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What Sparks Poetry is a series of original essays that explores experiences and ideas that spark the writing of new poems. In our new series focused on Translation a group of poet-translators share a seminal experience in translation. Each Monday's delivery brings you the poem and an excerpt from the essay.
Beatriz Miralles de Imperial
Translated from the Spanish by Layla Benitez-James
how dark my skin is left by her shadow

how dark my skin is left by her shadow
night
the weeping animal
arid bareness

its hunger I’d known so well



oscura deja la piel su sombra

oscura deja la piel su sombra
la noche
el animal del llanto
árida desnudez

ya conocí su hambre




come alone

come alone
silent thirst

offer me
your bitter wealth of flesh
I am the animal you hush



ven sola

ven sola
muda sed

ofréceme
tu amarga carnadura
yo soy el animal que callas
from the journal COPPER NICKEL
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Color image of the cover of the journal, Copper Nickel, Fall 2022, in which Layla Benitez-James' translations were published
What Sparks Poetry:
Layla Benitez-James on Two Poems by Beatriz Miralles de Imperial


"Bea has been described as 'a poet of silence, of everything unsaid which is suggested through language,' and translating these poems opened my eyes to the immense possibilities of brevity, inspiring me to begin a book-length project in small bursts. How Dark My Skin Is Left by Her Shadow taught me the strength of distillation, how intensity rises, and pressure builds when a substance is compressed."
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Black-and-white headshot of a smiling Sawako Nakayasu
"Sawako Nakayasu : Pink Waves"

"Sawako Nakayasu creates generative questions: How can queer theory speak to translation practices? How can we engage with questions of power between nations and languages and cultures by the choices we make in translation? What does performance tell us about ourselves, and the notion of a self to begin with? And how do these performative and translational activities manifest in poetry, in poems?"

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