WEBVTT NOTE Created by CaptionSync from Automatic Sync Technologies www.automaticsync.com 00:00:03.366 --> 00:00:12.916 align:middle >> Another contemporary poet whose work I've really loved is the Mexican poet Coral Bracho. 00:00:17.186 --> 00:00:23.656 align:middle The Spanish word for lightning bug is really a pretty word, is luciérnaga 00:00:24.246 --> 00:00:28.596 align:middle and where I grew up we call them lightning bugs. 00:00:28.876 --> 00:00:33.556 align:middle And it's just lightning bug, luciérnaga, bug. 00:00:33.866 --> 00:00:36.246 align:middle No, so we do have firefly. 00:00:36.586 --> 00:00:43.916 align:middle And so, I ended up translating her book as Firefly under the tongue. 00:00:44.916 --> 00:00:51.316 align:middle This poem, when you hear it, you'll probably be asking yourself the same questions I was asking 00:00:51.316 --> 00:00:53.746 align:middle myself when I translated it. 00:00:54.116 --> 00:00:56.726 align:middle One, is this a carnal poem? 00:00:56.726 --> 00:00:59.156 align:middle Is it about sex, really? 00:00:59.726 --> 00:01:03.316 align:middle Or is it a philosophical poem about the reciprocal relation 00:01:03.316 --> 00:01:05.846 align:middle between subjectivity and the world? 00:01:06.366 --> 00:01:13.666 align:middle Or is it a concert, a sound pattern, stressing long os and us, which are basically love sounds? 00:01:14.396 --> 00:01:17.346 align:middle Or is it an account of synesthetic perception? 00:01:18.606 --> 00:01:22.966 align:middle Should lengua, in the title, be translated as language or tongue? 00:01:23.776 --> 00:01:29.126 align:middle What happens to those pronominal guides, is what I had. 00:01:29.496 --> 00:01:34.736 align:middle What happens with them pronouns, I and you, after the first line. 00:01:35.696 --> 00:01:41.366 align:middle So let me read you a little bit of it in Spanish because in translating her it's the sound 00:01:41.476 --> 00:01:46.636 align:middle that I'm really anxious to recover in some way in English. 00:01:47.526 --> 00:01:49.386 align:middle Una luciérnaga bajo la lengua. 00:01:51.506 --> 00:01:55.096 align:middle Te amo desde el sabor inquieto de la fermentación, 00:01:55.846 --> 00:02:00.276 align:middle en la pulpa festiva, insectos frescos, azules. 00:02:00.656 --> 00:02:04.256 align:middle En el zumo reciente vidriado y dúctil. 00:02:04.886 --> 00:02:09.976 align:middle Grito que destila la luz por las grietas frutales, 00:02:10.306 --> 00:02:17.896 align:middle bajo el agua musgosa que se adhiere a las sombras, las papilas, las grutas, 00:02:18.296 --> 00:02:24.016 align:middle las tintas herbáceas, instilantes, desde el tacto azorado, 00:02:24.266 --> 00:02:30.166 align:middle brillo que resuma agridulce de los goces falaces, 00:02:30.426 --> 00:02:33.426 align:middle de los juegos hendidos por la palpitación. 00:02:34.296 --> 00:02:45.176 align:middle I love you from the sharp tang of fermentation in the blissful pulp, newborn insects, blue, 00:02:45.796 --> 00:02:54.206 align:middle in the unsullied juice, glazed and ductile, a cry that distills the light through the fissures 00:02:54.206 --> 00:03:01.556 align:middle in fruit trees, under the mossy water clinging to the shadows, the papilla, the grottos, 00:03:01.556 --> 00:03:10.276 align:middle an herbaceous dies instilled from flustered touch, luster, oozing bittersweet 00:03:10.656 --> 00:03:19.766 align:middle from feracious pleasures, from play splayed impulses, hinge, wrapped in the night's aura 00:03:20.416 --> 00:03:27.826 align:middle in violaceous clamor, refined the child with a softened root of his tongue, 00:03:28.146 --> 00:03:34.056 align:middle expectant touches from that smooth unsustainable lubricity, 00:03:34.526 --> 00:03:38.676 align:middle a sensitive lily folding into the rocks. 00:03:39.516 --> 00:03:45.626 align:middle If it senses the stigma, the ardor of light, the substance, the aura is fine and vibrant, 00:03:46.026 --> 00:03:56.526 align:middle in the ecstatic pedal distended jewel pulsing half-open, utter, the acid juice, bland ice, 00:03:56.846 --> 00:04:03.826 align:middle the salt marsh, the delicate sap, kabbalah, the nectar of the firefly. 00:04:07.896 --> 00:04:08.196 align:middle I still, it's like-- 00:04:08.556 --> 00:04:12.716 align:middle It kind of wraps everything up.