Eléna Rivera : (further) short takes on the prose poem

folio : (further) short takes on the prose poem

 

 

 

          I was surprised in writing the following poems by the quality of the silence that surrounds the fragmentation of the sentence, even in the absence of lineation. The form elicits a certain density where the words assemble new possibilities that surprise and challenge me. In writing it’s the sound that draws me forward, one word leads to the next. The form permits these shifts and layers. How quickly words elicit each other and tend toward narration, but then just as quickly that tendency is undercut by some new word. At times I have to retrace my steps if I’m letting myself become too dramatic. There is a lot of pulling back that has to happen for the unexpected to emerge.

 

 

 

Nobody will Know

Father throws the child in the water—perhaps another translation is needed? Swallowed water then not wine. There is a difference between representation and what washes away. I was reminded of the connection between us, water, taking the water in, & being saved by the god with rain in his hair. Remind me of who we were when we left the swimming pool. You that father so sure of yourself, and me ashamed, flooded, falling into rules and how I had failed this first test. Ferocity turned inward, and the child became fluent in watchfulness.

 

 

Narrow Railings on Either Side

I wanted to wrap my heart around yours, watched your every move, noticed where your eyes went. You the original man, naked, the hero. Her father eyed the skinny blond with a cigarette and the waitress’ bosom. In a room full of furniture the girl quietly headed toward his pile of Playboys. What could she learn there? Had I miscalculated how to arrive? I fancied myself a poet to see if your eyes would follow the crisis on the roadside. I quake ache to think I narrowly missed being Robinson Crusoe. I disappeared in the glove compartment.

 

 

How to Name Distortion

Those images of naked friends and others sent me back to a fragmented narration. He didn’t end up being a conduit, just ate everything in his way. The place where you write your name, I kept secret. I wanted something for myself and ended up in a blind cadence between two buildings. Checkmate, he said. I could chose to lose or end up on the other side of the room. Crossed the poem turned inside out. Your woman called me “Bitch” and I fell into a recumbent position that I’m still trying to free myself from. New memories buried old ones. The book is how I am bound.

 

 

 

 

 

Eléna Rivera is the author of several poetry collections, including Arrangements (Aquifer Books, 2022), Epic Series (Shearsman Books, 2020), Scaffolding (Princeton University Press, 2017), and The Perforated Map (Shearsman Books, 2011). She received a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Translation and was a recent recipient of poetry fellowships from MacDowell (2020), Trelex Paris Poetry Residency (2019) and the SHOEN Foundation (2016).

Rob Manery, Eléna Rivera, Beatriz Hausner, Peter Midgley + Lydia Unsworth : virtual reading series #16

a series of video recordings of contemporary poets reading from their work, prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent cancellations, shut-downs and isolations; a reading series you can enjoy in the safety of your own protected space,

Rob Manery : “As They Say (for Peter Culley)”

Rob Manery is the author of It's Not As If It Hasn't Been Said Before (Tsunami Editons) and The Richter-Rauzer Variations (above/ground press). He lives in Vancouver (the territory of the Coast Salish peoples) where he edits Some magazine.

Eléna Rivera : “Movement in the Lower Region”

Published by the Chicago Review, Issue 63:03/04, Winter/Spring 2020

Read on March 31, 2020, 5:15 PM in New York City

Eléna Rivera was born in Mexico City and raised in Paris, France. Her third full-length collection of poetry Scaffolding (2017) was published by Princeton University Press in the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets. She received a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Translation and was a recent recipient of fellowships from the MacDowell Colony (2020). www.elenarivera.net

Beatriz Hausner : an excerpt from “The Dream of Theodora”

Beatriz Hausner has published several poetry collections, including The Wardrobe Mistress, Sew Him Up, and Enter the Raccoon. Her books have been published internationally and translated into several languages, most recently Greek. Hausner is a respected historian and translator of Latin American Surrealism, with recent essays published in The International Encyclopedia of Surrealism in 2019. Her translations of César Moro and the poets of Mandrágora, as well as of others, have exerted an important influence on her work. Hausner’s history of advocacy in Canadian literary culture is also well known: she has worked as a literary programmer in Toronto, her hometown, was Chair of the Public Lending Right Commission and is currently President of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada. Her latest poetry book Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart has just been released by Book*hug Press.

Peter Midgley : “you cannot write this down,” “let us not think of them as barbarians,” “words melt in his mouth” and “a history of dust”

Peter Midgley is an editor from Edmonton. He writes in English and in Afrikaans, and translates poetry from several languages. His latest collection, let us not think of them as barbarians, is shortlisted for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award for Poetry.

Lydia Unsworth : “Seasoning”

Lydia Unsworth has published two collections of poetry: Certain Manoeuvres (KFS Press, 2018) and Nostalgia for Bodies (2018 Erbacce Poetry Prize), and two pamphlets (above / ground press and Ghost City Press). Her latest pamphlet YIELD (KFS Press) and debut novel Distant Hills (Atlatl Press) are forthcoming in 2020. Recent work can be found in SPAM, Bath Magg and Blackbox Manifold. Twitter: @lydiowanie