Carlos Pardo has published three poetry collections including El invernadero (The Greenhouse) (Hiperión, 1995); Desvelo sin paisaje (Sleepless Without Landscape) (Pre-Textos, 2002); and Echado a perder (Spoiled) (Visor, 2007), for which he has received such highly esteemed prizes as the Hiperión, Emilio Prados and the Generación del 27 awards for poetry. His first novel, Vida de Pablo(The Life of Pablo) was published […]
Myths change but this one continues being the land where lemons flower though no one finds it significant because the thistle also blooms without supervision except by the brush that reduces it to one plane. But this is still myth’s dwelling place. Or a toxic open sky and not a dwelling at all. A […]
Cambian los mitos pero ésta sigue siendo la tierra donde florece el limonero, a pesar de que nadie lo encuentre significativo porque también florece el cardo sin vigilancia excepto del pincel que lo reduce a un plano. Pero ésta es aún la morada del mito. O cielo abierto tóxico y no morada. Una orilla […]
The sea is familiar in the sense of gene soup, and there’s a dunghill in front of the sea and a flock of sheep sniff at the poor leftovers of a meal. Suddenly doubts of the repetitive seduction of slag heaps, of residual liquids and compost of cemetaries. With what invisible and lasting charm […]
El mar es familiar en el sentido de una sopa de genes, y delante del mar hay un estercolero y un rebaño de ovejas husmea pobres restos de comida. De pronto dudas de la seducción repetitiva de las escombreras, de los residuos líquidos y orgánicos del cementerio. Con qué invisible y duradero encanto pudren […]
To age another year in the summer colony. But not even two sensible lovers slow down the hostile weft of the eucaliptis. Like in a watercolor in front of a group of critics in training, west opens a wound between the canoeists. It occurs to me that we are snails on a sprig, two […]
Envejecer otro año en la colonia veraniega. Pero ni dos amantes sensatos entorpecen la trama hostil del eucalipto. Como en una acuarela frente a un grupo de aprendices de crítico, poniente abre una herida entre los piragüistas. Se me ocurre que somos caracoles en una espiga, dos piezas arracimadas en el puño de conchas […]
I will also want to perpetuate myself here, in old age: a vertabral anchor on the shore in spite of the humdrum stamp of the sea, of the landscape’s amputations of a windmill. Translated by Curtis Bauer “Sedentary” is from Echado a perder [Spoiled] (Madrid, Visor, 2007); this English translation appeared in […]