Aduanas
Nota del editor:
Ésta es la traducción de un poema bilingüe en tres partes de la poeta venezolana Beverly Pérez Rego. Para leer el texto original, con el español en inglés y el inglés en español, llevada a cabo por Arturo Gutiérrez Plaza y Arthur Dixon, haga clic aquí.
I
What is the purpose of your stay?
He perdido mis manos y no puedo comprar otras.
What is your name?
Toque mi frente. Vengo del infierno.
Before you knew you were coming, did you have anything to declare?
Yo no pertenezco. Ni este verso me pertenece.
Show me your immunization records.
Todo me condujo aquí. Nada me condujo aquí.
I don’t recognize the photo in your passport.
Ella y yo somos enemigas.
How long will you be here?
La desnuda muralla, la campana lejana. Estoy cantando.
What was his name?
¿Cómo se llamaba?
Have you left your luggage unattended?
Se ha acabado la lluvia. Desperté a mi lado, en la grama, empapada.
Are you thirsty?
Nunca habrá otro más, ¿Cómo se llamaba?
II
What is the purpose of your stay?
La luz inconmensurable detrás de los ojos
What is your name?
Tengo dos lunas y soy un desierto.
Do you have anything to declare?
No lo olvido. Miro con atención y pido perdón.
Show me your immunization records.
Destruir. Preservar. Cielo y océano.
I don’t recognize the photo in your passport.
Ella y yo somos codificaciones.
How long will you be here?
El coágulo de sangre en su sien izquierda. Estoy fingiendo.
What was his name?
¿Cómo se llamaba?
Have you left your luggage unattended?
La pesa. Los jirones.
Are you thirsty?
Duermo en un salón de clases abandonado. Despierto a mi lado y aguardo por la campana.
III
La luz inconmensurable detrás de los ojos.
How long will you be here?
What is the purpose of your visit?
Estoy derramada como el agua.
What is her name?
¿Cómo se llamaba?
What is her name?
Nada me condujo hasta acá. Todo me condujo hasta acá.
Do you have anything to declare?
La noche es mi Señor, el día es mi Señor.
Show me your immunization records.
“Apestada de multitudes”.
“We are mixed in with the great evil of the earth.”
Vi la bondad del Señor en la tierra de los vivos.
“Orphaned, and trumpetless, and the woman who opens her brow.”
“Y él dijo, échate en la tierra. Y se echó en la tierra y se convirtió en serpiente”.
Are you thirsty?
Are you thirsty?
I wrote these poems under the light of uncertainty, fragments of psalms, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Juan Sánchez Peláez. The first part of the set was published for the first time in The Journal, Issue 40, 2016.
Traducción de Arturo Gutiérrez Plaza y Arthur Dixon
Beverly Pérez Rego is a Venezuelan poet and translator. She is the author of five volumes of poetry, Artes del vidrio (1992), Libro de cetrería (1994), Providencia (1998), Grimorio (2002), and Escurana (2004); collected in 2006 as Poesía reunida. Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies, and her publications also include translations of Louise Glück (2009), Anne Waldman (1997), Clara Sabater (2016) and Mark Strand (2011). An anthology of Venezuelan poetry translated into English is forthcoming, as well as a collection of short stories and alt-fiction. Pérez Rego received the Rafael Bolívar Coronado Biennial Literary Prize in Poetry and the Elías David Curiel Poetry Award, was a Poetry Fellow at Pittsburgh’s City of Asylum and the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa, where she later obtained an MFA in Spanish and an MFA in Translation. She currently lives in Caracas.
Arturo Gutiérrez Plaza is a poet, essayist, and university professor. He serves as the Associate Editor and Book Reviews Editor of Latin American Literature Today.
He has published the following verse collections: Al margen de las hojas (Caracas: Monte Ávila, 1991), De espaldas al río (Caracas: El pez soluble, 1999), Principios de Contabilidad (Mexico: Conaculta, 2000), Pasado en Limpio (Caracas: Equinoccio, bid&co, 2006), and Cuidados intensivos (Caracas: Lugar Común, 2014). His books of essays, literary research, and anthologies include: Lecturas desplazadas: Encuentros hispanoamericanos con Cervantes y Góngora(Caracas: Equinoccio, 2009), Itinerarios de la ciudad en la poesía venezolana: una metáfora del cambio (Caracas: Fundación para la Cultura Urbana, 2010), Las palabras necesarias. Muestra antológica de poesía venezolana del siglo XX(Santiago de Chile: LOM, 2010), and Formas en fuga. Antología poética de Juan Calzadilla(Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 2011).
Among other prizes, he has won: the Mariano Picón Salas prize for poetry (Venezuela) in 1995, the Premio Hispanoamericano de Poesía Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Mexico), in 1999, and the Premio Transgenérico de la Fundación para la Cultura Urbana (Venezuela) in 2009. He is a retired senior professor at the Universidad Simón Bolívar (Venezuela), and he currently works as a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Oklahoma.
Arthur Malcolm Dixon is co-founder, lead translator, and Managing Editor of Latin American Literature Today. He has translated the novels Immigration: The Contest by Carlos Gámez Pérez and There Are Not So Many Stars by Isaí Moreno (Katakana Editores), as well as the verse collection Intensive Care by Arturo Gutiérrez Plaza (Alliteratïon). He also works as a community interpreter in Tulsa, Oklahoma and is a 2020-2021 Tulsa Artist Fellow.
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