Objects for surviving death
Translated from Reina María Rodríguez’s unpublished manuscript, Mazorcas, by Kristin Dykstra
“And how can you sleep with so many things on your bed?”
-Elis asks me-
I jump out of bed,
leave to one side the objects
I accumulate
like the Egyptians
thinking they’ll protect me
from dream or fury:
lantern, telephone, pocket mirror
—napkins, mechanical pencils, glasses, notebooks,
creams (cooling and warming)
and cookies
who keep watch through the middle of the night
while I sleep—
like Uncle Luis slept with
his hidden watches
so they wouldn’t carry his time away
one day he accidentally
crushed the minute hand
and died.
II
Curled up in one corner
of this boat
I listen to the gale
my body barely withstands
lying on one side
gripping my objects
against the storm.
“Upon departure” – as in the sonnet
by Avellaneda—
you will leave traces
and remains:
breadcrumbs,
which no one will pick up.
Reina María Rodríguez is the author of more than thirty books of poetry and prose. Among other awards too numerous to list in full, Rodríguez holds two Casas de las Américas Awards for Poetry (1984, 1998), the Alejo Carpentier Medal for Cuban literature (2002), Cuba’s 2013 National Prize for Literature, and the 2014 Pablo Neruda Ibero-American Award for Poetry; she was a Finalist for the 2022 Neustadt International Prize for Literature. France named her Chevalier in its Order of Arts and Letters in 1999. Her recent books include Achicar (U. Autónoma de Querétero, 2021), Luciérnagas (U. Autónoma de Querétero, 2017), El piano (Bokeh, 2016), Prosas de La Habana: Variedades de Galiano (U. de Valparaíso, 2015), and The Winter Garden Photograph / La foto del invernadero (bilingual; Ugly Duckling Presse, 2019). The Princeton University Library holds her papers.
Kristin Dykstra is principal translator of The Winter Garden Photograph by Reina María Rodríguez, Winner of the 2020 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation and Finalist for the National Translation Award. She organized and introduced a May 2021 dossier dedicated to Rodríguez in the digital magazine Latin American Literature Today. Previously she translated numerous poetry editions, such as books by Juan Carlos Flores, Marcelo Morales, Tina Escaja, Rodríguez, and others. Selections from Dykstra’s own current poetry manuscript appear in Lana Turner: A Journal of Poetry and Opinion, Seedings, Clade Song, The Hopper, La Noria (with translation to Spanish by Escaja), and Acrobata (with translations to Portuguese by Floriano Martins). Her essay “Ensenada,” co-translated with Juan Manuel Tabío, appeared in Rialta in September 2021.