Not Enough Poetry

I’m grateful and excited to announce that my translation of Oriette D’Angelo’s debut collection, “Cardiopatías,” will be published by co•im•press! Many thanks to Steve Halle for selecting this manuscript. The title of the collection in English is “Homeland of Swarms,” which comes from one of the poems in the book (see excerpt below).

This translation has been a labor of love that began in January 2018. After attending Bread Loaf Translators Conference in June 2017, I left inspired and invigorated, and charged with a mission: to find a Venezuelan poet to translate into English. I felt compelled to use my bilingual abilities to write poetry in English and Spanish to amplify underrepresented voices in South America.

For the next 6 months, I searched for a poet to translate. In January 2018 I stumbled across an interview online, and that’s how I found Oriette D’Angelo’s work. I Googled her name, came across her website, and more poems. I emailed her immediately, asking her if I could translate her collection. She replied that same day, a PDF of her book attached.

Here are two poems from the collection:

“I underline a title like I underline a country” first appeared in Nashville Review #25, Spring 2018.

“Knee on Dirt” first appeared in The Arkansas International, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

KNEE ON DIRT

[They say that the first stage of a fall
 is resistance]

Mine was the drop
Knee buckling 
hard

Femur on dirt
tibia on dirt
self-esteem on dirt
patriotism on dirt
the ego of a country sustained by fertilizer
the visceral manure
that makes us citizens

Knee tired of climbing onto so many platforms
Knee tired of endless marching
Knee tired of endless political posturing overdue

[payday
Knee tired of endless ministries

Femur wounded from so many queues
so little milk
so little bread
of being the pastry chefs of a country locked in the pantry

Tibia, fractured, in a cast
ligature of a city held together by bridges of sulfur
bare foot standing on plantations
exercising the muscle of disobedience
bare footprint against the pavement
always begging for the crumbs of history

Knee scorched from too much touching this ground
that burns me
and on the inside
is full of nothing but crude.

There are more poems from the collection in the “Translations” section of my website, so if you’d like to read more, check those out!

Here’s the link to order the book: https://www.coimpress.com/books/homeland_of_swarms.shtml

Tags: lupita eyde-tucker, Oriette D'Angelo, poetry in translation, venezuelan poet