POEMS BY MARÍA TERESA OGLIASTRI, FROM SOUTH POLE Translated by Yvette Neisser Moreno and Patricia Bejarano Fisher
About the poet: María Teresa Ogliastri, a Venezuelan writer residing in Caracas, has authored 4 books of poetry and a novel. She has been featured at poetry festivals throughout Central and South America, and her work has appeared in several anthologies of Venezuelan poetry.
About the translators:
Patricia Bejarano Fisher has worked as a Spanish instructor, translator and language-learning materials developer for both government and academia. She taught college-level English in her native Colombia and Spanish at the University of Maryland and has a Master's Degree in Linguistics. For the last four years she has been focusing her attention on poetry reading and translation.
Yvette Neisser Moreno is a poet and translator of Luis Alberto Ambroggio’s Difficult Beauty: Selected Poems (Cross-Cultural Communications, 2009). Her translations have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for the ALTA National Translation Award. She teaches at the University of Maryland University College and at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
Spring 2011
Table of Contents - Vol. VII, No. 1
MARÍA TERESA OGLIASTRI
The poems come from the book South Pole/Polo Sur, which is forthcoming from Settlement House in a bilingual edition at the end of 2011—to coincide with the centennial of European explorers first arriving at the South Pole. South Pole/Polo Sur is a book-length sequence of poems tracing an imaginary journey—both physical and emotional—from the Colombian jungle to the South Pole.
I let the voice of Odysseus carry me away Regaining my health
Since confronting the cyclops
I traverse the ice age
SPANISH ORIGINALS Me dejo llevar por la voz de Ulises
Recobrar la salud
Después de enfrentar el cíclope
Atravieso la era del hielo © MARÍA TERESA OGLIASTRI
indifferent like someone who has only himself
I gather my belongings to continue the journey
on Leonardo’s flying machine
I rise so high that I dissolve
and fall as rain over the rivers
is a condition for the journey
Telemachus found his father by following a sea bird
over the rocks I see only an eagle
above a calm river
where fears are bridges
a thunderous noise shakes the sky
in this violent universe I survive
an evil spell has ruled my days
the sun so distant
the day so wrong
I escaped Circe’s witchcraft
and Calypso’s raging fire
but can I someday find serenity?
the only voice that speaks to me is fear
leap over the iceberg
arrive at the coldest continent
where the snow seals us
and cleanses us in a sacred river
a deep glacier makes the ascent more arduous
always another peak
I believe
the last one
always a crack
a lung panting between summit and sky
close to the hand
a lighthouse alerting me too late
the blizzard
is the hand of fear
No one has returned from the cold
I am the voice of fear
con la indiferencia de quien sólo se tiene a sí mismo
recojo mis aperos para continuar
en la máquina volante de Leonardo
asciendo tan alto que me diluyo
y caigo de lluvia sobre los ríos
es una condición para el viaje
Telémaco halló a su padre siguiendo a un ave marina
sobre los roquedales sólo veo un águila
en un río manso
donde los miedos son puentes
un estruendo estremece el cielo
en este violento cosmos sobrevivo
un mal designio conduce mis días
tan lejos el sol
tan equivocado el día
si pude escapar de la engañosa Circe
y del arrebatador fuego de Calipso
¿podré algún día hallar sosiego?
la única que me habla es la voz del miedo
salto el iceberg
llego al continente más frío
en donde la nieve nos sella
y limpia en un río sagrado
un glaciar profundo hace el ascenso más pesado
cada vez la cima
la creo
la última
siempre una grieta
un pulmón jadeante entre la cumbre y el cielo
cerca de la mano
un faro alertándome ya tarde
la ventisca
es la mano del miedo
—Ninguno ha regresado del frío
soy el miedo que me hablo
