Alma Venus, a long poem in two parts by Spanish and Catalan writer Pere Gimferrer, translated by Adrian West, is now available from Antilever Press. Gimferrer’s creative work appeared in English translation for the first time in Asymptote’s January 2013 issue, after which Adrian West began translating Alma Venus. Gimferrer’s work has been awarded the National Prize of Spanish Letters (1998), the Reina Sofia Prize for Iberoamerican Poetry (2000), and the Octavio Paz International Poetry and Essay Prize (2006).
From Alma Venus, First Book
Every poem has a single theme:
How the word says something else.
The sparrow hawk lives blind and serene
In the murk of the final words.
I walked on these streets in the years
When my youth was a dead she-wolf,
But they were unreal, not drawn out
Yet, or drawn out and entombed.