WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.900 align:middle line:84%
Introducing tonight's reader
is Bonnie Jean Michalski,

00:00:03.900 --> 00:00:09.030 align:middle line:84%
Poetry Center's own editor, she
herself a poet and publisher.

00:00:09.030 --> 00:00:11.760 align:middle line:84%
She's responsible for our
website and e-newsletter.

00:00:11.760 --> 00:00:13.770 align:middle line:84%
And if you haven't
seen her reflection

00:00:13.770 --> 00:00:18.543 align:middle line:84%
on the recent work
of our poets tonight,

00:00:18.543 --> 00:00:19.710 align:middle line:90%
please check the newsletter.

00:00:19.710 --> 00:00:23.130 align:middle line:84%
You can find that from
clicking on to our homepage.

00:00:23.130 --> 00:00:25.594 align:middle line:90%
Welcome, Bonnie Jean Michalski.

00:00:25.594 --> 00:00:28.486 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:00:28.486 --> 00:00:34.770 align:middle line:90%


00:00:34.770 --> 00:00:37.710 align:middle line:84%
Tonight we have the pleasure
of encountering two people

00:00:37.710 --> 00:00:41.560 align:middle line:84%
in multiple capacities,
as poets, as colleagues,

00:00:41.560 --> 00:00:44.580 align:middle line:90%
as translators, and as thinkers.

00:00:44.580 --> 00:00:47.160 align:middle line:84%
Lila Zemborain is
an Argentine poet

00:00:47.160 --> 00:00:50.070 align:middle line:84%
who has lived in
New York since 1985.

00:00:50.070 --> 00:00:51.870 align:middle line:84%
English versions of
her work are included

00:00:51.870 --> 00:00:54.180 align:middle line:84%
in the anthologies, The
Light of City and Sea

00:00:54.180 --> 00:00:58.170 align:middle line:84%
and Corresponding Voices, in
the art catalogs, Heidi McFall

00:00:58.170 --> 00:01:01.530 align:middle line:84%
and Alessandro Twombly and
in multiple poetry magazines

00:01:01.530 --> 00:01:04.530 align:middle line:84%
and journals, including
Ecopoetics, Rattapallax,

00:01:04.530 --> 00:01:07.020 align:middle line:90%
Bombay Gin, and Mandorla.

00:01:07.020 --> 00:01:09.610 align:middle line:84%
Selections of her poems have
been translated into French,

00:01:09.610 --> 00:01:11.280 align:middle line:90%
Italian, and Catalan.

00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:14.400 align:middle line:84%
She's a curator of the King
Juan Carlos, the first poetry

00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:17.520 align:middle line:84%
series at NYU, where she
directs the Creative Writing

00:01:17.520 --> 00:01:19.380 align:middle line:90%
in Spanish program.

00:01:19.380 --> 00:01:24.510 align:middle line:84%
In 2007, she was selected as a
John Simon Guggenheim fellow.

00:01:24.510 --> 00:01:28.020 align:middle line:84%
Mauve Sea-Orchids is her first
full-length English edition.

00:01:28.020 --> 00:01:30.000 align:middle line:84%
Her new book Guardians
of the Secret

00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:33.010 align:middle line:84%
was published by
Noemi Press this year.

00:01:33.010 --> 00:01:35.580 align:middle line:84%
Rosa Alcala is the
author of two chapbooks--

00:01:35.580 --> 00:01:37.590 align:middle line:84%
Some Maritime
Disasters This Century,

00:01:37.590 --> 00:01:40.530 align:middle line:84%
published by Belladonna
Books, and Undocumentary,

00:01:40.530 --> 00:01:42.750 align:middle line:90%
published by Dos Press.

00:01:42.750 --> 00:01:44.953 align:middle line:84%
Alcala's poems
translations and reviews

00:01:44.953 --> 00:01:46.620 align:middle line:84%
have appeared in
publications, including

00:01:46.620 --> 00:01:49.680 align:middle line:84%
Barrow Street, Brooklyn
Rail, Tripwire, and Mandorla,

00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:53.310 align:middle line:84%
and in the anthology, The Wind
Shifts, new Latino poetry,

00:01:53.310 --> 00:01:55.800 align:middle line:90%
edited by Francisco Aragon.

00:01:55.800 --> 00:01:57.600 align:middle line:84%
She received
postgraduate degrees

00:01:57.600 --> 00:01:59.760 align:middle line:84%
from Brown University
and SUNY Buffalo,

00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:01.980 align:middle line:84%
and is currently professor
of creative writing

00:02:01.980 --> 00:02:05.740 align:middle line:84%
at the University
of Texas at El Paso.

00:02:05.740 --> 00:02:09.820 align:middle line:84%
One word to describe the work
of these two writers, fearless.

00:02:09.820 --> 00:02:12.340 align:middle line:84%
Lila Zemborain's
Mauve Sea-Orchids

00:02:12.340 --> 00:02:14.890 align:middle line:84%
is made up of three
long center justified

00:02:14.890 --> 00:02:17.410 align:middle line:84%
poems whose titles are
not the least bit afraid

00:02:17.410 --> 00:02:19.600 align:middle line:90%
of beauty or the lyric.

00:02:19.600 --> 00:02:23.860 align:middle line:84%
La orquídea y el moscardón,
Orchid and Bumblebee;

00:02:23.860 --> 00:02:27.130 align:middle line:84%
Los Petalos Furiosos,
The Furious Petals;

00:02:27.130 --> 00:02:32.470 align:middle line:84%
Malvas orquídeas del
mar, Mauve Sea-Orchids.

00:02:32.470 --> 00:02:34.720 align:middle line:84%
The graceful
largesse of the work

00:02:34.720 --> 00:02:37.390 align:middle line:84%
is best experienced at once
so that its strangeness

00:02:37.390 --> 00:02:39.130 align:middle line:90%
can wash over you.

00:02:39.130 --> 00:02:41.230 align:middle line:84%
The declarative mood
is a near constant.

00:02:41.230 --> 00:02:44.020 align:middle line:84%
You are told that there are
such things as love glands.

00:02:44.020 --> 00:02:48.190 align:middle line:84%
And yes, yes, they do emit
the smell of baking bread.

00:02:48.190 --> 00:02:51.710 align:middle line:90%
It is scientific and sensual.

00:02:51.710 --> 00:02:54.620 align:middle line:84%
This book marries those two
terms in a way I cannot miss

00:02:54.620 --> 00:02:57.770 align:middle line:90%
mode, sci-sensual, sensuatific.

00:02:57.770 --> 00:02:58.730 align:middle line:90%
Still I keep trying.

00:02:58.730 --> 00:03:00.140 align:middle line:90%
[LAUGHTER]

00:03:00.140 --> 00:03:03.020 align:middle line:84%
And it makes me want
to misuse adjectives.

00:03:03.020 --> 00:03:05.870 align:middle line:84%
Mauve Sea-Orchids is
pedantic in a good way,

00:03:05.870 --> 00:03:10.070 align:middle line:84%
soporific in a good way, written
entirely in the present tense.

00:03:10.070 --> 00:03:14.600 align:middle line:84%
Mauve Sea-Orchids narrates
constant activity of minutia.

00:03:14.600 --> 00:03:17.300 align:middle line:84%
Reading this book feels like
watching a nature documentary

00:03:17.300 --> 00:03:19.910 align:middle line:84%
that takes place
inside an organic body

00:03:19.910 --> 00:03:22.250 align:middle line:84%
and slow down just
a second or two so

00:03:22.250 --> 00:03:24.860 align:middle line:84%
that the movements of its
simulated natural world

00:03:24.860 --> 00:03:25.970 align:middle line:90%
become trancelike.

00:03:25.970 --> 00:03:28.780 align:middle line:90%


00:03:28.780 --> 00:03:31.330 align:middle line:84%
Guardians of the Secret
and Mauve Sea-Orchids,

00:03:31.330 --> 00:03:34.510 align:middle line:84%
specifically the section of the
book entitled Mauve Sea-Orchids

00:03:34.510 --> 00:03:37.060 align:middle line:90%
are translated by Rosa Alcala.

00:03:37.060 --> 00:03:40.030 align:middle line:84%
Soon after reading Orchids, I
ordered Alcala's out-of-print

00:03:40.030 --> 00:03:42.910 align:middle line:84%
chapbook Some Maritime
Disasters This Century out

00:03:42.910 --> 00:03:45.520 align:middle line:90%
from Belladonna Books.

00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:48.130 align:middle line:84%
I've been so excited about
the stunning visual effect

00:03:48.130 --> 00:03:51.730 align:middle line:84%
of Sea-Orchid's design featuring
watercolors by Emily Clark.

00:03:51.730 --> 00:03:54.610 align:middle line:84%
And I was so happy to see that
Some Maritime Disasters This

00:03:54.610 --> 00:03:56.890 align:middle line:84%
Century-- how I
love that title--

00:03:56.890 --> 00:03:59.500 align:middle line:84%
is also a stunning work of
art featuring of woodcut

00:03:59.500 --> 00:04:00.770 align:middle line:90%
of a ship on a waves.

00:04:00.770 --> 00:04:02.770 align:middle line:84%
So you have to look at
the covers of these books

00:04:02.770 --> 00:04:04.870 align:middle line:90%
if you get a chance.

00:04:04.870 --> 00:04:07.720 align:middle line:84%
The poems here are spare
but densely populated

00:04:07.720 --> 00:04:09.370 align:middle line:84%
with giants of
political, poetic,

00:04:09.370 --> 00:04:13.480 align:middle line:84%
and philosophical history,
Rumi, Levi Strauss, Derrida,

00:04:13.480 --> 00:04:15.730 align:middle line:90%
Garcia Lorca, Langston Hughes.

00:04:15.730 --> 00:04:17.860 align:middle line:84%
The poems speak
from a collectivity,

00:04:17.860 --> 00:04:19.990 align:middle line:84%
a multi-embodied
place that becomes

00:04:19.990 --> 00:04:23.530 align:middle line:84%
trancelike in the same way
Zemborain's scientific sensual

00:04:23.530 --> 00:04:25.480 align:middle line:90%
marriages are trancelike.

00:04:25.480 --> 00:04:28.300 align:middle line:90%
"I am the memory of milk.

00:04:28.300 --> 00:04:34.210 align:middle line:84%
You would not recognize me
after the heat of sugar mills.

00:04:34.210 --> 00:04:35.890 align:middle line:90%
I shine white.

00:04:35.890 --> 00:04:37.030 align:middle line:90%
Little ghost.

00:04:37.030 --> 00:04:39.640 align:middle line:90%
Sifted star."

00:04:39.640 --> 00:04:42.070 align:middle line:84%
After reading Alcala,
I can see why she was

00:04:42.070 --> 00:04:43.990 align:middle line:90%
drawn to the work of Zemborain.

00:04:43.990 --> 00:04:46.510 align:middle line:84%
I imagine the rangy
tones of moxie orchids

00:04:46.510 --> 00:04:49.810 align:middle line:84%
allowed her to capitalize on the
possibilities of translation.

00:04:49.810 --> 00:04:52.060 align:middle line:90%
Zemborain loves a semicolon.

00:04:52.060 --> 00:04:55.060 align:middle line:84%
The semicolon
connects ideas softly.

00:04:55.060 --> 00:04:58.120 align:middle line:84%
It correlates rather
than mirrors ideas.

00:04:58.120 --> 00:05:01.180 align:middle line:84%
I imagine Alcala saw
possibilities in that.

00:05:01.180 --> 00:05:03.460 align:middle line:84%
Alcala uses line breaks
to play with meaning

00:05:03.460 --> 00:05:06.310 align:middle line:84%
in a way that is strangely
akin to the many meanings made

00:05:06.310 --> 00:05:09.370 align:middle line:84%
by Zemborain's near
run-on line structure.

00:05:09.370 --> 00:05:13.300 align:middle line:84%
"You voice hands over
knees and beg vacancy.

00:05:13.300 --> 00:05:19.150 align:middle line:84%
Your body folded as much inward
as outward, sways its need.

00:05:19.150 --> 00:05:23.350 align:middle line:90%
My disfocused tills."

00:05:23.350 --> 00:05:28.600 align:middle line:84%
Alcala writes, "texts on a horse
medicine and a girl on a Vespa

00:05:28.600 --> 00:05:30.550 align:middle line:90%
crossed the Roman bridge."

00:05:30.550 --> 00:05:34.840 align:middle line:84%
Zemborain writes, "the landscape
superimposes its figures

00:05:34.840 --> 00:05:37.540 align:middle line:84%
over the sordid
reading of facts.

00:05:37.540 --> 00:05:40.540 align:middle line:84%
I cannot wait for the
meeting of these two minds."

00:05:40.540 --> 00:05:43.760 align:middle line:84%
Please help me welcome
Lila Zemborain.

00:05:43.760 --> 00:05:46.810 align:middle line:90%
[APPLAUSE]

00:05:46.810 --> 00:05:48.000 align:middle line:90%