The BreezeTranslated by Forrest GanderThe breeze touches its fingertips
the leaves strum the wind; they feel out and decipher its edges, its surging outlines, its thickness. They vibrate, those fluid silent keys. |
La BrisaCoral BrachoLa brisa toca con sus yemas
Como los dedos sensitivos de un ciego
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The Posture of the TreesTranslated by Forrest Gander The posture of the trees,
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La actitud de los árbolesCoral BrachoLa actitud de los árboles,
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Coral Bracho is one of Mexico ’s most influential contemporary poets. Her early work simply altered the landscape of Mexican poetry (on par with Ashbery’s work in the U.S. ) New Directions will bring out a selected poems of her work in my translations in Spring 2008: Firefly Under the Tongue: Selected Poems of Coral Bracho.
Born in Mexico City in 1951, Bracho has published five books of poetry: Peces de piel fugaz (1977), El ser que va a morir (1981), Tierra de entraña ardiente (in collaboration with painter Irma Palacios, 1992), La voluntad del ámbar (1998), and Ese espacio, ese jardín (2003), which won the Xavier Villaurrutia Prize. Among other places, selections from her work appeared in Mouth to Mouth: Poems by Twelve Contemporary Mexican Women (Milkweed Editions, 1993) and Reversible Monuments ( Copper Canyon, 2002).
Forrest Gander’s books of poems, essays, and translations include Eye Against Eye and A Faithful Existence: Reading, Memory, & Transcendence. He is the translator of No Shelter: Selected Poems of Pura Lopez Colome, Firefly Under the Tongue: Selected Poems of Coral Bracho, and (with Kent Johnson) two books of poetry by Jaime Saenz. He has received several awards including The Whiting Award for Writers and NEA fellowships in poetry.
"Two of my strongest memories (about front porches) both involve Robert Mitchum: I see him in Night of the Hunter leaning from the porch steps with his tattooed fingers clenching the post. And in Lusty Men, a beautiful movie by Nicholas Ray, after getting busted up-riding a bull, Mitchum’s character returns to his childhood home and crawls under the front porch to retrieve something he hid there as a child."
