BROWSE Columns
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Siamo allegri se spezziamo le stelle,
se scaviamo nel pane tornando
al frumento, perché ogni
verso è sporco di terra.
I poeti esistono nel vino,
nel sangue e nelle sillabe: hanno ossa
di uva, e i bambini le pestano.
Quando venni al mondo ordinai
ai tuoni di scheggiarsi al mio urlo;
ora imploro
che almeno un chicco si salvi.
We are happy if we break the stars,
if we dig into the bread reaching back the
wheat, for every
verse is dark with earth.
The poets exist in the wine,
in the blood and in the syllables: they have
grape bones, and children tread on them.
When I came into the world I made
the thunders splinter at my cry;
now I beg
that at least the seed is saved.
Ignacio Oliden (Buenos Aires, 1997) is a poet, translator and literary critic. He is Co-Editor in Chief of the literary magazine La Piccioletta Barca, and is a member of the editorial comittee of Buenos Aires Poetry (magazine and publishing house). He also participates as a regular critic in the Culture Supplement of the newspaper Perfil (Argentina). His work has appeared in print in newspapers, anthologies, and literary magazines in various countries, and his poetry has been translated into English, Italian and Greek. Among others, he has translated into Spanish the work of John M. Synge, Carl Sandburg, Anna de Noailles, and Marcantonio Flaminio, and he has published a book-length anthology of the poets of the Harlem Renaissance (Poetas del Renacimiento de Harlem, 2023, in collaboration with Juan Arabia). Mester de Juglaría, his first poetry compilation, will be published by Buenos Aires Poetry in 2023.
