My new poem "Playlist," on grief and wonderment and the semi-oracular lure of music in a time of both, is Poem of the Week in the
@yalereview
today. This poem is in CENTRO, a collection forthcoming from
@Coffee_House_
in 2026. 💫
I'm haunted by a video I saw some time back of a very small child in Gaza, probably five or six years old, telling someone that she used to be beautiful, but now she's ugly. She touches her face and hair as she says this. The voice tells her of course she's beautiful, (1/)
very beautiful, dear, why does she think she's ugly? Because of the corpses, says the child. I shivered to hear her say this, and I feel a ghost of that shudder moving through me every time I think of it: an extraordinarily tiny person trying to make sense of the horrors (2/)
she's witnessed and experienced, of the damage she knows she's been subjected to, of the terrible certainty that she has been forever transformed. The transformation itself is unbearable to contemplate, incommensurable. None of us who has not experienced what she has (3/)
this beautiful child touching her face and lamenting the sense of herself that she's lost over six months of indescribable violence. And I'm mystified to the point of horror by anyone who does not feel diminished by catching even a glimpse of such a thing. (5/)
can possibly grasp the depth of this damage. But I do feel that a part of me will never be the same simply because I've seen, as I've repeatedly felt after seeing many other videos and images that many millions of other people around the world have also seen, (4/)
Whenever I eat a mango in Argentina, I think about how it pales in comparison to any mango I've ever eaten in Mexico. And then I think of a friend from India who once ate a mango in Mexico and said it paled in comparison to any mango he'd ever eaten in India.
From a shattering interview in the New Yorker with Dr. Seema Jilani, a pediatrician and senior technical adviser at the International Rescue Committee. World-shattering--
“Every real poet is a private poet, but if they are a good poet their language will be powerful enough to speak privately to many people at the same time.”
(Ilya Kaminsky)
Israel has annihilated every university in Gaza and slaughtered thousands of students. This young man defended his thesis in a tent today. But please, Zadie Smith, can we get a few thousand more words about why protest rhetoric on US campuses is like weapons of mass destruction
Today a Palestinian MA student from the destroyed Al Azhar University successfully defended his MA thesis in a tent in Rafah. The student now plans to do a PhD in Education.
I can't quite believe that my poem "Diego de Montemayor" has been selected for The Best American Poetry 2022, but today I'm allowed to say so.😳 The anthology will be published by Scribner in the fall.💫
Hoy, después de una lectura, un señor preguntó muy consternado por el lenguaje inclusivo y cómo "defendernos" de él. Una poeta Ñuu Savi tomó el micrófono y dijo que habla y piensa desde un idioma que abarca cinco géneros, entonces a ella le parece que al español le falta. 💜
Today my poem-a-day newsletter turns three years old!
Thanks to everyone who’s joined me in this little ritual, which continues to ground me each morning and bring me into contact with wonderful poems and people.
If you’d like to sign up, the link’s in my bio 💫
Quien quiera recibir un poema diario por correo, ¡pásame tu dirección! Mando más seguido en inglés porque es lo que más leo, pero siempre hay también en español.
//
If you'd like to receive a daily poem, send me your email! A mix of English (somewhat more often) and Spanish.
Translation reminds me, as someone who both translates and has been translated, that any book--including and in fact especially the "original"--is just a version of something that can keep changing indefinitely. And does.
Meet our new Translations Editor, Robin (
@robin_ep_myers
)! Robin Myers (she/her) is a poet and Spanish-to-English translator who will take charge of our Crossings feature. Give her a warm welcome to the
#PoetryNorthwest
team!
Voy a casa en Uber. El chofer se llama Marco Polo. Pero mi nombre es Robin y me han aplicado ya tantas bromas de Batman que me voy a quedar aquí sentada en un silencio de lo más cómplice y respetuoso.
Friends, I have a bit of poetry news to share: I'm writing a book of prose poems called CENTRO that will be published by
@Coffee_House_
, probably in early 2026. I'm really thrilled about getting to return as a poet to a press I've worked with as a translator. (1/2)
LOVE TRAINING, a collection of poems by Andrés Neuman, has been longlisted for the 2024 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation. I'm grateful to the judges for their generous attention to my work as a translator. But (1/
Nick Cave on Charles Bukowski:
"...I just don’t like Charles Bukowski. In my opinion, Charles Bukowski is the ‘Bukkake of Bad Poetry’, just blowing his junk around. I don’t like him. I just don’t. Not even a bit. No, not at all.
Love, Nick"
Selected anagrams of "omicron variant":
macaroni iron TV
caviar minor ton
nirvana coo trim
ovarian tic norm
conman trivia or
mantra rico vino
romantic vain or
carrion van omit
Macron trivia no
raccoon varmint I
narc ovation rim
orca minivan rot
a vicar motor inn
I'm excited and nervous to share "Hosts and Guests," an essay from my book-in-progress on poetry and translation, out today in
@wwborders
. It's about Mexico, Palestine, perpetually becoming a translator, and trying to make an always-changing home.
Hoy hace diez años llegué a vivir a la Ciudad de México sin saber, claro, que eso realmente era lo que estaba haciendo. Me conmueve recordar que tantas decisiones importantes sean así de a tientas.
Ayer tuve una revelación: las tunas son deliciosas. ¿Por qué no me di cuenta antes? ¿Cuánto tiempo habré perdido en mi propia indiferencia hacia esta fruta modestamente sublime? Nunca más. Vivan las tunas.
Well,
@WavePoetry
is going to publish COPY, a searing, haunting book of poems by
@DoloresDorantes
that I’ve had the intense privilege of translating into English, and I still can’t quite believe it 💫
(Coming in Spring 2022!)
A stranger in Argentina just told me via Instagram that her cat regularly seeks out my book among her many other books to sit and rest his head on. This is now my favorite review.🐱
I’m moved beyond words (though trying to find a few) to be receiving an NEA fellowship this year. I’ll be translating
@daniel_lipara
’s second book of poems, COMO LA NOCHE ADENTRO DE LOS OJOS, truly one of the most beautiful I’ve ever read.
I have a new essay out today (excerpted from my book-in-prog. on poetry & translation) in
@LAReviewofBooks
. Among other things, it's a love letter to Mexico City--and a thank-you letter to the friends and poems who have always helped me find my way there.
a young Gazan woman who's trying to flee to safety in Egypt and pursue her dreams of becoming both a dentist and a writer. I'm going to contribute to her fundraiser here and would be very grateful if you'd join me. (7/7)
Una noticia bella: la gran
@bestiecilla
tradujo BLUETS, de Maggie Nelson, y
@JampsterL
acaba de publicar su versión. La edición es digital y gratuita; la traducción, hermosa. Pasen, pasen. 💙💙💙
Another day, another unprompted email from a prominent translation theorist I have never met, chiding me for a sentence he dislikes in a recent personal essay! I think I might hang this one up on the refrigerator.
I’ve been translating a book by the Argentine poet Susana Villalba that features a dog who’s in love with a tree. “i’m jealous of the love / i feel,” the dog says. “it’s bigger / than me // it’s better.”
Banda: ¿cuáles son sus poemas o poetas favorites (escribiendo en español) que les parezcan muy gracioses? Es para una amiga que pronto dará una clase sobre el humor en la literatura.
No news in over 24 hours from Bayan, a journalist who's been posting daily updates from Gaza City for all these months, after her brother's murder by Israeli snipers. I fear for her and her family; I am furious for her and her family.
Ojalá se pudiera vivir en este mundo sin categorías migratorias y estado-nacionales de ningún tipo. Pero hoy, después de muchos años, por fin tengo la residencia permanente mexicana, y confieso que es un gran alivio. Hasta me dan ganas de ir a Garibaldi.