100 Refutations | Poetry (excerpts) | Spanish
May, 2018Chimalpahin, or Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Quauhtlehuanitzin (1579-1660), was born in Chalco, in what is now central Mexico. He is best known for writing the history of Mexico in both Nahuatl and Spanish. The better known of his surviving works is Relaciones, or Anales, which includes testimonies from indigenous people and descriptions of the events before and after the colony was established. He died in Mexico City.
100 Refutations | Colombia | Poetry | Spanish
May, 2018Carmen Peña Visbal, born in Barranquilla, Colombia, is a poet, journalist, lawyer, and expert in strategic communications. Visbal has studied human resources at the Industrial University of Santander; law at the Free University of Colombia; human rights at the ESAP (Escuela Superior de Administracion Publica); security and national defense at the War College of Colombia (Escuela Superior de Guerra); criminal law and forensic sciences at the Catholic University of Colombia; senior management at Nueva Granada Military University; and political management and governance at the University of the Rosary. She has held numerous leadership positions in journalism, government, and consulting. Visbal’s collections of poetry include Dite (1994), Las vestiduras de mi alma (1998), Mi voz no te alcanza (2008), and Todo silencio es esencial (unpublished). She has also been included in several anthologies such as Poseia Colombiana del siglo XX escrita por mujeres, Vol. 2 and Siete Poetas: Dreams of a country at peace without mines.
100 Refutations | Poetry | Puerto Rico | Spanish
May, 2018Virgilio Dávila (1869-1943) was born in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico. Though he experimented with a Romantic style of verse, he is often mentioned as the primary representative of the Modernist movement in Puerto Rico. The influence of Rubén Darío, for example, can be clearly noted throughout his work. He devoted many of his poems to the indigenous beauty of his native island and unique syncretic culture therein. He was widely published by the time he died in Bayamón in 1943.
100 Refutations | Essay | Poetry
May, 2018Welcome to the ninth 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 ninth one is featured here.
– InTranslation editors
100 Refutations | Poetry | Spanish
May, 2018Nahuatl poet Tochihuitzin was born sometime near the end of the fourteenth century and died near the beginning of the fifteenth. He was a contemporary of Nezahualcócotl and, in fact, is said to have rescued Nezahualcócotl once as his enemies surrounded him with every intention to slay him. He differs slightly from many of the well-known Aztec poets in his chosen subjects, opting not to write as much about the glory and grief of war as about metaphysical questions.
100 Refutations | Bolivia | Poetry | Spanish
May, 2018Born in Ayllu Qaqachaca, Department of Oruro, Elvira Espejo Ayca is a painter, weaver, poet, musician, documentary filmmaker, and storyteller in the oral tradition. She is a graduate of the Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes in La Paz. She has had numerous exhibitions and, in January 2013, was named director of the National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore (MUSEF) in La Paz.
100 Refutations | Mexico | Poetry | Spanish
May, 2018Jeannette L. Clariond is a poet, translator, and editor. Her published collections of poetry include Mujer dando la espalda (finalist for the Ramón López Velarde National Poetry Prize, 1992); Desierta memoria (winner of the Efraín Huerta National Poetry Prize, 1996); Todo antes de la noche (winner of the Gonzalo Rojas National Poetry Prize, 2001); Leve sangre, Marzo 10, NY (performed in Madrid using dance and music); 7 visiones (with Gonzalo Rojas); and the retrospective anthology Astillada claridad (UANL, 2014). She is also the author of the prose memoir Cuaderno de Chihuahua (Fondo de Cultura Económica). In 2003, Clariond founded the publishing house Vaso Roto Ediciones, which she has directed since then. She was awarded a Fundación Rockefeller-Conaculta grant in 2004 for her translation of Charles Wright’s Black Zodiac, a BANFF Translators Grant in 2004 for The School of Wallace Stevens: A Profile of North American Poetry (co-edited with critic Harold Bloom), and recognition from the Italian Institute for Culture in 2008 for her translations of the poet Alda Merini. For her poetry and her contributions to translation and culture, she was awarded the Juan de Mairena Prize by the University of Guadalajara in 2014.
100 Refutations | Poetry (excerpt) | Spanish
May, 2018According to Abraham Arias-Larreta in Literaturas Aborigenes de America (1976), “The Mayan Uinal was a period of 20 days, each of them with a different name. The Mayan year, or Haab, was composed of 18 Uinales and a final period of 5 days, the Xma Kaba Kin, nameless days.”
100 Refutations | Poetry | Spanish | Uruguay
May, 2018María Adela Bonavita (1900–1934) was born in San José, Uruguay and died before her 34th birthday. She published just one collection of poetry in her lifetime, The Conscience of the Suffering Song. One more collection was published after her death. She was plagued by “a nervous illness.” At four years of age, she began attending the odd class in the cultural center “mostly for entertainment,” wrote her brother in the introduction to her second poetry collection, which she'd dictated to him from her deathbed. She worked as a teacher for most of her adult life, setting up a small school in her home where she was beloved by her students. She was also known to create portraits of family members in her spare time, though she’d never received any education on the subject.
100 Refutations | Essay | Poetry
May, 2018Welcome to the eighth week of 100 Refutations, which marks our halfway point! 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 eighth one is featured here.
– InTranslation editors
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).