Translating
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Al Berto – Four poems in translation
Al Berto was the pseudonym used by the Portuguese poet, painter, editor and cultural programmer Alberto Raposo Pidwell Tavares (January 11, 1948 – June 13, 1997). You were still young Al Berto translated by paulo da costa (Published in Matrix 60, 2000) i search for you amidst the written papers tossed to the bottom of the glass armoire you were eating grapes in the middle of the page next it was as if it were night there were exchanged glances bodies meanderings thorough the beach it was night and someone approached i run my fingers on the fresh wine stains on the table the notebook where once in a while…
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José Tolentino Mendonça – three poems in translation
José Tolentino Mendonça (n. 1965) is one of the most original voices of Portuguese contemporary literature. He is also an Archivist and Librarian at the Vatican Library. Freesias José Tolentino Mendonça translated by paulo da costa ( Published in Matrix n. 60 – 2001 ) Freesias are flowers smelling of tea and she, at thirty seven, prefers them to the flowers sold everywhere she conceded the beauty yet not the splendour because repetitions are sad suddenly become ways of knowing and she, at thirty-seven, simply held dear the secrets which though revealed remain secrets (in certain seasons, through some forgotten door she escaped, sleep-walking, into the courtyard leading to the woods…
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Nuno Júdice wins prestigious Spanish poetry prize
The jury for this year’s edition of Spain’s Queen Sofia Ibero-American Poetry Prize meets in the Royal Palace in Madrid before announcing its decision. Portugal’s Nuno Judice was named the recipient of this year’s award for a body of poetry that is “very well-crafted, of a refined classicism,” yet at the same time deeply committed to reality, poet and jury member Jaime Siles said. EFE Madrid, May 16 (EFE).- Portugal’s Nuno Judice was selected Thursday as the winner of this year’s edition of the Queen Sofia Ibero-American Poetry Prize. The president of Spain’s National Heritage agency, Jose Rodriguez-Spiteri, announced the jury’s decision in a statement at the Royal Palace. The…
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Image – Nuno Júdice
IMAGE translated by paulo da costa The man who talked to himself in munich’s central station what language did he speak? What language speak those lost like that, on platforms of train stations, at night, when no kiosk sells newspapers or coffee? The munich man asked me for nothing, he didn’t even look as if he needed anything, meaning, he looked like someone who had arrived at the last stage the stage of someone who does not even need himself. Although, he spoke to me: in a tongue not resembling a language among those capable of expressing emotion or feeling, limited to a sequence of sounds whose logic…
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Zoology – The Blackbird (Nuno Júdice)
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Zoology – The Blackbird (Nuno Júdice)
ZOOLOGY : THE BLACKBIRD translated by paulo da costa Inside the cage, the blackbird has no yellower a beak than outside. The bird shrinks into a corner, poor thing, and seems shy, although it is the fault of who placed it there knowing a blackbird does not fall from the sky. There are birds like that, birds people place in a cage, despite their yellow beak. They do not sing. Do not fly. Do not speak. They are birds gone blind from the silence of oracles and dumb from the lucidity of prophets. Completely by chance, I opened the cage. And the bird just sat there,…
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Image – Nuno Júdice
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Class Struggle – Nuno Júdice
CLASS STRUGGLE translated by paulo da costa Not everyone who built the cathedrals witnessed the same. Some, by sunlight, erected towers and pinnacles and attained heaven, others, inside crypts, painted hells by candlelight, leaving room on the ground for the most anonymous of the dead. Those who reached the top, received the divine gaze and witnessed the triumph of spring dawn, those who stayed at the bottom, extracting the hallucinated gestures of demons from damp walls, exchanged obscenities and disease. And yet, the cathedral is unique, and those who visit, appreciating the entirety that, they say, was born of a perfect vision, do not think in details. Who cares…
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Coral Bracho – Four poems
Coral Bracho – Four Poems translated by paulo da costa La voz indígena Es un dolor de voz que se apaga. De voz eterna y profunda que así se apaga. Que así se apaga para nosotros. The indigenous voice It is the ache of a dying voice. Eternal voice and profound thus dying. Thus dying to us. Con abismada transparencia Eres el fuego del inicio Eres la luz en el instante sabio de hacinarse en el agua. Eres la voz, la transparencia que penetra, que engendra; la nota viva y diáfana que cae, con el candor de una certeza en el centro…
