Poem-of-the-Week: Nancy Morejón

Nueva fábula de albañil

Entre arena y gravilla,
mezcla y paleta,
va transcurriendo su vida
que irradia cien mil vidas
en la fiereza del andamio
en donde nace su espalda peregrina,
tan dura como el ágata,
dispuesta a todo
para el porvenir.


The New Fable of the Bricklayer

Amid sand and fine gravel,
mortar and trowel,
his life unfolds
and beams down on a hundred thousand lives
from the fierce strength of the scaffold
where his pilgrim back is born,
hard as agate,
ready for everything
the future brings.


-Nancy Morejón

From With Eyes and Soul - Images of Cuba (White Pine Press 2004). Used by permission.


Nancy Morejón, one of the foremost Cuban writers and intellectuals, has published more than twelve collections of poetry, three monographs, a dramatic work, and four critical studies of Cuban history and literature. Her lyrical verse, shaped by an Afro-Cuban sensibility and a feminist consciousness, evokes the intimacy of family, the ephemerality of love, and the significance of Cuban history. Her poems have appeared in several bilingual editions in the United States, including Where the Island Sleeps Like a Wing (The Black Scholar Press) and Looking Within-Mirar adentro (Wayne State University Press). She has translated numerous acclaimed French authors including Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Éluard, and Aimé Césaire, and her books of criticism of the work of Nicolas Guillén are considered classics.
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Morejón will be featured at Split This Rock Poetry Festival: Poems of Provocation & Witness, March 10-13, 2010, in Washington, DC. The festival will present readings, workshops, panel discussions, youth programming, film, activism—four days of creative transformation as we imagine a way forward, hone our community and activist skills, and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for social change. For more information: info@splitthisrock.org.

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Split This Rock
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