Place: Vancouver

Weekly Dispatches from the Frontlines of World Literature

Our weekly roundup of the world's literary news brings us to Central America and Hong Kong.

You know the drill—time for another weekly update on literary happenings the world over. This week, we learn of the passing of several cherished Central American poets, as well as some recent developments in Hong Kong. 

José García Escobar, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Central America

Claribel Alegría, one of Central America’s most beloved poets, recently passed away at age ninety-three. Mere months after Alegría became the second Nicaraguan to receive the Reina Sofía Prize for Iberoamerican Poetry, only after Ernesto Cardenal, Claribel died last Thursday, January 25. Claribel is one of the cornerstones of Nicaraguan poetry and was the author of dozens of books of poetry, fiction, and non-fiction.

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Postmortem: A Poem by Maya Tevet Dayan

you were no longer breath/ just the hovering wing beat/ of a fluttering heart.

Maya Tevet Dayan’s poem lays bare the loneliness of grief. Uniquely about the state of being un-mothered, it is universal in conveying intense emotional loss. The nuances of feeling and sentiment have been expertly translated from the Hebrew by Rachel Tzvia Back. 

1.

It was evening, it was chaos, it was edge of the abyss.

And the quiet stood still.

A young doctor walked in and walked out

and was unable to say

if you had left or if

you were still here. Because at your end

you were no longer breath

just the hovering wing beat

of a fluttering heart.

Remember?

Exactly as I once was

in your belly. Heart and heart,

no breath.

 

My beginning was a fetus of life.

Your ending was a fetus of death.

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