A white-fleshed delicate taste you hold in your name the thing you love most. Now that’s just so you can read between the waterlines. I think about tonguefish submerged in its name slim like a dark poem hard to catch in the chaos. Won’t you lie down blindside along my riverbed? Since we blend sirens and sardines you’ll just have to swim these pages. And though I’ll not catch verses casting nets my treasure I’ll keep watch from the gunwale. That Cubist tonguefish smile: always watching from the dark side of the heart.
By Yolanda Castaño
Translated by Keith Payne
From SECOND TONGUE
by Yolanda Castaño
Translated by Keith Payne
Published by Shearsman Books (2020)
Yolanda Castaño has been publishing poetry for over twenty years. Her six collections have been awarded a number of prizes. Bilingual editions (Galician-Spanish) of her collections are Libro de la Egoísta, Profundidad de Campo and La segunda lengua (Second Tongue). A dynamic cultural activist, Castaño has directed cultural projects with Galician and international poets since 2009: poetry translation workshops, an annual poetry festival, a monthly cycle of readings, apart from programming poetry events for other institutions.
Keith Payne was the 2021 John Broderick Writer in Residence. An award-winning poet and translator, he has published seven collections to date of original poetry and poetry in translation and currently shares his time between Dublin and Vigo. He was the Ireland Chair of Poetry Bursary Award winner 2015–2016.
Photo by Lisa Kalloo
Check out the Poetry Travels book list on bookshop.org.
Read previous poems from Poetry Travels:
WHAT DO YOU NEED by Friederike Mayröcker, translated by Christina Daub
A WORK OF BIOGRAPHY by Max Jacob, translated by Ian Seed
UNTITLED POEM by Ivano Fermini, translated by Ian Seed
AGAINST TRAVEL. FOR DANA by Rachel Levitsky
LIGHT by Vasyl Makhno, translated by Olena Jennings
A MESSAGE FROM THE ISLE OF WIGHT by Wioletta Greg, translated by Maria Jastrzębska and Anna Blasiak
HOME by Nataša Sardžoska, translated by the Author
ONLY THE BEGINNING COUNTS (4) by Jan Baeke, translated by Antoinette Fawcett
*** (RABID WINDS) by Gerður Kristný, translated by Rory McTurk
ANSWER TO THE PRAYERS by Vainius Bakas, translated by Kerry Shawn Keys
AGGRESSOR’S MONOLOGUE by Artūras Valionis, translated by Jura Avizienis
THAT’S ALL by Jurgita Jasponytė, translated by Jura Avizienis
UNTITLED by Linas Umbrasas, translated by Audra Skukauskaitė
FIRST SPRING OF THE WAR by Vytautas Kaziela, translated by Jura Avizienis
A LETTER TO A CHILD by Lina Buidavičiutė, translated by Ada Valaitis
UNTITLED by Aneta Kamińska, translated by Anna Blasiak
TWO LYRICS OF LOVE AND MEMORY by Lina Kostenko, translated by Stephen Komarnyckyj
CROW STUDY by Yuri Andrukhovych, translated by John Hennessy and Ostap Kin
UNTITLED POEM by Serhiy Zhadan, translated by John Hennessy and Ostap Kin
UNTITLED POEM by Ludmila Khersonsky, translated by Maya Chhabra
UNTITLED POEM by Iryna Vikyrchak
From THE ANDROMEDA NEBULA by Anna Gréki, translated by Souheila Haïmiche and Cristina Viti
TEAPOT by Nurduran Duman, translated by Andrew Wessels
IT’S COMING AGAIN by Michael Strunge, translated by Paul Russell Garrett
REPORT FROM ANOTHER CITY by Marcin Niewirowicz, translated by the Author
INTERIOR by Ana Blandiana, translated by Paul Scott Derrick and Viorica Patea
THIS IS LOVE by Joanna Fligiel, translated by Anna Blasiak
REVELATION IN H&M by Menno Wigman, translated by David Colmer
*** (I WANT TO FOLD THIS DAY) by Inga Pizāne, translated by Jayde Will
THE SIEGE by Marcin Świetlicki, translated by Elżbieta Wójcik-Leese
FISH by Jana Putrle Srdić, translated by Barbara Jurša
THE WELL by Maarja Pärtna, translated by Jayde Will
THE SHADOW by Pentti Saarikoski, translated by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah
A FAREWELL TO MY DEAD CLASS by Irit Amiel, translated by Anna Blasiak and Marta Dziurosz
THE GIRLS IN BERGEN-BELSEN by Nora Gomringer, translated by Annie Rutherford
DECEMBER, by Jaume Subirana, translated by Christopher Whyte
ROSE RED, by Ulrike Almut Sandig, translated by Karen Leeder
*** (I D[R]IPPED MY PEN…) by Mario Martín Gijón, translated by Terence Dooley
WHAT COMES by Magda Cârneci, translated by Adam J. Sorkin and Mădălina Bănucu
TRANSLATION by Justyna Bargielska, translated by Maria Jastrzębska
*** (MY EYES, DENSE NIGHT…) by Gëzim Hajdari, translated by Ian Seed