>> From the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. ^M00:00:04 ^M00:00:23 >> Catalina Gómez: We are delighted to start this new series. We're starting a series called Poet 2 Poet, Poeta a Poeta, and we -- our idea is to have a poet, a poet who's alive, to honor one of the -- a great poet of the Hispanic language. We are starting this great series here today with Consuelo, who's going to be doing a homage to César Vallejo. I want to take an opportunity to also tell you about the Hispanic Reading Room of the Library of Congress. The Hispanic Reading Room is a primary access point for research related to the Caribbean, Latin America, Spain, and Portugal and is open to everyone. Whoever has a reader's card can use our Reading Room so everyone is welcome. If anyone wants to find out more about our programs, please visit our website, which is www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic. And now to today's event. We're going to have Consuelo, who's going to do a homage to, as I said, Peruvian poet César Vallejo, one of our most beloved poets of Latin America. And then Consuelo's going to read from Vallejo together with Maureen Contreni, who is going to read the poems in English, and then Consuelo is going to move -- she's going to then read some of her work and Contreni is going to read the English translations. About our feature speakers, Consuelo Hernández was born in Colombia and has lived in Venezuela, Peru, Puerto Rico, and the United States. She has published four collections of poems, among them Voces de la soledad, Solo de violín, poemario para músicos y pintores, Manual de peregrina, and the bilingual collection Poemas de escombros y cenizas, and in English that one is titled Poems from Debris and Ashes, and the book that we're here to -- to celebrate, and the one that she'll be reading from today, Mi reino sin orillas. Consuelo's poetry has been included in numerous anthologies. She has received many, many honors, including distinction from the international poetry contest of Ciudad Melilla in Spain and the Letras de Oro contest at the University of Miami. She is also -- in 2011, she received the Antonio Machado Poetry Award in Madrid, Spain, and the Mid-Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies, among many other honors. And Consuelo is also Associate Professor at the World Languages and Cultures Department at American University here in Washington. As I said, she will be accompanied by Maureen Contreni, who has translated some of Consuelo's poetry, and Maureen -- Maureen graduated also from American University. That's where she met Consuelo. And she's an attorney, and she has traveled extensively throughout Latin America, so I'm assuming that's why you love translating Latin American poetry. One last announcement. We will be selling -- Consuelo is selling her book at the book and maybe she'll be glad to sign some copies at the end. So the books are located there in the back. With no further adieu, please join me in welcoming Consuelo Hernández. Thank you. ^M00:03:53 [ Applause ] ^M00:04:01 >> Consuelo Hernández: Thank you, Catalina, for that presentation. ^M00:04:04 ^M00:04:08 Good afternoon and thank you for making the trip up here today in this beautiful raining day. It feels so good to see many familiar faces, friends, and colleagues. Thank you. I want to give my special thanks to Catalina Gómez and Dr. [inaudible], who from the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress invited me for this special event. I am also very grateful with Maureen Contreni, my dear translator. She -- she has translated for my books. This is the first time we are sharing one reading. She is a busy attorney, a wonderful mother of two, and a very exceptional friend. I met Maureen at American University I think around 20 years ago and when she was in my freshmen class. It was one star already completely [inaudible] in Portuguese, Spanish, and English, and I don't know if she has learned another language, but -- and I was astonished by her translation. So until now, though she doesn't dedicate only to translate, she translated my book, and thank you for that and for being here. I also would like to dedicate this, this poetry reading, to my Peruvian and Colombian brothers and sisters that are facing the most, the worst catastrophe, natural catastrophe, that they have suffered in the last decades. And Trujillo, the city where Vallejo spent most of his more important intellectual and formational years, is one of the cities more affected. So we have that day in mind today. It is a great pleasure for me and a big honor to be in this city celebrating the greatest, the most wonderful, and the most beloved poet or Latin American during the 20th century. César Vallejo is the poet -- is the poet really from the avant-garde times. He was a poet that before Breton published the Surrealist Manifesto he was already surrealist [inaudible] he lives only 46 years, from 1892 to 1918, but those years were enough to write an immortal -- immortal book of poetry. At the beginning of the year, I was contacted by Catalina and asked me to give the name of one poet that has been influencing my world or somebody that I really like and honestly I couldn't give her only one name. There are many poets that I have read and many that I enjoy, so I sent a list of six names and let her to choose whoever she consider more appropriate to start the series. And some days later, I received a letter, an email, telling me that the selected poem was César Vallejo and I was just thrilled and in some way I thought what a coincidence because Vallejo is one of those very few poets that when I read for the first time he moved me to tears. And I think that everybody who reads Vallejo can cry when you read those poems. So I -- I start to think what do I have in common with Vallejo and I really don't know how much of Vallejo's in my poetry. I'm going to leave this word for the critics, but I try to find some comparalisms [phonetic] between his life and my life and the motivation he has to write poetry and my own motivations and I -- I'm going just to mention some because I think it is useful to illustrate who was this Vallejo. One thing in common is that we're born on March 16 and March 16 is his date when he's born and March 16 is my official birthday. Another thing is our provincial origins. He was born in Santiago de Chuco in Peru highlands, in a provincial town, in an environment very religious. His parents were both mestizo and they were son and daughter from priests in Peru so they have that religious formation since the very beginning. ^M00:10:08 So I thought that that was interesting because I'm also from a little town in Colombia, from the Andean mountains, one hour from Medellín, El Peñón, and I lived there for 10 years. Vallejo moved from Santiago de Chuco to Trujillo and to Lima in order to study and I moved when I was 10 to -- with my family to Medellín also to get education and go to the university. By the way, here is one of my professors from the University of Antioquia. I was really surprised because he was my professor I think 50 years ago, around that, and she's also a translator, Patricia [Inaudible]. And then Vallejo, after those years in Trujillo and in Lima started in an agrarian intellectual development, he decided to go to France, and from France he travelled to the Institute of [Inaudible], especially to Russia. He went four times because of his political convictions. And then he went also to Spain to collaborate with the republican courts. In my case, I moved to Venezuela more by spiritual and idealistic convictions, too, and [inaudible] political and then I went to Peru, to Puerto Rico, and finally I came to the United States where I did my Ph.D. and I definitely stayed here already 30 years. So, but the -- our similarities in our lives doesn't end here. We -- I think what delineates his poetry is also common to my poetry. He has -- he's chosen his poetry on profound necessity and absolutely freedom and at the same the possibility to find it. His nostalgia also for his lost paradise of the [inaudible], the memories of his family, especially his mother and his brother, his suffering for the loss -- losses that he had during his life. He lost his brother in 1915, his mother in 1918, then his father. He was also in jail for 112 days. So he has a very difficult life and that shows in his poetry, too. And he has an existential anguish and a kind of sense of feeling an orphan in this world, lonely, in solitude, and besides that he had the conscience for political and social justice, and that put him into trouble because of his political convictions. He was expelled from France and he had to live in Spain for certain times and he went back to Spain. But anyway, in his poetry there are also the eternal themes of poetry, death, love, life, and in a way this is -- this is also present in my poetry, so I think that the selection of César Vallejo was a very just for our reading today. But we are not here to hear another scholarly presentation. This is something that you can read in many critic studies about his poetry. There are also many biographies and some of them exceptional, like the one written by Juan Espejo Asturrizaga. So we are going to go into his poetry and I am going to try and put into context. Any time I read a poem, I am going to put it into context and Maureen is going to read the translation. He wrote several books of poetry, but when he died he only had published two and both self-published. I want to emphasize that they were self-published because many times we devaluate self-publications and one gigantic like this published Los heraldos negros [inaudible] that doesn't have any translation because it's a word, a neologismo, it's a word invented by him [inaudible]. He published by himself with his own money in Lima before going to France. And since he went to Europe he didn't publish any other poetic book and all the rest of his work was unpublished until he died. His widow was the one that published the other books. So this is his complete work on poetry and half of this was unpublished when he died. So we're going to start the reading with one poem entitled Los heraldos negros. Esta poema de Los heraldos negro abre este libro y habla de el choque tremendo que tuvo César Vallejo cuando recibió un telegrama de su hermano que decía sobre la muerte de su madre. Entonces -- ^M00:16:53 ^M00:16:59 Es un poema muy fuerte y muy bello. Los heraldos negros. Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes. Yo no sé. Golpes como del odio de Dios, como si -- si -- ^M00:17:20 ^M00:17:24 Lo siento. Necesito [inaudible]. ^M00:17:27 [ Background speaking ] ^M00:17:57 Volvamos a empezar. Los heraldos negros. Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes. Yo no sé. Golpes como del odio de Dios, como si ante ellos, la resaca de todo lo sufrido se empozara en el alma. Yo no sé. Son pocos, pero son. Abren zanjas oscuras en el rostro más fiero y en el lomo más fuerte. Serán tal vez los potros de bárbaros attilas, o los heraldos negros que nos manda la Muerte. Son las caídas hondas de los cristos del alma, de alguna fe adorable que el Destino blasfema. Esos golpes sangrientos son las crepitaciones de algún pan que en la puerta del horno se nos quema. Y el hombre. Pobre. Pobre. Vuelve los ojos, como cuando por sobre el hombro nos llama una palmada, vuelve los ojos locos, y todo lo vivido se empoza, como un charco de culpa, en la mirada. Hay golpes en la vida, tan fuertes. Yo no sé. ^M00:19:27 ^M00:19:33 >> Maureen Contreni: Thank you very much for having me here. The black heralds. There are blows in life, so powerful. I don't know. Blows like God's hatred as if before them. the undertow of everything suffered or to well up in the soul. I don't know. They're few, but they exist. They open dark furrows in the most ferocious face and the most powerful loins. Perhaps they're wooden horses of barbaric attilas or black messengers that Death sent to us. They're profound lapses of the soul's christs, of some adorable faith that Destiny blasphemes. Those bloodthirsty blows are crackling of some bread that in the oven's door burns up on us. And man. Poor, poor man. He turns his eyes as when a slap on the shoulder calls us by name. He turns his crazed eye and everything he's lived wells up like a pool of guilt in his gaze. There are blows in life, so powerful. I don't know. >> Consuelo Hernández: Yeah. Los pasos lejanos. In this poem, Vallejo is already far from Santiago de Chuco and he's missing his family. So the central figures here are his father and his peaceful mother. Mi madre duerme -- perdón. Mi padre duerme. Su semblante augusto figura un apacible corazón, está ahora tan dulce. Si hay algo en él de amargo, seré yo. Hay soledad en el hogar, se reza, y no hay noticias de los hijos hoy. Mi padre se despierta, ausculta la huida a Egipto, el restañate adiós. Está ahora tan cerca, si hay algo en él de lejos, seré yo. Y mi madre pasea allá en los huertos, saboreando un sabor ya sin sabor. Está ahora tan suave, tan ala, tan salida, tan amor. Hay soledad en el hogar sin bulla, sin noticias, sin verde, sin niñez. Y si hay algo quebrado en esta tarde, y que baja y que cruje, son dos viejos caminos blancos, curvos. Por ellos va mi corazón a pie. >> Maureen Contreni: Distant footsteps. My father sleeps. His august expression suggests a tranquil heart. Now he's so sweet. If there's anything bitter in him, it must be me. There's loneliness at home. He prays. And there's no news of the children today. My father wakes up, listening inside himself for the flight into Egypt, the goodbye that stops the flow of blood. Now he's so close. If there's anything distant in him, it must be me. Out there, my mother passes through the orchards, already savoring the savor without savor. Now she's so soft, so much wing, so gone, so much love. There's loneliness at home with no noisy brood, no news, no green, no childhood. And this afternoon, if there's anything broken that stoops over and creaks, it's two old white, curvy roads. Down them my heart travels on foot. ^M00:24:07 ^M00:24:13 >> Consuelo Hernández: A mi hermano Miguel. Miguel was the closest brother to César. César is the 11th of the 11 children of this big family and Miguel -- Miguel was the one before the last one, so they were very close. And he died in 1915. So this poem is A mi hermano Miguel, In memoriam. Hermano, hoy estoy en el poyo de la casa. Donde nos haces una falta sin fondo. Me acuerdo que jugábamos esta hora, y que mama nos acariciaba: Pero, hijos. Ahora yo me escondo, como antes, todas estas oraciones vespertinas, y espero que tú no des conmigo. Por la sala, el zaguán, los corredores. Después, te ocultas tú, y yo no doy contigo. Me acuerdo que nos hacíamos llorar, hermano, en aquel juego. Miguel, tú te escondiste una noche de agosto, al alborear, pero, en vez de ocultarte riendo, estabas triste. Y tu gemelo corazón de esas tardes extintas se ha aburrido de no encontrarte. Y ya cae sombra en el alma. Oye, hermano, no tardes en salir. ¿Bueno? Puede inquietarse mamá. >> Maureen Contreni: To my brother Miguel. Brother, I am sitting on the bench at our house, where your absence is a bottomless pit. I remember that this is the time we used to play and that Mama would pat us and say, "Boys! Boys!" Now I'm hiding as I used to from all those even-tied prayers and hoping you don't stumble upon me. Through the sala, the entry hall, the corridors. Later you go hide and I don't find you. I remember that we made each other cry, brother, playing that game. Miguel, you hid one night in August near dawn, but instead of laughing as you hid, you were sad and your twin heart from those bygone afternoons is weary from not finding you. and now a shadow is falling over my soul. Listen, brother, don't wait too long to come out. Alright? You might upset Mama. >> Consuelo Hernández: Ahora vamos a leer dos poemas from Trilce. Trilce es el [inaudible], el libro mas importante de la vanguardia latinoamericana. Vallejo, sin escuelas, sin -- sin manifiestos, sin seguidores, aquejado como la figura mas epígono de la vanguardia. A diferencia de otros poetas que sí tuvieron escuela o sí tuvieron manifiestos y formaron seguidores. Como dije antes Trilce es una palabra inventada. Algunos malinterpretado que es la combinación de triste y dulce pero en realidad el en una entrevista dijo que no significada nada, que estaba buscando un titulo bueno para poner a su -- a su libro y que [inaudible] jugando con [inaudible] trilce y decidió que es el titulo mas apropiado para su libro. El libro tiene 77 poemas y ninguno tiene titulo que nos puedan orientar. Es sobre contenido. Asi que vamos a leer el poema No. 18. Este poema se refiere a sus dias en la cárcel y añoranza que [inaudible] ante de la madre como la posible solución al abandono que esta sufriendo. I said all of this in Spanish. I'm going to make a summary. Trilce is one of the most important books of poetry in -- for the avant-garde, the movement, in Latin America. And this poem that I am going to read now talks about his time in jail. He was arrested thoroughly and totally unjusted -- unjustified, and he wrote this poem when he was in jail. And the day he was liberated, he read this poem to his friends and Juan Espejo says that when he was reading this poem he was in tears. ^M00:29:38 ^M00:29:44 Oh, las cuatro paredes de la celda. Ah, las cuatro paredes albicantes que sin remedio dan al mismo número. Criadero de nervios mala brecha, por sus cuatro rincones cómo arranca las diarias aherrojadas extremidades. Amorosa llavera de innumerables llaves, si estuvieras aquí, si vieras hasta qué hora son las cuatro estas paredes. Contra ellas seríamos contigo, los dos, más dos que nunca. Y ni lloraras, di, ¡Libertadora! Ah, las cuatro paredes de la celda. De ellas me duelen entretanto, más las dos largas que tienen esta noche algo de madres que ya muertas llevan por bromurados declives, a un niño de la mano cada una. Y sólo yo me voy quedando, con la diestra, que hace por ambas manos, en alto, en busca de terciario brazo que ha de pupilar, entre mi dónde y cuándo, esta mayoría inválida de hombre. >> Maureen Contreni: This is Poem No. 18. Oh, the four walls of the cell. Ah, the four whitening walls that helplessly face the same number. Place where the nerves are born the worst way, through its four corners how it drags around the shackled daily limbs. Tender keeper of innumerable keys, if you were here, if you could see just how late these walls are still four. Against them we'd be with you, the two of us, more two than ever, and you wouldn't even cry. Speak up, liberator. Ah, the walls, the cell. Meanwhile, I hurt most from the two long ones that tonight look like mothers already dead, who each lead a child by hand down shear cliffs of bromine. And here I'm still alone with my right hand, which does for both held up high, in search of tertiary arm which has to tutor between my where and my when this invalid majority of man. >> Consuelo Hernández: Now we'll read the Poem No. 28. This is an absolute beauty. When I read this poem for the first time, this is one of the poems that made me cry. I was far from my home, too. I was in Venezuela. And it's -- it captures in an exceptional way, with so much intensity, the nostalgia for his home and also with every day worse. I will read it. He almorzado solo ahora, y no he tenido madre, ni súplica, ni sírvete, ni agua, ni padre que, en el facundo ofertorio de los choclos, pregunte para su tardanza de imagen, por los broches mayores del sonido. Cómo iba yo a almorzar. Cómo me iba a servir de tales platos distantes esas cosas, cuando habráse quebrado el propio hogar, cuando no asoma ni madre a los labios. Cómo iba yo a almorzar nonada. A la mesa de un buen amigo he almorzado con su padre recién llegado del mundo, con sus canas tías que hablan en tordillo retinte de porcelana, bisbiseando por todos sus viudos alvéolos, y con cubiertos francos de alegres tiroriros, porque estánse en su casa. Así, ¡qué gracia! Y me han dolido los cuchillos de esta mesa en todo el paladar. El yantar de estas mesas así, en que se prueba amor ajeno en vez del propio amor, torna tierra el brocado que no brinda la madre, que hace golpe la dura deglución, el dulce, hiel, aceite funéreo, el café. Cuando ya se ha quebrado el propio hogar, y el sírvete materno no sale de la tumba, la cocina a oscuras, la miseria de amor. ^M00:34:54 ^M00:34:58 >> Maureen Contreni: Now I have eaten lunch alone and have had no mother or entreaty or help yourself, or water, or father, who in his fluent offertory of boiled corn, asks about his delay of image and for the larger clasps of sound. How was I going to eat, how was I going to serve myself those things from such distant plates, when our very hearth will have been broken, when not even a glimpse of mother touches my lips. How was I going to eat a bite. I have had lunch at the table of a good friend, with his father recently arrived from the world, with his white-haired aunts chattering in the dappled chinking of china, buzzing about all the ovulate widowers and generous place settings of joyous tootlings, because they are in the house. Ah, how pleasant, and the knives of this table have hurt every bit of my pallet. Thus the victuals of these tables, which demonstrate altruistic rather than selfish love, turn to dirt the mouthful not offered by the mother, make difficult deglutition a blow, the sweet bile, coffee, funereal oil, when your own heart has already been broken and the maternal help yourself does not leave the tomb, the kitchen, in darkness, the misery of love. >> Consuelo Hernández: From Poemas Humanos, that was the book that was published posthumously, we will read Piedra blanca -- Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca, and it's a premonition of his own death, though he didn't die on Thursday and in a fall as the poem says. He died on a rainy Holy Friday in spring, 15 April, the month of poetry. Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca. Me moriré en París con aguacero, un día del cual tengo ya el recuerdo. Me moriré en París y no me corro, tal vez un jueves, como es hoy de otoño. Jueves será, porque hoy, jueves, que proso estos versos, los húmeros me he puesto a la mala y, jamás como hoy, me he vuelto, con todo mi camino, a verme solo. César Vallejo ha muerto, le pegaban todos sin que él les haga nada, le daban duro con un palo y duro también con una soga, son testigos los días jueves y los jueves -- los huesos húmeros, la soledad, la lluvia, los caminos. >> Maureen Contreni: Black stone on a white stone. I will die in Paris with hard dirty rain on a day I now remember. I will die in Paris, and I don't run. Maybe a Thursday, like today, in autumn. Thursday, because today, Thursday, when I prose these lines, I have forced my humeri on unwillingly and never like today have I again, with all my road, seen myself alone. César Vallejo is dead. They beat him everyone, without him doing anything to them. They hit him hard with a stick and hard likewise with a rope. Witnesses are the Thursdays and humerus bones the loneliness, the rain, the roads. >> Consuelo Hernández: Now it's going to be very difficult to read my own work in front of this amazing beauty, but I was going to read some of my poems from my new book. Before, I want to thank all the people that made possible this book because the cover was made by Phyllis Portella [assumed spelling], one painter that lives in New York. The back cover is a comment by Iris Guzman, the translator of so many Latin American writers and Hispanic writers. The pictures were taken by Daniel Adino [assumed spelling]. I also want to thank my husband for his support always and for -- because he was instrumental in deciding what title to give to the book, too. ^M00:39:59 And of course to Maureen, that translated the book. So I'm going to read like five minutes, eight, so we have time to discuss the reading. Recomienzo. Recomienzo. Reinicio este constante desplazarme atravieso montañas desiertos y llanuras ni míos ni tuyos los dominios de la imaginación. Ríos, volcanes, lavas y cenizas un incendio interior me devora. Las sombras cabargan en la nueva aurora peregrino por las cuatro estaciones derrumbo murallas confundida entre la turba entre el huracán y las aves. Busco la antorcha. La palabra que dé en el blanco el aroma de la hierba silvestre la patria de nostalgias y viborea en mi cuerpo una violenta sensación de amor. >> Maureen Contreni: Again. It begins again, this relentless journey over deserts and plains neither mine nor yours but dominions of imagination. By lamplight I grope my way across rivers, volcanoes, lava, and ash. A fire devours me from within. I return from the night on the wings of sunrise, a pilgrim crossing the four seasons. I demolish the ancient walls of cities, confused in the teeming crowds between the hurricane and the birds in search of a sliver of light from a single word. Let the smell of wild grass, the mother of nostalgia, strike at the heart of the target and twist inside me with the violence of love. >> Consuelo Hernández: I have to say that this book was written after I had experience of suffer cancer and in front of one experience so hard, an obstacle that's big to overcome, I come to value as never life and also to find support in the highest inner self or in whatever you believe that can help you in those moments. And I wrote this poem too in those times. Tu nombre. Digo tu nombre y todos se ilumina. Pienso en tu nombre y estoy lista para el viaje. Sueno tu nombre y me despierto de una pesadilla. Escribo tu nombre y aparece la palabra amor. Te llamo y brota agua en el desierto de mi pena. Grito tu nombre y fecundas de fulgor el universo. Me lleno de tu nombre y hay esperanza limpia en mis caminos. Me abrazas, me besas y estoy viva. >> Maureen Contreni: Your name. I say your name and everything lights up. I think about your name and I am ready for a voyage. I dream your name and I awake from a nightmare. I write your name and the word love appears. I call to you and water sprouts from the desert of my sorrow. I shout your name and you impregnate the universe with radiance. I fill myself with your name and there is clean hope in my pathway. You hold me, you kiss me, and I am alive. >> Consuelo Hernández: This other poem is also something that I felt a necessity to write when I was sick and it's to encourage people to live even though if they are very depressed or with a hard pain. I have had in my life friends that have commit suicide, students that come to my office with this immense pain, and at those moments you realize that -- the moments when you are really sick and you realize how much is important life and how much you value life as the biggest present that we have in this world. So I wrote this poem to -- to encourage people to value life and to forget those ideas to commit suicide. Poema para suicidas. Atrapa la llama que alumbra tus orillas y posterga el descenso hacia el abismo aunque sientas que no hay dolor más grande que el dolor de estar vivo ni mayor pesadumbre que la vida consciente. Un veneno no sacia la sed de firmamentos. No prives de la brisa a tus pulmones archiva navajas y cuchillos no visualices tu sangre a borbotones. Enciende las luminarias de tu alma. Olvida las balas que marcaron golondrinas con muertes imaginares y con el placer que bailas cumbia o vallenato manda a la muerte a pudrirse en las letrinas. Antes de que emprendas tu regreso, descubre del cóndor su saber y serena sin vértigo, sin asco, ante la carroña de los precipicios, aprende a navegar en las alturas. >> Maureen Contreni: For the suicidal. Trap the flame that illuminates your shores and hold back the dissent into the abyss even though you feel there is no pain greater than the pain of being alive nor grief heavier than conscious life. Poison does not quench thirst for the heavens. Do not deprive your lungs of the breeze. File away the razors and knives. Do not visualize your blood gushing. Light the lamps of your soul. Forget the bullets that branded the swallows with imaginary deaths. And with the pleasure with which you danced the cumbia or vallenato, send Death to rot in the latrine. Before you set out on your return, find the condor's wisdom and serenely, without vertigo or disgust, faced with the carrion of the precipices, learn to navigate in the highlands. >> Consuelo Hernández: Casa de la infancia. Hoy volvé a rodar la lluvia entre las tejas y salgo del cementerio mi abuelita. Se sentó como siempre en alumbra de la cocina, con la mirada fijen y ciertos a resuntas, y yo a tristezas por el cristo fue que cantaba entre las ramas. Mi corazón se durmió bajo las dalias. Mi ser senté rojo en todo ese tiempo con las sales aurora luminosa. Siempre tengo que volverá la casa de la infancia [inaudible] fugar en ese país [inaudible] por esos caminos que no tienen piedad de las viajeras. >> Maureen Contreni: Childhood home. Today the rain slipped between the tiles and my grandmother hopped out of the cemetery. She sat as usual on the threshold of the kitchen with her gaze set on uncertain horizons. And it rained sorrows for the great cicadae sitting among the branches. My heart fell asleep beneath the dahlias. My being was interred along with that time, with the birds from some other luminous aurora. I always have to return to my childhood home, to flounder in that deserted country, on those destroyed paths that have no compassion for travelers. >> Consuelo Hernández: And now I'm going to read one poem that I think is more actual than ever. It's La inmigrante and it's devoted to -- dedicated to all the immigrant women. Mujer que caminas noche y día con tu llave inmemorial das nacimiento a la palabra veraz atraviesas el río y nadie te reconoce, te mojas, sudas, pierdes tus zapatos. Otra jornada abrumada de cansancio, no puedes verbalizar tus injurias pero eres sabia aunque te encuentren infraganti. Te interrogan. ¿Quién eres? ¿De dónde vienes? ¿Qué buscas en esta tierra que ya tiene dueños y fronteras y murallas y hermanos que saben de la muerte lenta? ^M00:50:08 Al espacio de tu linaje vuelves como sombra que releo en tu luminosa faz el fuego no termina escapas, caes, te levantas, te sacudes, hablas en tu lengua de tortilla muerdes tus palabras de café y no te dejas derrotar por la nostalgia. Tu canto se ahoga, se alejan las salidas eres inmigrante tu identidad se ha reducido para siempre. No entiendes de visas ni de planetas fragmentados aprendes a decir "good morning" pero a nadie le interesa "how you are" ni que estés habitada por un hijo sepultado en el desierto por el sueño de un empleo de un refugio para dormir en paz. Yo también soy la ruptura de la costura aquí adentro no se disipa la niebla, y me sucede que miro en tu espejo y me veo. >> Maureen Contreni: Immigrant woman. Woman that walks night and day with your memor -- in memorial key. You give rise to the true word. You cross the river and no one acknowledges you. You get wet, you sweat, you lose your shoes. Another day's journey burdened with exhaustion. You cannot verbalize your injuries, but you are wise even if they catch you red-handed. They interrogate you. Who are you? Where are you from? What do you want from this land that already has owners, and borders, and walls, and brothers who know about slow death. To the place of your lineage you return like a shadow that I reread in your luminous visage. The fire does not end. You escape, you fall, you get up. You shake yourself off. You speak in your tortilla tongue coffee words. Do not let nostalgia defeat you. Your song drowns. The exits get farther away. You are in immigrant. Your identity has been reduced forever. You neither understand about visas nor fragmented planets. You learn to say good morning, but no one is interested in how you are, or that you are inhabited by a son buried in the desert by hope of getting a job, of a refuge to sleep in peace. I too am the rupture and the scene. Here inside the fog does not dissipate and so it happens that I look at your reflection in the mirror and I see myself. >> Consuelo Hernández: Volver a la niñez. Volver a la niñez, se dice fácil, al delantal de flores, al mate rile-rile-ró, al tuntún del diablo con el tridente al hombro, al ángel con el bastón dorado, a las madrugadas de cuatro de la mañana, a visitar los templos con devoción forzada. Volver a los juegos de pelota, a escalar los montes de los Andes con frío avaricioso, cruzar el puente sobre el ruido infernal de la quebrada, con un miedo que muerde las agallas. En verdad poco hay de memorable en todo esto, tal vez mi soledad entre la hierba, el diálogo inconcluso con los pájaros, y mi permanente envidia de sus alas. Mas para qué toda esta perorata de nostalgias, si al final sé que soy igual que el Amazonas o el Potomac que siempre van y nunca pueden volver a su punto de partida. >> Maureen Contreni: Back to childhood. Back to childhood, it's easily said, to the flowery apron, to mate rile-rile-ró, to the beat of the devil with a pitchfork on his shoulder, to the angel with the golden staff, to the early starts at 4 in the morning, visiting temples with forced devotion. Back to ball games, to climbing the Andes mountains in the grasping cold, to crossing the bridge over the inferno noise of the gorge, with fear gnawing at our insides. Honestly, little of this is memorable. Perhaps just my loneliness in the grass, my inconclusive dialogue with the birds, and my permanent envy of their wings. But why all this nostalgic sing-songing if in the end I know I'm just like the Amazon o r the Potomac that always flow and never return to their starting point. >> Consuelo Hernández: And I'm going to conclude with this poem for my parents. I am also an orphan already and this is already sad poem, but I want to read it here. Te fuiste. Te fuiste a mitad de la cosecha de verano, entraste a casa del silencio. Todas las palabras recogiste. No dejaste con la mirada húmeda y el corazón luchando contra pelo. Que triste aquella noche contigo hasta alba sin oírte pronunciar una palabra. Te miraba y desde la eternidad de mi sonreías con tus ojos cerrados de ternura y tu andar detenido por siempre. Repetí tu nombre hasta el cansancio. Los momentos que pasamos conversando y te vivirte como estatua en mi misma me habitadas. Hoy en el reino del insomnios estás aquí suavizando mi dolor con tu pecho generoso y tus últimas palabras: Hija mía que Dios me la bendiga. ^M00:56:51 ^M00:56:56 >> Maureen Contreni: You went away. You went away in the middle of the summer harvest. You entered the house of silence. You gathered up all your words. With a damp look, you left us with our hearts struggling against the tide. Such an unhappy night with you until dawn, not hearing you utter one word. I looked at you and you smiled back at me from eternity. With your closed eyes and tenderness, your movement stopped forever. I repeated your name to exhaustion, the times we spent talking. I saw you rise up like a statue inside me. You inhabited me. Today in the kingdom of insomnia you are here softening my pain, with your generous chest, and your last words: God bless you, my daughter. ^M00:57:55 [ Applause ] ^M00:58:05 >> Catalina Gómez: That was just beautiful. Thank you both. And just a small reminder that we're selling Consuelo's book here in the back. Thank you for coming. Thanks. >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at LOC.gov. ^E00:58:21