Full Description
Translation of the Route is the eleventh collection by the award-winning Argentine poet and translator Laura Wittner. In poems that are precise, frank and finely tuned, Wittner explores the specificities of parental and familial love, life after marriage, and the re-ignition of the self in middle age.
The 'things' of life - bus journeys, potted plants, thunder at night, coffee-stained books, fleeting conversations and the rest - are made full through Wittner's ability to pinpoint in them the consequential, and even the metaphysical, manipulating language with a translator's delicate skill. There are funny, moving pen-portraits of Wittner's two children, suddenly grown, as well as bell-clear descriptions of the task of writing. For this is also a collection about language itself - as an interface, as a surface, and as vital communication.
The poems in this edition, Wittner's first collection available in English translation, have been translated by the Mexican-Scottish bilingual poet and translator Juana Adcock, acclaimed author of Manca and Split. Dual language Spanish-English edition.
Contents
I. TEN REAL ANSWERS TO FICTIONAL QUESTIONS
Why we women get oven burns 8
Why on bad days we look at holiday photos 10
Why it shouldn't rain on Sunday nights 12
Why we talk when we talk about love 14
Why it's urgent to get out on the road 16
Why remedies over time betray us 18
Why it is advisable to read in bars 20
Why we must reconstruct ourselves all the time 22
Why when I like a song a lot I need to print the lyrics 24
Why if they knock me down a thousand times I get up 26
II. THE IMPERFECT IS OUR PARADISE
Kayak 30
Love poem 32
To a god unknown 34
The taxi stops at the lights 36
Rothkos 38
Sunday noon 40
Shadow 42
Good morning, Kenneth 44
I wake up at 6 46
Month 48
Iguazú 50
Iguazú: says my daughter 52
You are here 54
To be in a museum 56
Reading DL on the 108 58
They zoom into photos in a chat 60
They walk seven blocks to the subway 62
They are blinded for a second whilst correcting a poem 64
They try out things on holiday 66
They make their voices vibrate at 6 68
They interrupt our talk to do something urgent 70
They peer into potted plants and confirm their beliefs 72
III. TRANSLATION OF THE ROUTE
Ma 76
Thursday, nighttime 78
I once again held a lemon in my hand 80
We turned onto Libertador 82
Dinner 84
The origin 86
What is that lovely book 88
The dark things 90
The fragile things 92
My daughter likes the wind 94
In front of the bay of San Juan in Puerto Rico 96
Clearing 98
Reminder from sanity 100
My baby 102
Down Loíza Road (with Mara and Nicole) 104
Scene 106
Late in the afternoon 108
Far from home 110
Williams and me 112
So much depends 114
How it is 116
My son tells me his dream on our way to school 118
When we travel, time expands: 120
Translation of the route 122
About the authors 126
