Meet Hemisferio Cuir Contributor: Paula Galíndez, Argentina
- letraslatinasblog2
- 18 hours ago
- 2 min read
Una parra sube
por tu pierna,
el sol en la piel
deja su huella.
Es suave el olor
que sueltan las flores
abiertas al verano,
suave como la hoja
de malvón y madera
como el vino.
Es ahí, con la lengua
hundida en tu sabor
donde olvido esta tarde
todo el hambre.
A vine climbs
up your leg,
the sun on your skin
leaves its trace.
How soft the scent
that flowers release
when open to the summer,
soft as the leaf
of a malvón and woody
like wine.
It is there, with my tongue
sunk in your flavour
that I forget in the afternoon
all this hunger.
What has it meant to be part of this anthology?
Being part of this anthology has been absolutely moving. Seeing myself translated into English with such care and dexterity and sharing an anthology with such talented poets—there are really no words for it. This is an anthology that seeks to give room to voices that tend to be kept quiet, and there aren't enough thank yous for the enormous task that Leo carried out.
Tell us more about yourself and your poetry.
I am a poet and translator from Argentina and I've wanted to write ever since I was a child. Literature is my home and my shelter, and it gives me room to listen to others and speak out in words that truly feel like mine when daily speech seems inaccurate. I don't think anyone'll be changed by what I write, especially because I believe there are so many people who are much more talented than I am, but I do know that it is something I need. Whenever I can't find the time to write, I feel like something's missing.
At Letras Latinas we always take the opportunity to amplify more writers. Who are some of your favourite poets from your country?
There are so many I can't really name them all! To start with, Alberto Muñoz and Andi Nachon. Then there is Diana Bellessi, Susana Villalba, and some younger poets like Daniel Lipara, Inés Kreplak, and my dear friend Camila Cirigliano... There are a lot of talented people in my country and I feel constantly inspired by them. I also teach and learn a lot from my students.
Paula Galíndez (b Argentina, 1993) is a poet, translator, and translation professor born in Argentina. She earned a BA in Literary and Audiovisual Translation in English and translated books from English and German into Spanish and Spanish into English. In 2021, she received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to edit and translate an anthology of 19th-century English-speaking women poets, and she was selected for the Winter Writers Retreat at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity to work on her new book, 28 Ways of Reading a Mother. In 2022 she took
part in the Poetry Translation Centre’s Queer Digital Residency.
