Yolanda Castano [Galicia, Spain]

 

Logopedia
  
Let the tea draw till it recalls who we love.
Some nook in a corner of your mouth
must hold the essence of bergamot.

We’re forever being done in
tripping over our tongues
(that ‘s’ of his that feeds
my need to sop him up).
And you’re so palatal, so on the edge…
a likeness buried under your wisdom teeth.

The god of phonology would never have grown
had the meaning not sprayed its sperm
over the howls.

My vocal cords are become straps
for this endless wreckage.
The ‘g’ will ring the little bell of my glottis
like a runaway train we hoped would stop.
And your name
cleaved to my palate,
like communion.

It’s not easy to say earl grey
Bonjour monsieur, I would like an earl grey.

But what I’m after

now that just can’t be said.
 

  
Listen and Repeat: un paxaro, unha barba
 
The whole sky is hunched. An intransitive thirst.

Talking a foreign language
is like wearing borrowed clothes.

Helga confuses the words for land and landscape
(who would you be in another language?)

You show me
my vocal chord
is at times
off key.

In the back garden of language
It’s the prosody that snags
my dress.

I’ll tell you something about the problems with language:
there are things I just can’t wrap my mouth around.

Like when I see you sat and all I see
is a seat –
ceci n’est pas une chaise.
A camera obscura beams on the hemisphere.

Pronounce: if the poem is an exorcism,
a change of state, some humour
takes shape to escape from us.

That’s phonation, enthalpy.

But yes, you are absolutely right:
my delivery leaves
much to be desired.
(If I’m not watching your teeth
I won’t understand a word you say).

The sky shrinks. Helga smiles in italics.

And I learn the difference between a beard and a bird
– and not just what takes off
when I try to hold it
in my hands.
 
  

Translation
 
I only discovered her voice
when she spoke a language I understood.

No matter          we loose our roots
and coil them into tongues.

(My name you know,
could be four syllables long,
and if followed by habibti
could luminously shine).

It matters not a jot
if you say it in Italian,
if you say it in Icelandic.

A mirror in front of me this Egyptian
woman writing with her left hand.

We sculpt with the ashes
of all that was scorched
by the tongues of flame

and at the end of the day we write
towards the margins
while all the rest move to the centre.

New moves will have to be learned
now that you need dance a polka
in the corner of your mouth.

No matter
every hug
is a translation.

(from Yolanda Castaño “Second Tongue”,  Shearsman Books, January 2020)

(Translation Keith Payne)
 

 Author’s Bionote:
 
* Yolanda Castaño: Poet, essayist, editor and curator Yolanda Castaño is director of her own international writer’s residence in Galicia. The most international name in Galician contemporary poetry, she is the winner of Spanish National Award for Poetry 2023, highest honor for a poet in Spain. She has published eight poetry collections in Galician and Spanish, but also solo poetry volumes in English, Italian, French, Slovenian, Macedonian, Serbian, Catalan, Asturian, Greek, Polish and Armenian, apart from shorter samples of her work in other 30 different languages. She has participated in festivals and literary manifestations all over more than 40 countries of Europe, America, Asia and Africa. Two times Winner of the National Critics Award, the Ojo Crítico (best poetry book by a young author in Spain), the Estandarte Award (best poetry collection in Spain in 2020) or Galician Culture Award among many others. She has been awarded international fellowships as a writer-in-residence in Greece, Germany, China, Scotland, Spain, Finland, California, Turkey and France. She is also the author of translations, non-fiction, literary editions, history of Galician Poetry and seven poetry books for children. She regularly organizes festivals, literary and translation workshops and readings series, all of them hosting local to international poets since 2009. She has mixed poetry with music, visual arts, video, architecture, cookery, film in 360º, comic and dance.