100 Refutations | Nicaragua | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018José Solón Argüello Escobar (1879-1913) was born in León, Nicaragua. During his life he worked as a teacher, poet, and Mexican politician. In Nicaragua, he founded both a private school and a journal, El Heraldo. He was politically active in Mexico his entire life while continuing to publish numerous works of poetry. In 1913, the year his book Cruel Things was published, he actively campaigned for his friend Francisco I. Madero to end what he called “a tyranny in Mexico” and to “restore democracy.” After the assassination of Madero, Argüello fled to New York, but after a short while—disguised as a railroad worker—he snuck back into Mexico with the intention to “execute by his own hands the usurper Victoriano Huerta” (Poetas Modernistas de Nicaragua, 170). He was discovered in August 1913 and executed by firing squad just a few weeks later.
100 Refutations | Colombia | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018Manuel Saturio Valencia Mena (1867-1907) was a teacher, a poet, a popular leader from the Chocó region, and the very last man officially sentenced to death in Colombia. As a child, he participated in the parochial choir and learned both French and Latin under the tutelage of the Capuchin priests. He was an exceptional student and the first black man accepted to Cauca University’s law program. He earned the rank of captain while fighting in La Guerra De Los Mil Dias. He was a lifelong autodidact and served in many important positions in the region. In 1907, he was framed for arson—for likely political reasons—and, after a six-day trial, he was executed by firing squad.
100 Refutations | Essay | Poetry
June, 2018Welcome to the eleventh week of 100 Refutations. For one hundred days, we’re publishing a daily poem from one of the countries recently denigrated by the president of the United States. Lina M. Ferreira C.-V., who conceived and compiled the series and translated many of its poems, has been working tirelessly on this enormous project, with the help of several collaborators, since the president’s comments in January. We’re accompanying the daily poems with a weekly essay by Lina, and the eleventh one is featured here.
– InTranslation editors
100 Refutations | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018This poem is believed to be a festive poem for children with religious connotations. It was originally collected by Phillip and Mary Baer from the Lacandon people of the Pelhá region.
100 Refutations | Poetry | Spanish | Venezuela
June, 2018María Teresa Ogliastri was born in Los Teques, Venezuela, and lives in Caracas. She is the author of five collections of poetry: Del diario de la señora Mao (From the Diary of Madame Mao, 2011); Polo Sur (South Pole, 2008); Brotes de Alfalfa (Alfalfa Sprouts, 2007); Nosotros los inmortales (We, the Immortals, 1997); and Cola de Plata (Silver Tail, 1994). She has been featured at poetry festivals throughout Latin America, and her poems appear in several anthologies of contemporary Venezuelan poetry. She is a professor of philosophy at the Central University of Venezuela.
100 Refutations | Mexico | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018Briceida Cuevas Cob was born in Tepakán, Campeche, Mexico. From 1992 to 1994, she was part of the Maya poetry workshop in the Casa de Cultura de Caliní run by Walderman Noh Tzec. Her work has been widely published and anthologized. She has also been the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships, and in 2010 she became Artistic Creator in the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte.
100 Refutations | Brazil | Brazilian Portuguese | Poetry
June, 2018Márcia Wayna Kambeba is a member of the Omágua/Kambeba indigenous community in the Brazilian Amazon. She has a master’s degree in geography and is a writer, poet, composer, singer, storyteller, photographer, teacher, and lecturer. She is currently working on a project that combines literary and musical compositions to portray the resistance, culture, and identity of indigenous peoples. She lives in Castanhal, Pará in Brazil.
This poem was originally written in Tupi Kambeba, then jointly translated by Márcia Wayna Kambeba and Jan Oldenburg into Portuguese, and then from Portuguese into English by Jan Oldenburg.
100 Refutations | Bolivia | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018Adela 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.
100 Refutations | Essay | Poetry
June, 2018Welcome to the tenth week of 100 Refutations. For one hundred days, we’re publishing a daily poem from one of the countries recently denigrated by the president of the United States. Lina M. Ferreira C.-V., who conceived and compiled the series and translated many of its poems, has been working tirelessly on this enormous project, with the help of several collaborators, since the president’s comments in January. We’re accompanying the daily poems with a weekly essay by Lina, and the tenth one is featured here.
– InTranslation editors
100 Refutations | Poetry | Spanish
June, 2018The poem featured here was written by an unknown Guaraní poet from the Maká people, an indigenous group native to Paraguay. This type of verse is considered part of the Guaraní tradition of religious songs.
The Brooklyn Rail welcomes you to our web-exclusive section InTranslation, where we feature unpublished translations of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and dramatic writing. Published since April 2007, InTranslation is a venue for outstanding work in translation and a resource for translators, authors, editors, and publishers seeking to collaborate.
We seek exceptional unpublished English translations from all languages.
Fiction, Nonfiction, and Poetry: Manuscripts of no longer than 20 pages (double-spaced).
Plays: Manuscripts of no longer than 30 pages (in left-justified format).