Summer 2023 | Poetry
Roxana Crisólogo trans. Kim Jensen &
Judith Santopietro
I know what it feels like to be in a war
though I never touched it and it didn’t blow me to pieces
To understand I went ahead
and blew myself to bits
one night while everyone was sleeping
When I exploded all my illusions went searching for their place
they took a boat crossed deserts
left fingerprints in train stations
and beautiful islands
Every part of me flew to claim a scrap
of land in this world
looked for a language to illuminate itself
for a grandmother drawing a garden
animating birds
for the picture they painted for me at birth
I had to find some clue
beneath the dirt my mother so compulsively
scrubs
until she leaves everything as clean as the disease
Until I gave myself a name
and on a hillside the hammer and sickle gleamed
and they forbade me to speak
Forbade me to speak of myself
of the scattered remains
Túpac Amaru torn apart
It wasn’t easy to put myself back together
to appear whole in the family photo
smiling
The good daughter who left the country
the country that abandoned me
cast me aside like a flag that a rabid sports fan
leaves on a coat rack in a bar
Sé lo que se siente estar en una guerra
aunque nunca la toqué ni me hizo volar en pedazos
Para entenderla me adelanté
y me hice volar a mí misma en pedazos
una noche mientras todos dormían
Cuando estallé todas las ilusiones buscaron su lugar
tomaron un barco atravesaron desiertos
dejaron huellas digitales en estaciones de tren
e islas bonitas
Cada parte mía voló a hacerse de un pedazo
de tierra en este mundo
buscó un idioma para esclarecerse
una abuela dibujando un jardín
animando pájaros
para la película que me pintaron al nacer
Tenía que encontrar alguna pista
bajo la mugre que mi madre compulsivamente
escarba
hasta dejarlo todo tan limpio como la enfermedad
Hasta que me puse un nombre
y en un cerro brilló la hoz y el martillo
y me prohibieron hablar
Me prohibieron hablar de mí misma
de la dispersión
Túpac Amaru desgarrado
No fue tan simple reunirme
para salir en la foto familiar completa
sonriente
La buena hija que salió del país
el país que me abandonó
el abandono de una bandera que un hincha enfurecido
olvida en el perchero de un bar
Roxana Crisólogo is a poet, translator, and cultural director who studied law. Her books of poetry include Abajo sobre el cielo (Lima, 1999) whose Finnish translation was published by Kääntöpiiri, Helsinki, 2001; Animal del camino (Lima, 2001); Ludy D (Lima, 2006); Trenes (Mexico, 2010, republished by Ediciones Libros del Cardo, Chile in 2019); and Eisbrecher (Icebreaker) Hochroth Verlag (Berlin, 2017). An anthology of her poetry has been translated into Italian, Sotto sopra il cielo (Down above the Sky) was published by Seri Editore. Kauneus: la belleza (Intermezzo Tropical, Lima, 2021) is her latest book of poetry, republished by Ediciones Nebliplateada, Buenos Aires, 2023. Crisólogo is the founder of Sivuvalo Platform, a multilingual literature association based in Helsinki. She was president of the association of Finnish left-wing artists and writers, Kiila. She was recently awarded a grant from the Finnish Kone Foundation to work on the Sivuvalo project. Crisólogo literary work and projects have been supported by the Finnish foundations, Kone Foundation, Finnish Literature Exchange, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Kari Mattila Säätiö and the Finnish Cultural Foundation. She lives and works in Helsinki. (Photo: Dirk Skiba)
Judith Santopietro is a Mexican writer who was awarded the writing residency at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in 2022. She was a finalist for the 2020 Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation for her book Tiawanaku. Poems from the Mother Coqa, translated by Ilana Dann Luna. She has published in the Anuario de Poesía Mexicana 2006 (Fondo de Cultura Económica), Rio Grande Review, and The Brooklyn Rail, and has also participated in the PEN America’s World Voices Festival in New York in 2018. Santopietro has carried out research residencies in the Sierra de Zongolica and Tecomate, Veracruz; the Teresa Lozano Long Institute of Latin American Studies, Texas; and the University of Leiden, TheNetherlands; as well as in New York and Bolivia. She is writing a novel on indigenous migration in the US, and a documentary poetry book on enforced disappearance in Mexico.
Kim Jensen is a Baltimore-based writer, poet, educator, and translator who has lived in California, France, and Palestine. Her books include an experimental novel, The Woman I Left Behind, and two collections of poems, Bread Alone and The Only Thing that Matters. She earned her BA in Literature from the University of California, San Diego, her MA in English from San Diego State University, and her PhD in Creative Writing from Lancaster University in the U.K. She studied French literature at the Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier 3. Active in transnational peace and social justice movements for decades, Kim’s writings have been featured in Another Chicago Magazine, Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, Extraordinary Rendition: Writers Speak Out on Palestine, Gaza Unsilenced, Bomb Magazine, Sukoon, Mizna, Revista el Humo, Left Curve, Liberation Literature, and many others. In 2001, she won the Raymond Carver Award for short fiction. Kim is currently professor of English and Creative Writing at the Community College of Baltimore County, where she co-founded an interdisciplinary literacy initiative that demonstrates the vital connection between classroom learning and social justice in the broader community.