• Poetry
  • Fiction
  • Flash Fiction
  • Nonfiction
  • Book Reviews
  • Translations
  • About
  • Awards
  • Submissions
  • Buy LAR
  • Poetry
  • Fiction
  • Flash Fiction
  • Nonfiction
  • Book Reviews
  • Translations
  • About
  • Awards
  • Submissions
  • Buy LAR

Poems by Luis Alberto de Cuenca Translated by Gustavo Pérez Firmat


I Remember Bram Stoker

When the world was young, when lands and seas

were still taking shape in the primeval mire,

when the air was beginning to rise from 

the elemental lava, just then, when dinosaurs 

were only a thought in the divine mind,

someone put in my hands an edition of Dracula,

Stoker’s novel, with a prologue by Pere Gimferrer, 

one of my teachers (along with Pound, 

Cirlot, Rubén Darío, Borges and many others 

that it’s pointless to name). Even now I cannot

describe what I felt when reading that book,

though in the sloppy and incomplete edition

by Táber. As I read, the door of the abyss opened,

an abyss where wild roses of the imagination 

bloomed, and the lilies of style and intelligence;

an abyss of ancient and magic shadows

where it was a pleasure to stray and fall;

an abyss in which Good and Evil were not only

opposites but the two sides of the same coin.

So many years later, while the wolves of anguish

and boredom continue howling outside, while 

the world’s vampires and demons and desires 

spill dark nights into the soul,

I remember my first reading of Drácula.

So many years later, I remember Bram Stoker

and I toast to his Dracula with the blood

that flows from the wound of time past. 

Me Acuerdo de Bram Stoker

Cuando el mundo era joven, cuando tierras y mares

estaban aún formándose en en limo primero,

cuando el aire empezaba a surgir de la escoria

elemental, entonces, cuando los dinosaurios

eran solo un proyecto en la mente divina,

alguien puso en mis manos una edición de Drácula,

la novela de Stoker, con prólogo de Pere

Gimferrer, mi maestro (junto con Pound, Cirlot,

Rubén Darío, Borges y muchísimos otros

nombres que ahora no vienen al caso). Todavía

no puedo describir lo que sentí leyendo

un libro tan hermoso, aunque fuese en aquella

edición descuidada e incompleta de Táber.

Al leerlo, se abrieron las puertas del abismo

para mí, de un abismo en el que florecían

las rosas inmortales de la imaginación,

los lirios del estilo y de la inteligencia;

de un abismo de sombras ancestrales y mágicas

por el que daba gusto perderse y despeñarse;

de un abismo en que Bien y Mal no eran tan solo

conceptos antagónicos, sino tambíen, y al mismo

tiempo, el haz y el envés de una misma moneda.

Tantos años después, recuerdo mi lectura

primigenia de Drácula, mientras siguen aullando

los lobos de la angustia y del aburrimiento

ahí fuera, mientras vierten noche oscura en el alma

los vampiros del mundo, la carne y el demonio.

Tantos años después, me acuerdo de Bram Stoker

y brindo por su Drácula con la sangre que brota

de la herida del tiempo que pasado.


Star Wars (1977)

It’s been so long that I can’t tell you when

it happened. And I don’t know where. Maybe

in improbable, dim galaxies. Maybe in my mind 

alone. I don’t remember the time or the place,

but it happened. Important things that happen

seem not to happen. A very pale girl came

from a star to play with you in a dream:

she was your friend, the one who voyaged

in the heavens and returned never again

to leave you. She smiled like an apparition

rising from the pages of a Gothic novel or,

at the same time, a fairy from a Grimm folktale.

She called herself Leia. Leia Organa, to be precise.

A name that sounded like a galactic romance,

like an interstellar ballad, like the epic poem of the future.

A name that tasted like chewing gum,

like an order of fries in the intermission

of a double feature, like clumsy caresses,

like jealousy, like the promise of love. 

It’s been so long that I can’t remember,

but I know that it happened. And I know

that my last words, as the light begins to fade,

will be addressed to her, and in my final moments 

I will repeat her name (as if She had a name)

before disappearing into the sidereal night.

Star Wars (1977)

Hace ya tanto tiempo que no puedo acordarme,

pero sé que ocurrió. No sé dónde. En galaxias

improbables, difusas. Acaso en mi cerebro

tan solo. No recuerdo ni el tiempo ni el lugar,

pero pasó. Las cosas importantes que pasan

parecen no pasar. Una chica muy pálida

venía de algún astro a jugar en tu sueño

contigo: era tu amiga, la que se fue de viaje

por el cielo, y volvía para no abandonarte

nunca más. Sonreía como una aparición

surgida de las páginas de una novela gótica

y, a la vez, como un hada de los hermanos Grimm.

Se hacía llamar Leia en nuestros juegos. Leia

Organa, para ser más precisos. Un nombre

 que sonaba a romance galáctico, a balada

espacial, a cantar de gesta del futuro.

Un nombre que sabía a chicle americano

y a bolsa de patatas fritas en el descanso

de una doble sesión de cine, y a caricias

desmañadas, y a celos, y a promesas de amor.

Hace ya tanto tiempo que no puedo acordarme,

pero sé que ocurrió. Y sé que a la princesa

Leia irán dirigidas mis últimas palabras

cuando la luz se apague, y que repetiré

su nombre en mi agonía (como si Ella tuviese

un nombre) antes de hundirme en la noche total.


My Fair Lady (1964)

Were it not for that horrible accent,

she would never have interested heartless

Higgins. That’s linguists for you:

they cut asphalt roses from a garden

of bad pronunciation, water them

with sulphuric acid and, once destroyed,

reconstruct their petals carelessly

and throw them out of the house. 

That’s what linguists do when they play

with flowers like Eliza Doolittle!

She, on the other hand, knew how 

to treat her own kind: she sold them 

on the street, but for their own good, 

so that they would see the world

from the buttonhole of elegant men

and die happy amidst bourgeois trash,

which is how one dies most comfortably.

Eliza’s fate followed that of her flowers,

only that she didn’t die, forgotten, in a vase

in Higgins’s home (or if she did, the movie

doesn’t tell us). Bernard Shaw liked to say

that sweet Eliza, if she wanted not to suffer,

should have gone with Freddy, the one who

truly loved her and, besides, hated Phonetics.

Men like Higgins are hopeless. 

My Fair Lady (1964)

De no tener aquel acento destable,

nunca habría llamado la atención del perverso

Higgins. Los primorosos lingüisticas son así:

cortan rosas de asfalto en jardines de mala

pronunciación, las riegan con ácido sulfúrico

y, una vez destruidas, reconstruyen sus pétalos

de la manera más negligente posible

y las echan de casa. ¡Cómo son los lingüisticas

cuando juegan con flores como Eliza Doolittle!

Ella sí que sabía tratar a sus congéneres:

las vendía en la calle, pero era por su bien,

para que vieran mundo, prendias en ojales

de gente comme il faut, y para que muriesen

felices, rodeadas de basura burguesa,

que es como una se muere más a gusto y mejor.

Y a Eliza le pasó lo que a sus flores, solo

que no llegó a morirse olvidada en un vaso

de la casa de Higgins (o, al menos, la película

no lo cuenta). Decía Bernard Shaw que la dulce 

Eliza, si elegía no sufrir demasiado,

debía irse con Freddy, que era quien la quería

de verdad y, además, odiaba la Fonética.

Los tipos como Higgins no tienen solución.


A prolific, multifaceted writer and scholar, Luis Alberto de Cuenca possesses one of Spain’s most distinctive poetic voices. His poems, elegant yet devious, explore the expressive resources of the conversational register by resort to a variety of materials: classical antiquity, comic books, Hollywood movies, slang, urban culture. He received Spain’s National Poetry Prize in 2015 for Cuadernos de vacaciones. From 1996 to 2000 he was the Director of Spain’s national library and in 2021 won the prestigious Federico García Lorca International Poetry Prize.
A native of Cuba, Gustavo Pérez Firmat has published several books of poetry in Spanish and English, including Equivocaciones, Bilingual Blues, Scar Tissue,The Last Exile, and Sin lengua deslenguado. Among his books of cultural criticism are Life on the Hyphen, Tongue Ties, and A Cuban in Mayberry. His poems, essays and translations have appeared in Daedalus, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, Ínsula, Hanover Quarterly, Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos, The American Journal of Poetry, Carolina Quarterly, The Duke Alumni Magazine, and other journals. He lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.


Cuenca has given me permission to publish my translations of his poems. Copy of his authorization below. Under the heading of “Enthusiastic authorization,” the relevant part of his email reads: “I accept with pleasure that you publish those translations of my poems in USA reviews/journals.” 


13 February 2023



Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recent Posts

  • Diaspora Café: D.C. Reviewed by Guesnerth Josué Perea
  • Heaven by Mir Arif
  • Give by Ma Yan Translated by Winnie Zeng
  • Lubbock Spring by Emma Aylor
  • Intermezzos Along the Road Home by Kathryn Petruccelli

Recent Comments

  • Judith Fodor on Three Poems by David Keplinger
  • Marietta Brill on 2 Poems by Leah Umansky

Categories

  • Award Winners
  • Blooming Moons
  • Book Reviews
  • Fiction
  • Flash Fiction
  • Interviews
  • LAR Online
  • Nonfiction
  • Poetry
  • Translations
  • Uncategorized

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Recent Posts

  • Diaspora Café: D.C. Reviewed by Guesnerth Josué Perea
  • Heaven by Mir Arif
  • Give by Ma Yan Translated by Winnie Zeng
  • Lubbock Spring by Emma Aylor
  • Intermezzos Along the Road Home by Kathryn Petruccelli
© 2014 Los Angeles Review. All Rights Reserved. Design and Developed by NJSCreative Inspired by Dessign.net