Jun 8
Wrapped in the night’s aura.
CORAL BRACHO — Firefly under the Tongue, transl. Forrest Gander, (2008)
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Wrapped in the night’s aura.
CORAL BRACHO — Firefly under the Tongue, transl. Forrest Gander, (2008)
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From Mojave Ghost by Forrest Gander
So what if worlds are boundless? I caught myself filling with the nonreturnable particularity of this one afternoon. Squatting and listening to a desert marigold bloom. When the hum of an invisible plane made me suddenly aware of the sprawling underflow of stillness around me, it was not loneliness I felt, but some nevertheless of enchantment.
Those constant bearers of meaning bore me. I want to open wide now to the absence of concept, understanding, representation, to the inward flare of exhilaration. To the gratuitous revelation of mineral forces. Isn’t the materiality of this Joshua tree, its living presence, more than what it means?
Current poetry reading is Even Time Bleeds by Jeannette L. Clariond, translated by Forrest Gander (Princeton UP, 2026). Clariond (b. 1949) is a Mexican poet of Lebanese descent who enjoys high repute in her home country, both for her own work and for her translations into Spanish of authors like Elizabeth Bishop and Anne Carson. This volume, part of the Lockert Library of Poetry in Translation from Princeton University Press, collects various of her shorter poems as well as excerpts from longer works, in Spanish with facing-page translations. While Gander (himself a Pulitzer-winning poet) is the credited translator, he notes that Clariond collaborated with him throughout the translation process and even revised some of her originals to better match his English versions.
I'm roughly at the three-quarters mark, and I've been very impressed indeed. Clariond is one of those rare poets who can whittle language down to the bone without sacrificing meaning. One has the feeling, particularly in her short lyrics, that she's opened a window onto a plane of hyper-reality we're rarely privileged to glimpse. Her repeated, almost incantatory reference to elemental symbols -- roots, bones, fire, water -- binds the whole collection together like the shuffling and dealing of a tarot deck. Heartily recommended for those who want to better understand the possibilities of Spanish-language poetry, as well as those who just enjoy a worthwhile read.
(Incidentally, this is the 26th volume in the Lockert series that I've read. Yes, I keep count. No, I don't know why.)
And yet, as they say, the heart is a leaf and the wind makes it throb.
Pablo Neruda, Then Come Back: The Lost Neruda Poems (Translated by Forrest Gander)
Because if love doesn’t survive, why would you want to?
Forrest Gander, final line to [She wasn’t fixed, necessarily, on happiness]
from here
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"Spring comes. It breaks into me. You break into me.
While the past goes on lifting out of itself like a wave."
— Forrest Gander, from Mojave Ghost: A Novel Poem (New Directions, 2024)
Forrest Gander, Be With