Chus Pato, The Face of the Quartzes, trans. Erín Moure

 

Galicia is a promontory of stone sitting on the Iberian peninsula above Portugal. Its language, Galician, derived from Latin, is the root language of modern Portuguese and stubbornly survives to the north of Portugal. Through long parts of Spain, Galicia, with its Celtic substrate and different history and language, has never become simply Spanish. The Face of the Quartzes is rooted in Ourense, the Galician interior city bisected by the Miño River, where the poet was born and raised during the long 20^th-century Spanish dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Ourense was long ago the Roman city of gold (ouro) and of dawn’s golden light (aurora); Galicia may have been at the fringe of the Roman Empire but it was a country of philosophy, and of international travel and influence. Its mountainous rocky interior was mined for gold and iron, metals key to ornament and armament. Its ports were cosmopolitan. Its fishermen were known from the Baltic to Africa to the shores of Newfoundland and Maine. It was a place peripheral and central at the same time. Though today Galicia is even more peripheral in world politics, Chus Pato’s poetry recenters it. (“Passages and the Unrequitable Gift: The Face of the Quartzes by Chus Pato, A translator’s introduction”)

Sorting books in a corner of my office, I realized I hadn’t yet gone through Galician poet Chus Pato’s latest work translated into English, The Face of the Quartzes, translated by Montreal poet, translator and critic Erín Moure (El Paso TX: Veliz Books, 2019). A prolific translator, above and beyond her own extensive catalogue of writing (working through French, English, Spanish and Galician), Moure has been translating the work of Chus Pato for a number of years now, through five prior collections in English translation produced through BuschekBooks, Shearsman Books and Book*hug. Set with the English translation on the right and original Galician on the left, Pato’s The Face of the Quartzes offers a lyric suite of observational thought that scrape against the boundaries of perception, offering a light touch across a sequence of gestures, deep and dark and considered. “We redden the rose / using blood,” they (I say such, given the collaborative nature of translation) write, to close one particular lyric. One could describe each poem as untitled, at least in the more traditional manner, with either the opening word or opening phrase set in bold type, offered as title directly incorporated into the body of the text; reminiscent, slightly, of the late Vancouver poet Gerry Gilbert, who would offer, most notably through his infamous Moby Jane (Toronto ON: Coach House Press, 1987; Toronto ON: Coach House Books, 2004) [see my note on the reissue here], the beginning of the book-length poem on the front cover, ending finally on the back. The body of the book was too big to contain him, after all; the titling and outside still existing within the body of the text. “Winter gave way to rain,” they write, mid-way through the collection, “and the rain gave in to itself / we await a truth of language / I was born to hear the bark of dogs [.]” There aren’t too many poets working their titling in such a manner, opening the poem immediately, and the structure is curious, offering more of an ongoingness and interconnectedness to the larger, book-length structure of this particular suite. In certain ways, one could see The Face of the Quartzes as a singular poem, simply portioned into a sequence of moments, one thought directly set against and furthering another; one that moves through concerns around language, culture, ecology, and how we both move through and interact with the world, both immediate and further beyond. There is something very large about the way Pato encompasses the minutae of her world, something captured, fortunately, for those of us who exist only in English.

The hand assembles words
my hand
that misjudges the size of the letters and width of the wall
Up above
a bullet cuts through the cry
separates the letters
the syllables
bodies tumble from the peak
The hand returns beside the others
they’re archaic
red black ochre
they agitate
like a handkerchief waving goodbye
They sleep underfoot
upside down
like bats

 

announcing : VERSeFest 2017 : March 21- 26, 2017

Six days, sixty poets, one festival. Celebrating written poetry and spoken word in English and French, VF ’17 brings you some of the most exciting poets on the planet.

Our seventh annual festival! With a schedule that includes readings and performances by Alan Gillis, Alessia Di Cesare, Ali Blythe, André Narbone, Benoit Jutras, Bertrand Laverdure, Beth Anne Ellipsis, bill bissett, Brandon Wint, Cannon2X, Carolyn Smart, Chus Pato, Erika Soucy, Erin Moure, Eva HD, Faizal Deen, Gregory Scofield, Guy Jean, Jill Jorgenson, Kay'la Fraser, Kayla Czaga, Leanne O'Sullivan, Lisa Robertson, Louis Bertholom, Lounat, Madhur Anad, Marco Fraticelli, Marilyn Irwin, Mark Doty, Mark Frutkin, Maxianne Berger, Paisley Rekdal, Patrick Friesen, Phoebe Wang, Rhizome, Robyn Sarah, Roger Des Roches, Sandra Ridley, Sharon McCartney, Stephen Collis, Steven Heighton, Tereza Riedlbauchová, Thierry Dimanche, Ulrikka Gernes’ and Zachary Richard.

And the announcement of Ottawa's first two (English and French) Poets Laureate!

For further information (including a complete list of participants) on poets, schedule and tickets, check out the link here.

U of Alberta writers-in-residence interviews: Erín Moure (2013-14)

For the sake of the fortieth anniversary of the writer-in-residence program (the longest lasting of its kind in Canada) at the University of Alberta, I have taken it upon myself to interview as many former University of Alberta writers-in-residence as possible [see the ongoing list of writers here]. Seethe link to the entire series of interviews (updating weekly) here.

Erín Moure by the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton. Photo by Karis Shearer.

Erín Moure is a poet and translator of poetry from French, Spanish, Galician and Portuguese. Her work has received the Governor General's Award, Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and A.M. Klein Prize (twice) and been a three-time finalist for the Griffin Prize. Her Insecession, a biopoetics echoing Chus Pato, appeared in one book with Pato’s Secession, in Moure translation (BookThug, 2014). Her French/English play-poem Kapusta (Anansi, 2015), sequel to The Unmemntioable, was a finalist for the A.M. Klein Prize and was a CBC Best Book of 2015. 2016 will see three new Moure translations from Galician and French: Flesh of Leviathan by Chus Pato (Omnidawn), New Leaves by Rosalía de Castro (Small Stations), and My Dinosaur by François Turcot (BookThug).

She was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta during the 2013-14 academic year.

Q: When you began your residency, you’d been publishing books for more than three decades. Where did you feel you were in your writing? What did the opportunity mean to you?

A: For me writing is always starting anew, as a beginner. Language always asks me to begin again. I don’t want to do what I did before.

I went to Edmonton very excited about spending time in English, and having time free of freelance work slogging (which largely conspires to make creative life impossible) to complete one poetic project (Kapusta, appeared from Anansi in 2015) of my own, and do a very complex and long translation of Brazilian Wilson Bueno’s work in Portunhol with Guaraní into English flecked with French and, I had hoped, Tsuu T’ina or another indigenous language of Alberta… that didn’t work out, and I decided to keep the Guaraní… but I did finish the translation and start trying to find a publisher. It will be out in the second half of 2017 from a US poetry press, but I won’t name it as I haven’t received the executed contract. I also wanted to spend those months with my father, whom I knew was near the end of his days and was in a seniors residence in Edmonton. He wanted to be part of my poetry life again too. Unfortunately for me (but fine for him, given his health), he died 10 days before the start of the residency; we were able to say goodbye and accompany each other, but the residency plan was altered.

Q: What do you feel your time as writer-in-residence at University of Alberta allowed you to explore in your work? Were you working on anything specific while there, or was it more of an opportunity to expand your repertoire?

A: It allowed me to be in Alberta to grieve my father, for sure. I was working on specific projects, and just trying to live more calmly and focus on them. I snowshoed by the river, and took self defense classes, made use of the gym and bike paths and all, and the library was a great resource. The department itself was in a bit of disarray as there were budget cutbacks at the university level and an offer of early retirement packages that year; as well, one of the key poetry people, Christine Stewart, was on sabbatical.

Q: How did you engage with students and the community during your residency?

A: Through my usual office hours, I found there was a large contingent from the community who came for advice on every imaginable project and genre, unlike at other university residencies where mainly students make appointments. As well, I met with and worked with many great folks from Modern Languages, both profs and students, and some students in creative writing, via the poetry translation seminar I led all year. They were a marvellous group. I visited Jenna Butler’s poetry class, the TYP classes, attended events in the History department, in Modern Languages, and in English. I was also invited to speak elsewhere in Alberta (besides the exchange with U of Calgary): I gave a class in the history of writing and thinking at the college in Maskwacis, the Cree community south of Edmonton, and a talk at the U of Lethbridge.

Q: What do you see as your biggest accomplishment while there? What had you been hoping to achieve?

A: For me, the highlights were my class visits doing workshops in the TYP classes — the Transitional Year Program for Indigenous students coming into the university for the first time. They really inspired me, both the students and the profs, and excited me by their desire to learn and not just to learn, but to change learning as we know it, change the university, grasp new ways of viewing learning. Also, the river was a highlight.

Q: Were you influenced at all by the landscape, or the writing or writers you interacted with while in Edmonton? What was your sense of the literary community?

A: The literary community in Edmonton is rich and varied and very welcoming in many ways; I would say I hung out more with the landscape and with the writing I was critiquing, and with my own projects which I desperately needed to work on! It was a renewal, for me. A luxury and and a fount of new energy. And I met folks I still keep in touch with, probably moreso than at other residencies. Had many great interactions with profs in the dept, such as Dianne Chisholm, Julie Rak, Keavy Martin. And because of the neighbourhood I was living in, and the fact that I did my grocery shopping on a bicycle and not in a car, I also had a lot of interesting conversations about the downside of the oil industry and the crises in mental health that people were living with on the streets. I met a lot of people who were ravaged, really, but also, strangely, full of hope for their day. I learned a lot.

Q: Given you are originally from Alberta (specifically, Calgary), was there any element of the position that felt like a return?

A: Being in Alberta was great. I grew up in Calgary decades ago, a different Calgary than the one that exists today. I have brothers in and near Edmonton, who are great guys, and my roots are definitely in the landscape of Alberta, those sounds, those trees, the river, the animals along the river. All these are my familiars, in a way, and kindling those relationships was vital to me. I felt close as well to both my parents, to their movements and voices, and to my grandmother. All of which really helped me work.

seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics #11

the eleventh issue of seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics is now online!

Eleventh Issue: Winter 2014/15

Cameron Anstee - Living now In Ottawa: Williams Hawkins at the Margins / Michelle Detorie - The River / Claire Molek - The Valley / Sean Moreland - Cont(r)act: an interview with Mark Goldstein / Chus Pato - In Conversation with Elvira Riveiro (translated from the Galician by Erín Moure) / Andy Weaver - ssalGlass

seventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics comes out as the natural extension of the eight issues of Poetics.ca edited by rob mclennan and Stephen Brockwell. Highlighting the diversity of voice, style, practice and politic, seventeen seconds continues the resolve to provide a forum for dialogue on contemporary poetics, with a focus on Canadian writing. Over the past two decades, the amount of critical writing published in print literary journals on Canadian poetry, specifically, seems to have decreased dramatically, but slowly returned through a number of online journals. seventeen seconds simply wishes to help strengthen the dialogue and the ongoing conversation about writing through publishing new writing, and conversation about new writing. Check out all eleven issues! All previous issues remain on the site.

rob mclennan: editor

roland prevost: founding managing editor

mdesnoyers : design & (re)compiler

Chus Pato, HoRDES OF WRitINg, trans. Erín Moure

To bring Chus Pato’s words into English, the translator must travel at breakneck speed, trying not to trip over tree roots and go flying. I still end up with skinned knees. Pato topples all lyric convention, and in a rush of grammatical and visual leaps, brings us face to face (kiss or collide!) with the traumas and migrations of Western Europe, with writing itself, and the possibility (or not) of poetry accounting for our animal selves: our selves who will die.

            The urgency of her task is such that Pato wriggles out of any known form of the poem, and out of the confines of the book. The poems translated here are those of Hordes of Writing, the third volume of her projected pentalogy Method, in which she refashions the way we think of the possibilities of poetic text, of words, bodies, political and literary space, and of the construction of ourselves as individual, community, nation, world. (Erín Moure, “Animality and Language”)

The third book in Galician poet Chus Pato’s projected pentalogy, Method, is Hordes of Writing (BuschekBooks, Ottawa ON/Shearsman Books, Exeter UK, 2011), a collection that follows m-Talá (2009) and Charenton (2007), all of which has been translated from the Galician by Montreal poet and translator Erín Moure, and co-published by England’s Shearsman Books and Canada’s BuschekBooks. Through Canadian translators and champions such as Moure, Angela Carr, Bronwyn Haslam, Oana Avasilichioaei, and Robert Majzels, there has been a growing resurgence in Canadian writing over the past decade of poetry translated into English. Constructed in three sections, Hordes of Writing exists as a kind of collage of single lines and sections of prose, constructing a world directly out of sentences. There are elements of the book that read as a journal, or fragmented novel, composing scenes as easily as concepts. Pato’s is a narrative that doesn’t so much travel as simply reappear at different points from section to section, allowing the reader instead to attempt to bridge that distance. As she writes: “I trace a meridian: north and south / it’s me (arms held at my sides). My horizontal abscissa is a starry / equator[.]” Pato’s writing (via Moure) is entirely physical, and this is a book that is extremely difficult to pigeonhole—joyously so—writing fragments, journal entries, prose poems and other blended components. What is a poem? What is a poet? As Pato writes: “This—she concluded—is the status or territory of a poet // poet is any human whatsoever.” There is much anyone interested in writing could learn from this book.

It hits her right in mid-crosswalk, after deciding to walk from bus stop to hotel, she realizes she’s too laden with baggage; and when she showers, the water gives her lovely curls and after getting ready for a first meeting she told herself that not only was she all primped and glowing but she’s far more stunning now than in her youth and soon she walks the sidewalk as if she never, never daydreams and she realizes how much she’d like it if she were with Antón Lopo right now that she is the happiest protagonist of a novel on earth and she doesn’t think at all of nausea

—and then?

—Marta and Publio arrived but Marcelo had to go defend the Austro-Hungarian border