Poems by Yolanda Castaño

HISTORIA DA TRANSFORMACIÓN
 
Foi primeiro un trastorno
unha lesiva abstinencia de nena eramos pobres e non tiña nin aquilo
raquítica de min depauperada antes de eu amargor carente unha
parábola de complexos unha síndrome unha pantasma
(Aciago a partes iguais botalo en falla ou lamentalo)
Arrecife de sombra que rompe os meus colares.
Foi primeiro unha branquia evasiva que
non me quixo facer feliz tocándome co seu sopro
son a cara máis común do patio do colexio
a faciana eslamiada que nada en nada sementa
telo ou non o tes renuncia afaite traga iso
corvos toldando nubes unha condena de frío eterno
unha paciente galerna unha privada privación
(nena de colexio de monxas que fun saen todas
anoréxicas ou lesbianas a
letra entra con sangue nos cóbados nas cabezas nas
conciencias ou nas conas).
Pechei os ollos e desexei con todas as miñas forzas
lograr dunha vez por todas converterme na que era.
 
Pero a beleza corrompe. A beleza corrompe.
Arrecife de sombra que gasta os meus colares.
Vence a madrugada e a gorxa contén un presaxio.
Pobre parviña!, obsesionácheste con cubrir con aspas en vez de
co seu contido.
Foi un lento e vertixinoso agromar de flores en inverno
Os ríos saltaban cara atrás e resolvíanse en fervenzas rosas
borboletas e caracois nacéronme nos cabelos
O sorriso dos meus peitos deu combustible aos aeroplanos
A beleza corrompe
A beleza corrompe
A tersura do meu ventre escoltaba á primavera
desbordaron as buguinas nas miñas mans tan miúdas
o meu afago máis alto beliscou o meu ventrículo
e xa non souben qué facer con tanta luz en tanta sombra.
 
Dixéronme: “a túa propia arma será o teu propio castigo”
cuspíronme na cara as miñas propias virtudes neste
clube non admiten a rapazas cos beizos pintados de vermello
un maremoto sucio unha usura de perversión que
non pode ter que ver coa miña máscara de pestanas os
ratos subiron ao meu cuarto enluxaron os caixóns da roupa branca
litros de ferralla alcatrán axexo ás agachadas litros
de control litros de difamadores quilos de suspicacias levantadas
só coa tensión do arco das miñas cellas deberían maniatarte
adxudicarte unha estampa gris e borrarte os trazos con ácido
¿renunciar a ser eu para ser unha escritora?
demonizaron o esguío e lanzal do meu pescozo e o
xeito en que me nace o cabelo na parte baixa da caluga neste
clube non admiten a rapazas tan ben adobiadas
Desconfiamos do estío
A beleza corrompe.
Mira ben se che compensa todo isto.
 
 
De Profundidade de Campo
(Espiral Maior, A Coruña, 2007, ed. biling. gal-cast en Visor, Madrid, 2009)
 
 
 
 
STORY OF THE TRANSFORMATION
 
It began as disorder
hurtful restraint as a kid we were poor and had less than nothing
rickety indigence before I wanting grief
a parable of complexes a syndrome a ghost
(it is as dire to miss as it lament it)
Coral shadow shattering pearls.
It began as a slippery gill whose
passing breath left me destitute
The plainest face in the playground I matter
not a whit and I’ll neither grow nor sow
you've got it or you don't renounce it comply swallow
a maelstrom raven sky of eternal cold judgement
a set westerly a private privation
(a nuns' runt like all the rest
each one a lesbian or anorexic
the letter bet into the blood the hands the head 
the conscience the cunt).
I shut my eyes and hoped beyond hope
to become once and for all everything I was.
 
But beauty corrupts. Beauty corrupts.
Coral shadow squandering pearls.
Day breaks conquering and there's boding in its gullet
You fool! bedevilled with box ticking
and not what they held inside.
It was an idle giddy burst of flowers in winter
The rivers leapt back to themselves in pink waterfalls
butterflies and snails born from my hair
The smile of my breasts fuelled airplanes
Beauty corrupts
Beauty corrupts
My supple belly guided by spring
whelks spilled over my tiny hands
high praise pinched my heart
and I didn’t know what to do with all that light in all that shadow.
 
They said: "your weapon will be your punishment"
they spat my virtues in my face in this
club we won't have girls with scarlet lips
a vicious tide of filth gaining interest
that has nothing to do with my mascara
the mice burrowed into my room and dirtied the linen drawers
litres of scrap pitch lurking secretly litres
of control litres of mud-slingers kilos of suspicion raised
with just the arc of my eyebrows you should be hog-tied
stained grey and all trace erased with acid
renounce who I am just to write?
they skinned me alive for my long tapering neck
for the hair that springs from the nape in this
club we won't have girls who strut
We do not trust summer
Beauty corrupts.
Make bloody sure it's worth it.
 
 
In Six Galician Poets (Ark Publications, UK, 2016)
 
 
(Translated from original Galician into English by Keith Payne)
 

 

 
LISTEN AND REPEAT: un paxaro, unha barba.
 
Todo o ceo está en crequenas. Unha sede intransitiva.
 
Falar nunha lingua allea
parécese a poñer roupa prestada.
 
Helga confunde os significados de país e paisaxe.
(Que clase de persoa serías noutro idioma?).
 
Ti, fasme notar que, ás veces,
este meu instrumento de corda
vocal
desafina.
 
No patio de luces da linguaxe,
engánchame a prosodia
no vestido.
 
Contareiche algo sobre os meus problemas coa lingua:
hai cousas que non podo pronunciar.
 
Como cando te vexo sentado e só vexo
unha cadeira –
ceci n’est pas une chaise.
Unha cámara escura proxecta no hemisferio.
 
Pronunciar: se o poema é
un exorcismo, un cambio de agregación; algún humor
solidifica para abandonarnos.
 
Así é a fonación, a entalpía.
 
Pero tes toda a razón:
o meu vocalismo deixa
moito que desexar.
 
(Se deixo de mirar os teus dentes
non vou entender nada do que fales).
 
O ceo faise pequeno. Helga sorrí en cursiva.
 
E eu aprendo a diferenciar entre unha barba e un paxaro
máis alá de que levante o voo
se trato de collela
entre as mans.
 
 
A Segunda Lingua [La segunda lengua] (Arte de Trobar, Santiago de Compostela, 2014; ed biling. gal-cast. en Visor, Madrid, 2014)
 
 
 
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.
 
 
Second Tongue (Shearsman Books, UK, Galician-English bilingual edition, 2020)
 
 
 
Translated from original Galician into English by Keith Payne
 
 
 
 

​Award-winning poet, essayist, editor, cultural activist and curator Yolanda Castaño is director of the International Writer’s residence Residencia Literaria 1863 in A Coruña, Galicia. The most international name in Galician contemporary poetry, she has published six poetry collections in Galician and Spanish, she also has poems translated into more than 30 different languages, but also poetry volumes in English, Italian, French, Macedonian, Serbian and Armenian. A finalist of the National Poetry Prize, she is the Winner of the National Critics Award or the Ojo Crítico (best poetry book by a young author in Spain) and Author of the Year by the Galician Booksellers’ Association.

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