Child

I will never make a child, no matter how many moons with their obligatory nights spell out my body. I will never name a baby, rocking him while counting syllables or dissident flowers. Nor will I make him weave fabric that begins where it ends. I will not share the intimacy of my mourning with Nobody, the sage fruit of meekness. One day just like today, I will simply list my attributes: a woman who plays alone, a woman who plays alone—and knows.

Niño

No haré jamás un hijo, no importa cuántas lunas con su debida noche me deletreen el cuerpo. Nunca le daré un nombre, no lo acunaré con sílabas contadas o flores disidentes. Mucho menos, le haré tramar la tela que empieza donde acaba. No voy a compartir con nadie la intimidad del duelo, el fruto sabio de la mansedumbre. Un día como hoy, sencillamente, pondré en la lista de mis atributos: una mujer que juega sola, una mujer que juega sola y sabe.

Islands

A young woman insists on filling a place that will never be full. Drawn increasingly toward sentence dust, she thinks to herself: “The shadow hidden in truth is twisted.” Someplace in time, beating quite close by, Opportunity—like a tiny little lady—exhumes bones. Art is the sum of exemplary errors.

Islas

Una muchacha insiste en llenar un lugar que nunca va a estar lleno. Cada vez más propensa al polvo de las frases, piensa: «La sombra que se esconde en la verdad está torcida». En algún sitio del tiempo, batiéndose muy junta, la Ocasión –como dama pequeñísima– exhuma huesos. El arte es una suma de errores ejemplares.

Doubt

Will I have time to die? After writing a poem a day for 2,956 days, letting yourself be touched is not easy. You arrive at the finale—imbrued in ignorance about what to obey and whether to defend Inability. What an—awful—call to spend life cloistered. And thus, each poem hides a body, and each body conceals pain—without palliatives or stimulants—and on it goes, and in the mouth and throat. Not much more happens. Only the sound of a vulture—ringing from the inside—like a spinning top approaching the end, whatever it is.

Duda

¿Tendré tiempo de morir? Cuando se escribe un poema por día, durante 2956 días, no es fácil dejarse tocar. Una acaba, repleta de ignorar a qué atenerse, por defender la ineptitud, la vocación–atroz–de pasar la vida en celdas. Así, cada poema oculta un cuerpo y cada cuerpo, un dolor–sin alicientes o paliativos–y así sucesivamente, y en la boca y en la garganta. Poco más ocurre. Tan sólo un ave de proa, sonando hacia adentro, avanzando como un trompo hacia el final, no importa cuál.

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María Negroni (Rosario, Argentina) has published over 20 books, including poetry collections, works of nonfiction, and novels. Islandia, Night Journey, Andanza (The Tango Lyrics), Mouth of Hell, The Annunciation, and Elegy for Joseph Cornell have appeared in English, and her work has also been translated into Swedish, Portuguese, Italian, and French. Negroni received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Poetry in 1994, a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in 1998, the Fundación Octavio Paz fellowship for poetry in 2001, and The New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in 2005. She also received a National Book Award for her collection of poems El viaje de la noche, a PEN Award for Islandia as best book of poetry in translation (New York, 2001), and the Premio Internacional de Ensayo y Narrativa de Siglo XXI for her book Galería Fantástica. She taught at Sarah Lawrence College from 1999 to 2014, and is now director of Argentina’s first creative writing program, at Universidad Nacional de Tres de Febrero.

Literary translator and poet Allison A. deFreese leads translation workshops for the Oregon Society of Translators and Interpreters. Her recent translations (books) include María Negroni’s Elegy for Joseph Cornell (Dublin/Chicago: Dalkey Archive Press, 2020); Verónica González Arredondo’s Green Fires of the Spirits (Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla’s University Press, México, 2022) and Carolina Esses’ Winter Season (Seattle: Entre Ríos Books, 2023). Her translations of María Negroni’s work also appear in Asymptote, Conduit, The Festival Review, Interim, and Sequestrum.