by
Francisca Aguirre
Translated
from the Spanish by Ana Valverde Osan
A Lannan
Translations Series Selection
This
50-page poem is a major contemporary Spanish poet's reworking
of the Greek myth of Odysseus, but with one important alteration:
This time the story is told from Penelope's perspective.
Upon its original Spanish publication, Ithaca earned
the 1971 Leopoldo Panero Poetry award.
Ithaca
And
who has never been to Ithaca?
Who
is not familiar with her rugged environment,
the
sea ring that oppresses her,
the
austere intimacy she imposes on us,
the
silence in adding it draws for us?
Ithaca
summarizes us as a book,
she
goes with us to our very selves,
she
discovers for us the sound of waiting.
Because
waiting has a ring:
it
preserves the echo of voices that have departed.
Ithaca
reveals to us life's heartbeat,
she
makes us the accomplices of distance,
blind
sentinels of a path
that
is taking shape without us,
that
we will be unable to forget because
ignorance
does not know oblivion.
It
is painful to wake up one day
and
to gaze at the sea that enfolds us,
that
annoints us with salt and baptizes us like new children.
We
remember the days of shared wine,
the
words, not the echo;
the
hands, not the diluted gesture.
I see
the sea that surrounds me,
the
vague color into which you got lost,
I check
the horizon with exhausted eagerness,
I allow
my eyes for a moment
to
carry out their beautiful function;
then,
I turn my back
and
I lead my footsteps toward Ithaca.
Available editions:
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Cloth
ISBN: 1-929918-59-3
Price: $20.00
Publishing Date: November 2004
Paperback
ISBN: 1-929918-60-7
Price: $14.95
Publishing Date: November 2004
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