100 Refutations | Bolivia | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018When encircled by a thirst of soul
man, a desert traveler, wishes
to gather armfuls of laurels,
having reached the gates of glory;
“Stop right here,” however, he says to the woman…
Returning, then, to his march,
if he feels himself waver, and lose his valor,
“Come, come,” he tells her,
“You are my partner
in the hours of combat and agony…”
Adela Zamudio (1854-1928) was a highly intellectual Bolivian writer, feminist, and educator. She wrote verses from her adolescence under the nom de plume “Soledad” and lived her entire life in the city of Cochabamba, dedicated completely to education and literature. She was a formidable debater, using her talents often to defend the rights of women in the official debates of her time. According to her biography in the Antología de la Poesía Hispanoamericana (1965), in 1926 she was officially crowned for the government of her country. She is credited with beginning Bolivia's feminist movement and remains one of its most famous poets.
Lina M. Ferreira C.-V. earned MFAs in creative nonfiction writing and literary translation from The University of Iowa. She is the author of Drown Sever Sing from Anomalous Press and Don’t Come Back from Mad River Books, as well as editor, with Sarah Viren, of the forthcoming anthology Essaying the Americas. Her fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and translation work has been featured in journals including Bellingham Review, Chicago Review, Fourth Genre, Brevity, Poets & Writers, and The Sunday Rumpus, among others. She won Best of the Net and Iron Horse Review’s Discovered Voices Award, has been nominated for two Pushcart Prizes, and is a Rona Jaffe fellow. She moved from Colombia to China to Columbus, Ohio to Richmond, Virginia, where she works as an assistant professor for Virginia Commonwealth University. Visit www.linawritesessays.com.
English translation copyright (c) Lina M. Ferreira C.-V., 2018.