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include Dite (1994), Las vestiduras de mi alma (1998), Mi voz no te alcanza (2008), and Todo silencio es esencial (unpublished).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 | French | Haiti | Poetry
May, 2018Amédée Brun (1868-1896) published his first poems when he was only seventeen, and later studied law in Paris. His poetry is usually categorized under the Romantic period, and, despite his short life, he managed to publish prolifically. His works include novels, poetry, and short stories inspired by his observations of quotidian Haitian life.
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 | Dominican Republic | English | Poetry | United States
May, 2018Maria Farazdel is a native of the Dominican Republic who has lived and worked in New York since the age of 17. She received her BA from Hunter College, MA in Education from Fordham University, and PhD in School District Administration from Long Island University. Formally an Assistant Principal, she has taught English as a Second Language and Bilingual Education. She is a member of Dominican Poets USA and the literary group Camila Enriquez Ureña. She is the author of the books My Little Paradise, Amongst Voices and Spaces, and Laberinto de la Espera.
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 | Brazil | Brazilian Portuguese | Poetry
May, 2018A poet and professor at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, Lívia Natália is the author of five poetry collections: Água Negra (2011), Correntezas e Outros Estudos Marinhos (2015), Água Negra e Outras Águas (2016), Sobejos Do Mar (2017), and Dia Bonito pra Chover (2017). In 2016, her poem “Quadrilha,” which describes the grief of a woman whose lover was killed by the Polícia Militar, was censored throughout the state of Bahia. All copies of the poem—which had been displayed publicly on billboards as part of the Poetry in the Streets project in Ilhéus—were ordered to be destroyed.
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