policia. If it’s not a landmine,

it’s a mara. ¿Which are you? If you want to play Pantokrator,
por favor, please judge me. 

In the Last Judgement, we will all be sent
to El Salvador to reap our eternal redress. 

In the Last Judgement, you will be forced
to face the insurrection of our dead.
V

Prayer to Cipactli Tlaltecuhtli
​
​Cipactli Tlaltecuhtli,

Tía says so many men went over her she lost count. 

They all blurred into one— 
            the soldiers y conquistadores
the judges y el pueblo
the police y las maras
the boys who once offered
her the ripe heart of a mango.  
             
You were the goddess men tore in two and claimed
they created the earth, as if la selva isn’t the nap
of your kitchen, as if Izalco y Ilamatepec blossom
from somewhere other than your bosom. 

We call you the world monster—la mujer, la guerrillera,
who survived a gang rape of gods and gave us your queendom,
bloody belly and slaughtered womb. ¿Are you not madre y martyr 
of our Americas, splintered at the isthmus, legs thrashing

against every chain and stitch? ¿Are we not all the children
of a woman torn at the border? You burst from the pin
of a guerrillera’s grenade as an angel. You flapped
your wings and the leaves of the trees fluttered

in flames and spoke--


Mija, soy la mera, mera, Santa Salvador.
Mira las heridas sobre mi cuerpo,
       las bocas que gritan en cada rótula, el rio
sangriento de mi pelo que llena mares
con su furia. Sos mi hija-guerra, nene, carne
de mi carne, la rosa de mis moretones. 
Entiendes ahora porque mis bocas siempre
 ansían por la sangre. He perdido tanto
de la mía. Pero no vas a morir aquí, ahorita,
       mija, yo te concederá la vida.
  
and the men were blinded
            by your light, made deaf
            by the roar of your rifles

and the men hid behind
            your trees which fell
            like hands clapping flies

and guerrilleros ambushed
      the camp as the colonel
      selfishly begged Tía for life

and the men lost their arms
            in the scuttle and finally prayed
            to mothers they never loved

and the men lost their legs
            in the scuttle and finally knelt
      humiliated before their Maker

and her thighs were still mud-slapped,
            bleeding to her knees as she led him
            through her homeland, the dark arch

and dip of your chest, where once
      she nursed from your honey and felt
      her bones harden with your marrow

and where then you gave her
      the strength to save a man
      who didn’t deserve your blood.           
VI

Prayer to Tía Tere
​
​ Tía,

When I call you Cipactli
            Tlaltecuhtli I mean this:
                                                 
You gave us a world, torn
limb by limb, rich with your sacrifice.
You gave birth to the poet and the thug,
to men who never knew your power.
If you let us live,
it is by the grit of your grace.
If we betray your love,
then we do not deserve your mercy. 

Editor’s Note:
This poem is about a woman’s abduction and torture in El Salvador in 1979.
PicturePhoto by Danielle Hernandez
​Willy Palomo, the son of immigrant parents from El Salvador who now lives in Cedar City, Utah, is a McNair Scholar, Macondista, and a Frost Place Latin@ Scholar. He has performed his poetry at the National Poetry Slam, CUPSI, and V Festival Internacional de Poesía Amada Libertad in El Salvador. Other works have appeared in Best New Poets 2018, Latino Rebels, Muzzle, and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States. His first collection of poetry is due out in 2020 by Black Lawrence Press. Follow him @palomopoemas 
and  www.palomopoemas.com.

Picture
Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo immigrated to Canada from El Salvador at age 11. A graduate of The Ontario College of Art and Design, he earned an MFA degree at Concordia University in 2008. He has exhibited widely and received numerous awards. He lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. For a closer look at his works, visit 
https://www.osvaldoramirezcastillo.com/.

0 Comments

    Archives

    March 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    March 2017
    January 2017
    May 2016
    February 2010

    Categories

    All
    Archive
    Argentina
    Bilingüe
    Book
    Boricua
    California
    Caribbean
    Cesar Chavez
    Chicano
    Chupacabra
    Círculo
    Colombiana
    Colombian American
    Cuban American
    Culture
    Current Events
    Death
    Debut
    Dia De Los Muertos
    Dominican American
    East Harlem
    El Salvador
    Emerging Writer
    English
    Excerpt
    Family
    Flashback
    Floricanto
    Identity
    Immigration
    Imperialism
    Indigenous
    Interview
    Language
    Latin-america
    Love
    Mature
    Memoir
    Mestizaje
    Mexican American
    Mexico
    Nicaraguan-diaspora
    Ofrenda
    Performance
    Poesia
    Poet-laureate
    Poetry
    Prose-poetry
    Puerto-rican-disapora
    Puerto-rico
    Racism
    Review
    Social Justice
    Southwest
    Spanish
    Spanish And English
    Texas
    Translation
    Travel
    War
    Women
    Young-writers

    RSS Feed

HOME INICIO

​ABOUT SOBRE

SUBMIT ENVIAR

​SUPPORT
​APOYAR 

Donate and Make Literature Happen

Somos en escrito The Latino Literary Online Magazine
is published by the Somos en escrito Literary Foundation,
a 501 (c) (3) non-profit, tax-exempt corporation.
Copyright © 2019
  • HOME INICIO
  • ABOUT SOBRE
  • SUBMIT ENVIAR
  • TIENDA