trans. by Kim Jensen and Judith Santopietro
Two POEMS
They Uprooted the Dreams from your name [1]
born tainted
I forget your name because it doesn’t taste like clover
it doesn't taste like anything to me
It would’ve been better to call you Jennifer instead of Juana
to invent letters soften syllables
to give your name a foreign sound because to make it special
is to make it unpronounceable
A name so they’ll respect you
A cannon name that makes you invincible
A bee name that goes straight for the eyes
A little necklace of iron protection
A harpoon to pierce frost
A name that sets you free
A name that u n l e a s h e s y o u
Your name is the body that beached the sea
There is no language for your name
No hero no street
No song
There’s nothing worse than being called
Sorrow
Oblivion
your name
which I’m now trying to reconstruct using the most sophisticated methods
to identify corpses in the Lima morgue
has no translation
There’s mud in your name
cactus fruit honeysuckle mangoes
the aromatic coffee route in your name
A crooked politician assures us it’s possible
to build a floating airport there to attract tourists
Your buried name
is the history of Peru
told in 4 letters
cut to tiny pieces
It has no translation
whatever burns
whatever is dragged
whatever blames itself
is left on the brink of death in the hospital
We need to take up a national collection to bring it out of its coma
You name that everyone wants to make their own name
but no one really cares whose name it is
they’ll want to kill it and they won't be able to kill it
Whole shipments of fruit will rot in your name
Your name
the battlefield
burning like a desiccated forest
retreating like a wamani in the middle of the night
shines like the coveted gold mines
acid run-off in the river
meanwhile we watch the spectacle in horror
The first fire
the first swindle
the first partition happened there
the first betrayal between countrymen
Save my skin and let the others rot
in the past only the chosen few
could have a name
(without translation)
You name no little gold chains no make-believe bling
You life are make believe
acid run off
with names like yours we can't have any illusions
[1] This poem refers to the femicide of a Peruvian woman named Eyvi Ágreda in 2018
I’m returning to the dog that barks at me
to the never-ending hangover
to the fog of believing
to my neighbors
who call and tell me with conviction
this time yes it’s true
to the urgent itch
the impatient murmur of words
to the clay that gives primordial form to our names
to the desert that prolongs itself
in the dissatisfaction of those who leave the South
with such high hopes
Summer whispers something into my ear
the dogs know exactly what I am talking about
and wag their tails
Chifa Happiness:
My sisters and I come for a plate of food
scrambled and refried
like the history of Peru
This jumbled mixture is my homeland
I descend upon the tender slices
of an unspoken weakness that I cheerfully
devour
All my bones and hardened arteries
Pump together in unison
the lyrics of a bad taste that I savor
and I melt
And if you haven’t tasted it you can’t understand
and if you don’t understand this love
you can’t know the ache
of this immense plate of rice that gazes at me from the top of its hill
Happiness
Roxana Crisólogo (she/her) is a Peruvian poet, translator, and cultural promotor whose most recent books of poetry include Dónde dejar tanto ruido(Álbum del Universo Bakterial, 2023), Kauneus: la belleza (Intermezzo Tropical, 2021), Eisbrecher (hochroth, 2017), and Trenes (El Billar de Lucrecia,2010), among others. Crisólogo is the founder of Sivuvalo Platform, a multilingual literature association based in Helsinki.
photo by Luis Trujilo Buevlas
Kim Jensen (she/her) is a poet and writer whose books include The Woman I Left Behind (Curbstone Press, 2006), Bread Alone (Syracuse University Press, 2009), and The Only Thing That Matters (Syracuse University Press, 2013). Jensen’s work has been featured in many journals, newspapers, and anthologies. In 2001, she won the Raymond Carver Award for short fiction. She currently teaches creative writing in Baltimore.
Judith Santopietro (she/her) is a Mexican poet and writer who was recently awarded a writing residency at the University of Iowa. She was a finalist for the 2020 Sarah Maguire Prize for Poetry in Translation for her book Tiawanaku (Orca Libros, 2019), and she also participated in PEN America’s World Voices Festival in 2018.