Two by

 

João Luís Barreto Guimarães

 

                               / in translation by Calvin Olsen

 

 

 

 

Pétalas sobre a cabeça

 

 

Cada dia

pela manhã cruzamos o pátio da escola já

as pétalas de camélia são

esboroadas

pelo chão. Toda a vez as transportamos

(cálidas e inocentes)

atrasadas sob um arco onde tudo é

já passado

(dedos levando-me a mão pela arte

do crescimento)

meus ossos a querer ficar efebos

naquele instante. Não tardará chegaremos

a tempo de as ver cair. Então

não serei eu

a seu lado.

 

 

 

Petals overhead

 

 

Every morning

we cross the schoolyard and already

the camellia petals have

crumbled

on the ground. Every time we carry them

(pleasant and innocent)

slowly under an arch where everything

belongs to the past

(fingers leading me by the hand through the art

of growing older)

my bones hoping to stay boyish

in that moment. Before long we’ll arrive

in time to see them fall. By then

it won’t be me

by her side.

 

 

 

 

Escrevendo «Pétalas sobre a cabeça»

 

 

«Nota que

não foi preciso procurar o poema

oferecido como luz à

visão das pétalas

pelo chão. Porque insistiu em fazer-se

(de

tradição e ofício) como se

já lá estivesse na urgência de

ser nítido (a

aresta de um verso de fora) à

míngua de

ser subjectivo.»

 

 

 

Writing “Petals Overhead”

 

 

“Note the way

it wasn’t necessary to chase the poem

it was offered up like light shining on

the image of petals

on the ground. It insisted on composing itself

(from

tradition and technique) as if

it was already waiting there desperate

for clarity (toeing

the final precipice of a line)

for want of

subjectivity.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

João Luís Barreto Guimarães is the author of 11 volumes of poetry since 1989, including Mediterrâneo (2016) which in the English translation, Mediterranean, by Calvin Olsen, won the Willow Run Poetry Award 2020.  Other English translations have appeared in Poetry London, Asymptote, Salamander, Tupelo Quarterly, The London Magazine, The Columbia Review and LIT Magazine, among others.  João Luís Barreto Guimarães is online at joaoluisbarretoguimaraes.blogspot.com

 

Calvin Olsen is an American poet and translator based in Edinburgh, Scotland.  He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University, where he studied under Robert Pinsky, David Ferry, and Nobel laureate Louise Glück, and an MA in English & Comparative Literature from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and he is currently a doctoral candidate in Communication, Rhetoric, & Digital Media at NC State University.  Calvin’s poetry and translations have appeared in The Adroit Journal, AGNI, Asymptote and The London Magazine, among many others.  He is the recipient of a Robert Pinsky Global Fellowship and a 2021 Travel Fellowship from The American Literary Translators Association.  More of his work can be found at calvin-olsen.com

 

 


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