Esta, la de la foto, es la misma que jugaba con su muñeca todo el día y en la noche la arropaba para que no sienta frío ni miedo. Se resistió a tirarla cuando perdió un ojo. Siguió negándose cuando cayó sobre la estufa y se quemó el brazo de goma. Y cuando se le apelmazó el pelo. Y cuando quedó con una sola pierna.
Es la misma. Sin señales de pena, posa con los restos del recién nacido sobre los trapos con los que limpió el piso.
*
Pidió por semanas el crujiente vestido a cuadros de brillantes colores y muy amplio. Con él puesto, se sentaba frente a la casa sobre una estufa de cancagua rota que tapaba estirando el ruedo de la falda. Así, tiesa y orgullosa, como heroína de novela, esperaba horas y horas probando gestos recatados y las manos ordenadas en el regazo.
A fines de ese año empezó a llenar el vestido y la confinaron en la pieza con una sola ventana que daba al gallinero. Casi al mismo tiempo, en la cancagua empezó a crecer una flor buscando aire por la abertura del caño. Tenía aspecto pavoroso y un olor nauseabundo, por eso su madre le regó agua hirviente.
*
Y ésta es la Bernarda. Ella leyó en el diario una noticia sobre el asunto de las guaguas botadas en basureros públicos y se le contrajo de golpe el vientre vacío. Reclamó en el juzgado al Primer Niño para acunarlo muerto, le puso de nombre Aurora y lo enterró en un lugar sagrado para tener dónde ir a dejarle flores.
La tumba que compró es amplia para que vayan llegando sus hermanitos.
Aguas
No se habla de los ríos ocultos.
No se nombran sus aguas
ni se intenta oír el curso de cristal.
Permanece ahí
reserva y fondo de otro paisaje.
La palabra y el agua tienen ese pacto secreto
celo de decir
que cubre la desnuda transparencia.
Celo de borboteo imposible.
Misterios dolorosos
Si tapo el colchón con el cubrecamas
Si envuelvo la guagua con una toalla
Si la meto en la mochila
Si me pongo el uniforme
Si parto a clases, como siempre
Si camino despacio
Si nadie me mira
Si
En vano la llamé en vano
esperé leche brotando de su pecho
un negro impulso me arrebató la voluntad
y me abrí camino desplegando cuencas
orificios, poros
todo abierto para recibir.
De un túnel a otro.
Presentí el placer de los lamidos
pero las manos alrededor de mi cuello
El paisaje interior ha mudado.
Como banderas gastadas
las membranas
flamean sobre esta huella recién abierta.
Se ha trenzado para siempre el goce
con el aliento desesperado de la muerte.
Caudal
Asomada a la ventana
sus ojos forman un afluente
que se une a los canales de afuera.
Esa mirada enturbia
aguas que venían cristalinas.
Y empaña el vidrio
y provoca la caída de una nube rota.
Río tormentoso
que trae también troncos y restos
de animales descompuestos.
Se atraviesa la página en blanco
con una rama de buscar agua
hasta dar con el caudal, la fuente.
de En nombre de ninguna
Rosabetty Muñoz
Listen to the poems read in the original Spanish by the poet:
The poetry of Rosabetty Muñoz depicts life on Chiloé, an island off the southwest coast of Chile, where she was born and still lives. Her poems give us a glimpse of the history and culture unique to the island while tackling universal themes like prostitution, exile, globalization, and the ravages of climate change on a culture that depends on the ocean.
Her eighth book, En nombre de ninguna (In the Name of No One), focuses primarily on the plight of young girls and women in a patriarchal, traditionally religious world, which either censures them or refuses to acknowledge they exist. En nombre de ninguna speaks to us in their name and also in their voices about poverty, abortion, rape, and incest.
Muñoz says that the book was inspired by a headline in her local newspaper announcing the discovery of a dead baby’s body in a trash bag, and the reaction that Bernarda Gallardo, a social worker and friend of Muñoz, had to this event. Gallardo fought in court to rehumanize this discarded infant by adopting it and by giving it a name and burial rights in consecrated ground.
The first half of the book, “Álbum Familiar” (“Family Album”), consists of prose “photographs” that depict a feminine universe steeped in poverty and moral censure, with disturbing scenes of unwanted pregnancies, infanticide, and abortion. It is a world of death and the loss of childhood innocence, described in dramatic vignettes and vivid imagery. The second half of the collection contains verse poems that complement “Family Album.” Here the themes of the first section are recast in language that is highly metaphorical, elliptical, and evocative.
Muñoz’s poems are short and carefully crafted. In addition to compelling imagery, she uses parallel phrases and multiple voices, often combined in a single poem—as in “Sorrowful Mysteries”—to build emotional impact. “I have wanted to write about pain,” she says, “in order to contain it, purify it, elevate it, and transform it into something else.” The challenges in translating her poetry are linked to its linguistic density and the fact that her images often function on an emotional, almost subconscious level. She and I spent hours discussing the images, a process she described as “turning the skirt inside out and examining every stitch and thread of the fabric.” “After writing for over forty years, even when making rational choices,” she wrote me, “I also trust in that blind voice that chooses the words and that I don’t always understand.”
Her eighth book, En nombre de ninguna (In the Name of No One), focuses primarily on the plight of young girls and women in a patriarchal, traditionally religious world, which either censures them or refuses to acknowledge they exist. En nombre de ninguna speaks to us in their name and also in their voices about poverty, abortion, rape, and incest.
Muñoz says that the book was inspired by a headline in her local newspaper announcing the discovery of a dead baby’s body in a trash bag, and the reaction that Bernarda Gallardo, a social worker and friend of Muñoz, had to this event. Gallardo fought in court to rehumanize this discarded infant by adopting it and by giving it a name and burial rights in consecrated ground.
The first half of the book, “Álbum Familiar” (“Family Album”), consists of prose “photographs” that depict a feminine universe steeped in poverty and moral censure, with disturbing scenes of unwanted pregnancies, infanticide, and abortion. It is a world of death and the loss of childhood innocence, described in dramatic vignettes and vivid imagery. The second half of the collection contains verse poems that complement “Family Album.” Here the themes of the first section are recast in language that is highly metaphorical, elliptical, and evocative.
Muñoz’s poems are short and carefully crafted. In addition to compelling imagery, she uses parallel phrases and multiple voices, often combined in a single poem—as in “Sorrowful Mysteries”—to build emotional impact. “I have wanted to write about pain,” she says, “in order to contain it, purify it, elevate it, and transform it into something else.” The challenges in translating her poetry are linked to its linguistic density and the fact that her images often function on an emotional, almost subconscious level. She and I spent hours discussing the images, a process she described as “turning the skirt inside out and examining every stitch and thread of the fabric.” “After writing for over forty years, even when making rational choices,” she wrote me, “I also trust in that blind voice that chooses the words and that I don’t always understand.”
Rosabetty Muñoz is the recipient of multiple prizes, including the Fundación Pablo Neruda's Premio a la Trayectoría in 2000 for her body of work, which includes eleven books of verse and two collections of selected poems. Muñoz is part of Chile’s “ethnocultural movement,” composed of writers who foreground the distinctive cultures of the regions they inhabit—in her case, the island of Chiloé off the southwestern coast of Chile. Muñoz discovered her vocation as a poet while studying at the Austral University of Chile on the mainland, where she joined a group of writers reading Cavafy, Ginsberg, and Vallejo, and discovered new poetic styles and ways of thinking about life and social justice. Her decision to return to her birthplace was rooted in a desire to document the island’s unique history and traditions and to explore the pain inflicted by authoritarianism, gender inequality, climate change, and globalization. Many of her poems incorporate true stories told to her in her classes and poetry workshops.
Elena Barcia is a professional film and literary translator born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She has translated hundreds of movies for all the major Hollywood studios, including the Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Matrix series. She has also served as a translation consultant to Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, Martin Scorsese, Alfonso Cuarón, Alejandro Iñárritu, and Guillermo del Toro. In 2017, Northwestern University Press published her translation of Miguel de Unamuno’s classic novel Niebla (Fog). Her translation of the prize-winning Chilean poet Malú Urriola’s book Cadáver exquisito (Exquisite Corpse; Editorial Cuarto Propio, 2017) will be published in 2023 by Valparaíso Editions USA, and she is currently preparing a collection of the works of Rosabetty Muñoz, from whose book En nombre de ninguna (In the Name of No One; Ediciones Kultrún, 2008), these poems are taken.
