Rito Ramón Aroche

Problemas Al Salir, Proximidades, «Ese Y Otros Cuentos»: Rito Ramón Aroches: Translated by Kristin Dykstra

PROBLEMAS AL SALIR

Será mejor no hablar de aquellos días con el frío que hace
algunas fechas nombrables con un frío en los huesos
y que se desconocieran ya / cuartos como una esfera
ni lo que tenga que ver con una marioneta de su paso
zancudo / lo de extraviarse debajo de las casuarinas
lejos / de basurales o zonas de algún derrumbe
«que le pase eso a ti bien ¿pero que se reconcilien?» «apremia
que comamos ¿bien?» ¿felpudos pasos preferirías o torcer a este bullicio?

ISSUES WHEN LEAVING

Better not to talk about those days it’s so cold
some mentionable dates with the cold in your bones
and they may already go unrecognized / the rooms like a sphere
not the thing about a marionette pacing through
long-legged / the thing about getting lost under casuarina trees
far / from garbage dumps or urban zones from any collapsing building
“nice that might happen for you, but can’t they reconcile?” “hurry up
so we can eat OK” you want to take nice cottony steps, or torque the crowd noise?


PROXIMIDADES

La piel si más porosa tus sueños a donde vayan
marcas así probadas en medios venturosos
por medios de ya no ser los cortes
o brazos al separarse.
Propia la luz / poca la propia agua
de la que aún no encuentras gestos los adecuados.
Si te descuidas más porosas te ves / tus sueños como un soplo.

PROXIMITIES

Skin if more porous your dreams where might they go
scars proven in happy ways
in ways not involving cuts
or arms when separating.
The light its own / not much its own water from
the one whose motions aren’t enough for you to read.
If you don’t take care the surface seems more porous / your dreams like a puff of air.


«ESE Y OTROS CUENTOS»

Poca cosa a tu paso al sur 9 kms. entre malezas
y apeaderos un acueducto suntuoso
que puede resecarse, acaso. Y en los árboles,
el pájaro de junio el aire que no llega
te devoran los ojos encuentro
que no alcanzas entre malezas — al sur 9 kms.

“THAT ONE AND OTHER STORIES”

Little to see during your crossing 9 km south through weeds
and transport stops, an ostentatious aqueduct
that nearly dries up. And in the trees,
a bird in June the breeze that doesn’t come
they devour you the eyes an encounter
you can’t pull off in weeds – 9 km to the south


 

Translation by Kristin Dykstra, a writer, literary translator, and scholar. Her translation of Amanda Berenguer’s collection, The Lady of Elche, is forthcoming from Veliz Books in early 2023. Dykstra is principal translator of The Winter Garden Photograph, by Reina María Rodríguez, Winner of the 2020 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation and Finalist for the National Translation Award. She co-edited Materia Prima, a team-translated anthology featuring Berenguer that was a Finalist for the 2020 Best Translated Book Award. Her translation of a fine art broadside, Rito Ramón Aroche’s Andamios / Scaffoldings, was published by Red Hydra Press. Previously she translated numerous editions of contemporary Cuban poetry by Rodríguez, Juan Carlos Flores, Ángel Escobar, Marcelo Morales, and others. Dykstra’s own poems appeared recently in Lana Turner 13 and 15, Seedings, Almost Island, Clade Song, The Hopper; and bilingually in La Noria, El Nieuwe Acá and Distropika (tr. Escaja), and Acrobata (tr. F. Martins). Her recent translations and reviews appeared in a variety of venues, some of which are Astra, The Chicago Review, Big Other, Latin American Literature Today, The Common, Two Lines, and The Rumpus.

 

Rito Ramón Aroche (Havana, 1961) is the author of numerous poetry collections, among them Material Entrañable (1994), Puerta Siguiente (1996), Cuasi – vol. II (l998), Cuasi - vol. I (2002), El libro de los colegios reales (2005), Del rio que durando se destruye (2005), Andamios (2007), Historias que confunden (2008), Las fundaciones (2011), Una vida magenta (2014), La estación del año (2018), Libro de imaginar (2019), and El cielo como estaño (2022). Límites de Alcanía appeared in a Dutch edition from Bokeh in 2016 (Leiden). Several of his books are currently in the editing and production stages, among them Libro de las profesiones (stories), the first part of a trilogy. English translations of his poetry have appeared in Seedings, El Nieuwe Acá, Americas Quarterly, and Dispatches. A bilingual fine art broadside of Aroche’s.