“The Boy” / “Adà”
Collaborators Q&A: What surprised you about this collaborative piece? / ¿Qué te sorprendió sobre esta pieza colaborativa?
Translator Paul M. Worley: Collaboration is always full of risk and uncertainty… I think David’s artwork really captures the poem’s combination of terror and innocence, its beauty and ugliness, its love and deep melancholy. Poet Hubert Matiúwàa: Los colores y la textura, como una piel de hojas, lo frágil y la fuerza que representan los niños. Artist David Bernardy: …as I began working on it, ultimately, all I really wanted was the boy, and not even all of the boy, but just the collarbone, the lips and chin, the bony chest: I think of these as some of the young male body’s most vulnerable points, and above all, that’s what I wanted to convey. Vulnerability.
Poet Hubert Matiúwàa (b. 1986 in Guerrero, Mexico) is a poet writing in the Mè’phàà language. He has received numerous awards, including the 2017 PLIA (Indigenous Literatures of America Prize). Translator Paul M. Worley is a professor at Western Carolina University, which is built on the site of the Cherokee town Tali Tsisgwayahi, or “Two Sparrows Town.” David Bernardy is an artist, a writer, and a dad. He likes lost things, old things, and dogs.