I’m excited to share this newly translated edition of animal fiero y tierno/fierce and tender animal by Ángela María Dávila Malavé & translated by Poet Laureate of Philadelphia Roque Raquel Salas Rivera.
Description:
animal fiero tierno is a powerful lyric collection, where the “I”, as it remains deeply intimate, becomes nonetheless a collectivity, a relation of multiple solitudes. The voice, the hands, the belly, the pinkie finger, are also a dove and a lizard, a blue sun, a globe of earth, animal and light. Originally published in 1977 (Editorial QueAce, Puerto Rico), it has never been translated into English. Roque Raquel Salas Rivera’s translation retains the force of Ángela’s involving rhythm, the delicate combination of the expressive and the colloquial in the language, and makes it resound, fierce and tender, in new Anglophone ears. CENTRO Press is overjoyed and honored to launch its new collection, Puerto Rican Literature in Translation, with this remarkable work of poetry and translation.
This edition includes the original poems, the translations, footnotes, AND images of Dávila Malavé’s handwritten/typed drafts.
I want to share with y’all some stanzas that captured my heart & mind:
de millones de pequeñas historias
está poblado todo:
¿importa que la lágrima
que a veces me acompaña y me abandona
se funda con el aire?
¿importa si mi cólera
detiene una sonrisa?
everything is populated
with millions of small stories:
does it matter if the tear
that sometimes accompanies or abandons
merges with the air?
does it matter if my rage
stops a smile?
tropiezo con tu ausencia
en las esquinas de las calles,
en algunas canciones,
en las cucharas que a veces se me amargan
en el sillón pequeño de paja que recuerdo
en esas noches tristes ques requieren consuelo
y en los días alegres de compartir palabras;
en plantas florecidas
y también en las cosas que nunca nos dijimos
i trip on your absence
on street corners,
in some songs,
in spoons that sometimes go all bitter
on the small wicker armchair i remember
on those sad nights requiring consolation
and on those happy days when we share words;
in blooming plants
and also in the things we left unspoken
If you are in the NYC area and want to learn more about this book, I encourage you to attend Cafecito con… Ángela Maria Dávila: Translating Animal Fiero y Tierno at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies (Hunter College) on April 4 at 6pm.
