WEBVTT

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In 1977, I began the
work of translating

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the poetry of Claribel
Alegria, and I

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started to do this with
the help of a dictionary

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and my studying of Spanish.

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And I found out that I couldn't
do the translations because I

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did not understand the
sensibility of the work,

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because these were poems about
contemporary human condition

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in Latin America.

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So I went to Spain and
spent the summer living

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with the poet in the village of
Deya on the island of Mallorca,

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off the coast of Spain
in the Mediterranean.

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And there are two kinds
of life on this island,

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and one is the
international jetset,

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and the other is the circle
of Latin American exiles

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who come to Claribel's
house to stay

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or rest or stopover on their
way to some other country.

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And I watched her all summer,
and the kind of despair

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that she had being so far away
and unable to make contact.

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So this is a poem in tribute
to her and that summer.

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It's a letter of admiration
to a Salvadoran woman poet

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20 years older than myself.

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You will hear Miguel
Asturias and Pablo Neruda.

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You will also hear
mention of Jose Marti, who

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is the great Cuban poet of
the beginning of this century.

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And the name of the book
that Claribel wrote,

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Ashes of Izalco,
this was the work

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which forced her to go into
exile when she was young.

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"The Island," for
Claribel Alegria.

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In Deya, when the mist
rises out of the rocks,

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it comes so close to her
hand she could tear it

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to pieces like bread.

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She holds her drink and
motions with one hand

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to describe it,
what she would do

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with so many baskets of bread.

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Mi prieta, Asturias called her.

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My dark little one.

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Neruda used the word
negrita, and it is true.

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Her eyes, her hair,
both violent, as black

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has certain mornings have
been for the last 14 years.

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She wears a white cotton dress.

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Tiny mirrors have
been stitched to it.

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When I look for myself in
her, I see the same face

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over and over.

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I have the fatty eyelids
of a Slavic factory girl,

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the pale hair of mixed blood.

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Although Jose Marti
has said we have

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lived our lives in the
heart of the beast,

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I have never heard it pounding.

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When I have seen an animal, I
have never reached for a knife.

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It is like Americans to
say it is only a bear

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looking for something
to eat in the garbage,

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but we are not unalike.

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When we look at someone,
we are seeing someone else.

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When we listen,
we hear something

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taking place in the past.

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When I talked to her,
I know what I will

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be saying 20 years from now.

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Last summer, she returned
to Salvador again.

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It had been 10 years
since Ashes of Izalco

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was burned in a public place, 10
years without bushes of coffee,

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since her eyes crossed the finca
like black scattering birds.

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It was simple.

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She was there to
embrace her mother.

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As she walked through her
village, the sight of her

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opened its windows.

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It was simple.

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She had come to flesh out the
memory of a poet whose body was

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never found.

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Had it changed?

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It was different.

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In Salvador, nothing
ever is changed.

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Deya, a cluster of
the teeth, the bones

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of the world greener
than Corsica.

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In English, you have
no word for this.

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I can't help you.

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I am safe here.

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I have everything I could want.

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In the morning, I watched
the peak of the Teix knife

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into the clouds.

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To my country, I ship
poetry instead of bread.

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So I cut through nothing.

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I give nothing, so
you see I have nothing

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according to myself.

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Deya has seven
different shawls of wind

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the sky holds them out to
her, helps her into them.

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I am xaloc, a wind from
the southwest, as far away

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as my country, and
there is nothing

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to help me in or out of it.

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Carolina, do you know
how long it takes

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any one voice to reach another?

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Thank you.

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[APPLAUSE]

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