We present this work in honor of the Chilean holiday, Navy Day.
Elicura Chihailaf Chilean b. 1952
I am old, and from a blooming tree I look at the horizon How many airs did I walk? I do not know From the other side of the sea the setting sun has already sent out its messengers and I am departing to meet my ancestors Blue is the place where we go The spirits of the water carry me off step by step Wenulewfv / the River of the Sky is barely one small circle in the universe
In this Dream I shall stay: Stroke, oarsmen! In Silence I move away in the invisible song of life.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 105th birthday.
Gonzalo Rojas Chilean 1916 – 2011
I
And no more tears; this transparent woman, who today is sealed away, this woman who now is walled in a niche grave like a madwoman chained to a cruel bedstead in an airless room with neither boat nor boatman, among faceless strangers, this woman who, alone, is The One, who held us all in the heaven of her body. Blessed be her womb.
II
And nothing nothing else; that she bore me and made me a man with her seventh birth her figure of fire and of ivory in the trials of poverty and sadness and she knew how to hear through the silence of my childhood the sign the Secret Sign without ever breathing a word. Blessed be the fruit of her womb.
III
Let others go instead of me I can’t go now to put the red carnations there the carnations of the Rojases ‚— mine and yours ‚— today on the painful thirteenth day of your martyrdom those family members who are born at dawn and who are reborn ‚— let them go to that wall for us for Rodrigo for Tomás for young Gonzalo for Alonso; let them go or not as they wish or let them leave you in the dark alone alone with the ashes of your beauty which are your resurrection Celia Pizarro daughter and granddaughter of Pizarros of late Pizarros Mother; and may you come with us into exile dwelling as always in grace and mutual delight. Blessed be thy name.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 240th birthday.
Andres Bello Chilean 1781 – 1865
Do you know, blonde, what favor I solicit When I cover the altars with offerings? Not rich furnishings, not superb lands, Neither a table that flatters the appetite.
At the edge of Aragua I want a parcel To supply me with simple pleasures, And close to my rustic home A brook that runs among the rocks.
To feel good around the summery warmth, I also want my plot to have a grove, Where the proud coconut and the willow can grow.
I’ll be happy if in this refuge I die; And, upon exhaling my fugitive breath, I stamp on your lips my last goodbye!
All equally alone (Between) the sound and the inertia
Sometimes I only want A contact The time Enough to feel like I’m doing something Something that makes me special (Someone that makes me special)
I take off the armor I remain exposed, I remain in doubt What I was pretending to be Melts in my feet I take off the armor I remain exposed, I remain in doubt There’s only organs and skin And so I let myself fall My feet are tired from running
Of crystal The city
I watch as The secret life Collapses Brilliant courage
All equally alone The carry the bones on the outside
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 60th birthday.
Mariela Griffor Chilean b. 1961
A torturer does not redeem himself through suicide. But it does help. – Mario Benedetti
The boys from the neighbourhood, some of them, stay behind the mud and the rain.
I ask myself what has become of Romero, Quezada, Coleman? Did their bodies and souls escape deterioration?
Did they go into the army to do their duty as soldiers of the fatherland, the ones who protect us from hate and foreign tyrants?
Did they climb like the General by usurping through disloyalty, lies, secret codes and finally through money?
Did they have families and continue living in the city as if nothing had happened?
Or did they sell their modest houses, move to another neighbourhood where no one knows anything about them?
There they will come in the evening and will wash the remnants of dried blood from their fingers.
Will they look for their wives, give them a kiss, touch their bodies with those same hands?
Will their daytime nightmares be cast upon those who know nothing of where they come at the end of the night?
Will they return their heads, smashed by the memories they left in the cells, streets, apartments to a soft warm pillow that washes away their sacrileges?
What happened to the men I knew and never saw again?
Did they turn themselves into men hungry for justice or did they leave little by little in silence?
Did they put on their clothes in the morning without knowing whether they would return in the evening to their dear ones?
Did they learn to kill in clandestine training or did they become more men with the passing of these hard times?
Did they love like those pure men I met on those evenings when to play was all our universe?
In honor of Chilean Independence Day, we present this work of independence by one of Chile’s great poets.
Guillermo Blest Gana Chilean 1829 – 1904
I observed when you snatched viciously me away my loved ones, and then I judged you: relentless like misfortune, inexorable like pain and cruel like the doubt…
But today that you, cold, mute, approach me without hate and without love, neither sullen nor affable, my spirit greets your majesty of the unfathomable and your eternity.
I, without the impatience of the suicide, neither the dread of the happy, nor the inert fear of the criminal, I await your coming;
that equal to everyone’s luck is my fortune: if nothing is expected of life, something must be expected from death.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 90th birthday.
Delia Domínguez Chilean b. 1931
Tomorrow, a God I don’t know will offer me salvation if I don’t blindfold my soul as your shadow passes by.
Tomorrow, a mist will rise from the cornfields and we’ll know another season is upon us because our clothing will stick to our ribs, and you’ll depart forever like those visitors from the city who don’t know the sense of belonging or the scent of rotting leaves —or even less— the desolation of the hillsides after an infernal rain.
Tomorrow I’ll be silent, turned toward my solitary pillow like a schoolgirl punished in the farthest corner of the world, while the nettles at the back of the garden will open their milky buttons in the midst of this silence when it’s all much too late.
We present this work in honor of the 70th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Winétt de Rokha Chilean 1892 – 1951
A cave, with stalactites and stalagmites, all white, like the index finger of the morning. A tapestry, blood-spattered, repetitive, my slipper but one seed in the watermelon.
Every eye doubles itself in the little mirrors of my toe-nails; my arms fall, lift themselves, and fall again through autumn.
The word becomes a butterfly of the night, bats its wings, stops, opens itself to unforeseen pearls — catches at an echo that rolls slowly away, dividing and dividing again, and chases after its own flight like the mane of a comet as it dissolves.