Elevation of a Port (an excerpt)
2016; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 90; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/wlt.2016.0246
ISSN1945-8134
Autores Tópico(s)Coastal and Marine Management
Resumo60 WLT SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2016 xxxviii Then they landed in large pastures, light aircrafts of gringo registration from which somber blonde men descended armed with hypodermic needles And in gloved assault they inoculated foot-and-mouth disease in the cattle that grazed peacefully there or drank noisily from creeks and springs filled with acamayas and fish flashing showy scales Back when the whole expanse of incense was called Rancho El Copalar And water from the hills circulated straight into the cistern through the channel or from the eaves’ moldy gargoyles perched on the roof at the height of the loft from which sprouted each evening – like spit from a dirty blowpipe – black bats that had slept all day hanging headlong off the beams And with courage they found their way in the navy blue sky dodging by chirping the tangled branches of a rough purple-fruited caimito palm risen up by the house covered with clay Windmills and a great racket of voices celebrated in the trapiches where cahuayotes, grapes of the beach, cocoaplums and coyol palms grew And yokes were pulled by oxen and enormous moos moved the trapiches all through the day and the whole blessed week And cane juice spurted pressed by men squinting And the bustle was viscous like the gum rendered after boiling large vats of cane syrup And the hall was always surrounded by clay molds where the panela took its form – those whole-cane brown sugar cakes my sister and I ate with slices of queso fresco up in the lofts – oh thieves of delight! Translation from the Spanish By Carolyn González & Keith Cartwright special section gulf lit José Luis Rivas (b. 1950, Tuxpan, Veracruz) was elected to the Mexican Academy of Language in 2013. A prolifically published poet, translator, and essayist, he has been awarded many national literary prizes for his books of poetry and for his translations of major poets from Europe, the US, and the Caribbean. The poem above is taken from Por mor del mar (2002). Carolyn González is an assistant professor of Spanish at the College of Idaho focusing on the study of Mexican and US Latino/a literature. She earned her PhD in Hispanic languages and literatures from the University of California, Los Angeles. Translators’ note: Acamayas are a type of crawfish native to the state of Veracruz. Elevation of a Port (an excerpt) by José Luis Rivas ...
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