Madam Mayo: Diana Anhalt

Showing posts with label Diana Anhalt. Show all posts

Monday, June 24, 2019

Q & A: Diana Anhalt on her Poetry Collection "Walking Backward"

This blog posts on Mondays. This year the fourth Monday of the month is devoted to a Q & A with a fellow writer.

We have never met, but I feel as if we have. I think this is always true when one has read another’s such wonderful writing. But I did “meet” Diana Anhalt, in a matter of speaking, when years ago, she sent me a selection from her powerful and fascinating history / memoir of growing up in Mexico City, A Gathering of Fugitives: American Political Expatriates in Mexico 1948-1965. When, sometime later, I read the entirety of that beautifully written book itself–which I admiringly recommend to anyone with an interest in Mexico–I wrote to her, and we have kept in touch ever since. Apart from writing poetry and essay, we have this common: a lifetime, it seems, of living in Mexico City, and married to a Mexican. By the time we found each other’s work, however, Diana and her husband Mauricio had left “the endless city” for Atlanta, Georgia. (But ojalá, we will meet one day outside of cyberspace soon!)

Her latest, just out from Kelsay Books, is Walking Backward. From her publisher’s website, her author bio:

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Monday, March 07, 2016

More Translating Beyond Borders: BorderSenses Fall 2015 issue with Agustín Cadena's "Blind Woman"

El Paso on my mind... I just received my gorgeous Fall 2015 issue of the El Paso-based literary journal, BorderSenses, which includes my translation of a poem by Mexican poet Agustín Cadena, "Blind Woman" ("La ciega.") Also in this beautiful issue is a poem by none other than Diana Anhalt.

BLIND WOMAN
By Agustin Cadena, Translated by C.M. Mayo
(Bordersenses, Fall 2015)

With its fingernails, shadow
peeled away reality.
Like a doll's skin,
the world, the other world,
came apart.
Only this which is true
remained visible.
She seems to contemplate something and, maybe,
with her soul, she does contemplate.
In the sky of her eyes
the wind of desire stirs,
blurs these clouds of hers.

> For those of you read Spanish, check out Cadena's blog El vino y la hiel.

> Plus: read my translation of his short story "Lady of the Seas" in my anthology Mexico: A Traveler's Literary Companion.

> Extra plus plus: my dear amiga Patricia Dubrava also translates Cadena. Check out her blog post about him here.

Agustín Cadena is one of Mexico's literary treasures. I am very proud to say that he is also my translator (of my most recent book, and others), and his translation of my essay "A Visit to Swan House" appears in this month's issue of Letras Libres. (More about that anon.)

> Listen in anytime to my reading of another translation of one of Cadena's poems, "Café San Martin," from Sarah Cortez's anthology, Goodbye Mexico, here.

> An age ago, BorderSenses published one of my wiggier poems, "Man High," which you can read online here. (Nope, it's not about dope.)

> More about my translations of Mexican poetry and fiction of Agustín Cadena, Mónica Lavín, Araceli Ardón, Rose Mary Salum and Ignacio Solares, among others, here.

[Fall 2015 issue of BorderSenses]

Well, I may be slower than a tortoise on a glacier with "Marfa Mondays," the 24 podcast series apropos of my book in-progress, but I am moving forward with podcast #21, which goes to Bracketville, Texas (a scooch east of the Pecos) and is about one of the most unusual communities anywhere, and its unique association whose members have worked to preserve stories of the ancestors, stories that have no more apt adjective than Biblical. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, listen in here anytime to the other 20 podcasts posted to date.

Blood Over Salt in Borderlands Texas:
Q & A with Paul Cool about Salt Warriors

Translating Across the Border

From Incense to Osmotherapy by Dr. Arnoldo Krumm-Heller

On Writing About Mexico: Secrets and Surprises

(University of Texas El Paso Centennial Lecture 2015)

CLICK HERE.

> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

Friday, July 17, 2015

Guest-Blogger Diana Anhalt's Favorite Books That Inspire Poetry

< Diana Anhalt >

>> READ THIS POST AT WWW.MADAM-MAYO.COM

They say that books are magical objects. Certainly some take a long and mysterious while to reach this reader. I had heard about Diana Anhalt's A Gathering of Fugitives: American Political Expatriates in Mexico 1947-1965 when it first came out in 2002, but it wasn't until a dozen years later that, after finding it by happenstance at Tepoztlan's La Sombra del Sabino bookstore, and— more happenstance, a deliciously free afternoon— I delved in, and with increasing admiration and fascination, devoured it.

>>You will find A Gathering of Fugitives on my Top 10 List of Books Read in 2014 and also on the ever-growing list of Recommended Books on Mexico.

The author of three chapbooks —Shiny Objects, Second Skin, and Lives of Straw— Diana Anhalt is also a superb poet. Her work has been nominated for this year’s Pushcart Prize and her book, Because There is No Return, is forthcoming from Passager Press (University of Baltimore).

>>Read some of Anhalt's poetry on Kentucky Review's webpage: "Desaparecido" and "Inventory".

Since I'm in Mexico and I also write poetry, you might imagine that we hang out. Well, in cyberspace; alas for me, after many years in Mexico City, Anhalt moved to Atlanta, Georgia to be closer to family. That said, recently, and happily, we found our work— her poem and my translation of a poem by Agustín Cadena— keeping company in Sarah Cortez's anthology Goodbye, Mexico: Poems of Remembrance (Texas Review Press, 2015).

I asked Diana to share her favorites on writing poetry. May they inspire you!

FAVORITE BOOKS THAT INSPIRE POETRY

A GUEST-BLOG POST BY DIANA ANHALT

1. Sometimes I am convinced I write poetry because I hated Math. Throughout high school I spent my math classes memorizing poems from my literature textbook: Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Amy Lowell, William Rose Benet, Joyce Kilmer… So, certainly, the books that influenced me, although I no longer remember their titles, and drove me to write poetry, were the high school literature textbooks commonly used during the 1950s.

2. Then, once I started writing in the ‘60s, an inspiration and a frame of reference became John Ciardi’s How Does a Poem Mean (Houghton Mifflin, 1959)

3. One collection I refer to time and time again because so many of its writers spur me to write is A. Poulin’s Contemporary American Poetry (Houghton Mifflin, 1985)

4. When it comes to the craft itself Lewis Turco’s The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics (University Press of New England, 2000) is indispensible.

5. I also find Annie Finch’s A Poet’s Craft (The University of Michigan Press, 2012) helpful, though sometimes overwhelming.

Archive of guest-blog posts for Madam Mayo

A Shout Out for Mikel Miller et al's Mexico: Sunlight & Shadows

Amanda Palmer's The Art of Asking

Q & A with Poet and Literary Translator Roger Greenwald

Thursday, April 09, 2015

Sarah Cortez, ed., Goodbye, Mexico: Poems of Remembrance (Texas Review Press, 2015)

AGUSTIN CADENA

As a poet I keep a sharp eye out for calls for submissions but alas, or rather, in a way, happily, for Texan poet Sarah Cortez's Goodbye, Mexico, I had nothing, nada, because for me, it's "Hola, México," just about every day. Translation: I'm living in Mexico City and not planning on leaving anytime soon. But happily, always happily, I translate contemporary Mexican poetry, and I knew of just the perfect poem: Agustín Cadena's "Café San Martín," so haunting and musical, from his splendid collection, Cacería de Brujas. And so I am delighted to say that Cadena's poem, in my translation, was selected by Sarah Cortez to be included in this important collection.

About Cadena:
Agustin Cadena was born in the Valle de Mezquital, Hidalgo, Mexico. For several years Cadena has been living in Hungary, where he is professor at the University of Debrecen. Author of more than twenty books, including the poetry collection, Cacería de Brujas, Cadena writes in multiple genres, including the novel, screenplay, short story, poem, essay, and children's literature.

> Visit his blog, El vino y la hiel.

From the back cover of Goodbye, Mexico:

"This anthology gathers the strong voices of accomplished poets reaching into and beyond nostalgia to remember, to honor, and to document through figurative imagery their experiences of Mexico and the vibrant border areas before the ravages of the narco-violence. That Mexico has been irrevocably altered by illegal human trafficking and drug cartel violence is indisputable. Together with other complex dynamics of the current century, such as globalization, the failing middle class, and the disrupted tourist industry, this beloved country has changed almost beyond recognition. Many on both sides of the border grieve the loss of the Mexico that was, particularly the Mexico that existed during the last half of the Twentieth Century. This loss engenders memory; memory engenders poems."*

Other poets in this collection include Diana Anhalt, Alan Birkelbach, Sarah Cortez, Martín Espada, James Hoggard, Janet McCann, and Alberto Ríos. If you know poetry, you know that's an all-star list.

With his permission, here is my translation of Agustín Cadena's poem, "Café San Martín":

CAFÉ SAN MARTÍN

Do you remember the Café San Martín?
I do, sometimes,
when it rains in the afternoon and it’s summer.
We liked to go there and drink coffee
and smoke while we looked at the rain.
The Café San Martín was small,
lukewarm, and it had big windows
that looked onto a meridian of June.
But it is no longer there.
Now on that corner where it was
they sell video games.
Have you tried to go back?
Have you walked in the rain, alone,
remembering the girl you were
and asking yourself where would these people have gone,
with their pink curtains and old spoons
and their Café San Martín?
Yes, I have wanted to go back,
many times,
when I happen to think of you,
when my shoes fill with water
and I wish I were that age again
and not so foolish
as to let go of your hand that afternoon.
Once again it is June and raining.
Everywhere there are cafés
in certain neighborhoods.
The present erases all traces.

P.S. Sarah Cortez and other poets will be reading from Goodbye, Mexico on Saturday June 27, 2015 @ 7 - 9 PM The Twig Book Shop, 306 Pearl Parkway, San Antonio, Texas.

* I hasten to mention that despite the troubles on the border and elsewhere, many areas of Mexico are stable and even thriving. I also hasten to add that the narco-violence finds fuel north of the border, and for anyone doubting the deep contradictions and corruption in the United States itself in regard to narcotics policies and trade, I highly recommend— for a start on that gnarliest of subjects— Sam Quinones' alarming and deeply researched new book, Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic.