ACROSS
Leaping-
free fall, airborne
suspended
reckless, open innovation
that mysterious thing
opening and closing.
Scenes, lying there
waiting, not explaining.
…
An insatiable fascination
with language,
selfless reverence
to make it come alive,
my palm
against her palm.
Sunday morning, June 4, 2017 was the first official day of the Bread Loaf Translators Conference in Ripton, VT. Our very first craft lecture was by Idra Novey, and this poem is a cento from her lecture. Idra is a poet, novelist, and translator from the Spanish and Portuguese. Her lecture was a perfect beginning to the conference, because she encapsulated exactly what it feels like to be a translator, with humor, insight, and heart. Thank you, Idra! On a side note, she is also super cool and fun to hang out with, and I wish I got to hang out with her more 🙂
Lupita Eyde-Tucker is a bilingual poet and translator raised in New Jersey and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the winner of the 2021 Unbound Book Festival Emerging Poet Award, the 2019 Betty Gabehart Prize, and in 2018 was selected as an AWP Writer to Writer Mentee by poet Maggie Smith. In 2022 she was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Prize from Letras Latinas. Lupita is completing an MFA in Creative Writing - Poetry at the University of Florida, and will be a staff scholar at Bread Loaf Translators Conference in June 2023. 
Not Enough Poetry 
Please let me know what you think of this poem. I love comments!