“Vapor / Sjob / Steam”
Note: This broadside is part of our annual translation special feature. Our Translations Editor, Ines Hernandez-Avila, selected two poems—both by poets writing in a language indigenous to the Americas. We are grateful for her time and vision for this annual feature. Of her choices and these broadsides, she has this to say:
I dream of Indigenous peoples reading each other’s work with colonial languages acting as tools, not barriers. Translation, for me, as they would say in Chiapas, is “an act of liberation.” To be able to hear /read each other’s languages, feel them, and know that we are, after all, related. And, of course, translation opens the space for sharing of so many other worlds.
I feel the poetic and cultural reciprocity in these poems. Intimacy. Deep centering. Emergence. María Concepción’s poem offers the fullness of purification, with rattlesnake and armadillo as helpers and the medicinal aromas carrying prayers up. Preparation, focus, strengthening. Mikel’s poem is a call to action, a bursting Word with a force of its own, bearing witness to what the earth herself has seen. In both poems, the poets reveal their kinship with their worlds and a heightened consciousness of the sentient cosmos. Their wor(l)ds compel me profoundly.
–Ines Hernandez-Avila
Collaborators’ Q&A
Do you see an overlap between the act of translation and the act of responding visually to a piece of literature?
Artist Cheryl Gross: The work I submitted is an already existing piece and part of a larger project. The overlap was purely coincidental. Perhaps karmically it overlaps.
What surprised you about this collaborative piece? / ¿Qué te sorprendió sobre esta pieza colaborativa?
Poeta María Concepción Bautista Vázquez: La imagen estética de los tres idiomas, hacen de una composición visual dinámica y equilibrada, con un aroma naturalista.
Artist Cheryl Gross: The fact that two worlds can meet on a totally different level and fit perfectly.
Why this poem? How did your visual response take shape?
Artist Cheryl Gross: I found the poem perfectly described my visual image. Like I said, purely an accident, or not an accident at all.
Can you share a bit about this poem’s origins?/ ¿Puedes compartir un poco sobre los orígenes de este poema?
Poeta María Concepción Bautista Vázquez: Tiene su origen en las raíces cosmogónicos de un pueblo tsotsil, contiene elementos de la vida diaria y de importante influencia cultural dentro de la vida de los pueblos.
If this broadside were a type of weather, what would it be? / ¿Si este “broadside” (la publicación que hicieron de tu poema con su imagen, etc.) fuera un tipo de clima, qué clima sería?
Poeta María Concepción Bautista Vázquez: Con aroma a yerbas, de clima templado con fragmentos de fuego.
Artist Cheryl Gross: Aftermath of a hurricane.
How does translation fit into your creative life?
Artist Cheryl Gross: Since my focus is interpreting the/a narrative, I am constantly translating my collaborator’s work. When I’m not collaborating, I find that I still translate, but my focus is more on color and design.
Do you have a favorite, generative prompt for artists or writers you’d like to share? / ¿Tiene algún mensaje generativo favorito para artistas o escritores que le gustaría compartir?
Poeta María Concepción Bautista Vázquez: Cada poema es la unidad de un universo, contiene un universo y encierra contextos que se descubren durante la lectura. Y se perciben en color en el aspecto visual, en el olfato se percibe el aroma, que logra emitir el poema, a través de su lectura, el cual se transforma en un poema multidimensional y multidisciplinaria.
Artist Cheryl Gross: After I am given a project, I allow the visuals to come to me organically by meditating.
Read any good books lately? / ¿Has leído algún/os libro/s bueno recientemente?
Poeta María Concepción Bautista Vázquez: Una relectura de Fernando Pessoa y Walt Whitman.
Artist Cheryl Gross: Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz.
Seen any good art lately? / ¿Has mirado arte bueno recientemente?
Poeta María Concepción Bautista Vázquez: La constante relación con el arte de los pueblos, para mi es parte del arte que se ve y con el que tengo contacto mayormente. El arte que se crean al interior de las comunidades y predominantemente creada por mujeres como los son las alfareras que con sus manos crean extraordinarias formas y el de las artesanas. Y recientemente he visitado el museo San Ildenfonso ubicada en la Ciudad de México, el cual he visualizado los murales que aún estaban en proceso.
Artist Cheryl Gross: Here in Jersey City, we just had our annual studio tour. Lots of great local art. I’m hoping to get to MOMA at some point to see the Robert Frank exhibition.