So my mother, who was born in Brazil
and always felt like an immigrant,
she came to the States in 1943, I guess, to college
and met my dad here.
When my dad had some surgery, she was depressed.
And I suggested that we start translating
Portuguese poetry or Brazilian poetry from Portuguese.
And it cheered her up, and we talked every week,
several times a week.
And so I was going to say, if you have family or loved
ones who speak other languages, and you
can participate across languages and help translate poetry,
there's still so much poetry that's untranslated.
This poet Ana Cristina César is like a rock star in Brazil.
Not known in this country.
Anyway, this is the first edition of her book
because she was a suicide.
And so her family was very protective of her legacy.
Here's a very short poem that Mom and I did together.
And so we published this when Mom was
92, her first published thing.
It was great.
We had a one-person poetry reading
with Brian Teare in a hotel room.
And so Brian listened to us reading the poems,
and that was it.
That was her only poetry reading.
"Noite Carioca"
Diálogo de surdos, não: amistoso no frio.
Atravanco na contramão.
Suspiros no contrafluxo.
Te apresento a mulher mais discreta
do mundo-- essa que não tem nenhum segredo.
"Carioca Night"
Dialogue of the deaf, no friendly in the cold.
I go against traffic, sighing against the flow.
I present to you the most discreet woman
in the world, the one who has no secrets.
Ana Cristina was a magnificent poet.
She was bisexual and wrote across genres.
And Mom didn't know what to make of the poetry, especially
the pronoun choices.
She was writing very often, and so Mom would carefully
change the pronouns.
And we would-- I would change them back.
[LAUGHTER]
That was fun.