Cafe Muse Celebrates Hispanic Poets in Washington DC

Café Muse was sizzling hot for its July 18 program when Luis Alberto Ambroggio and Carlos Parada Ayala brought together luminaries associated with their new anthology Al pie de la Casa Blanca: Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC (At the Foot of the White House: Hispanic Poets in Washington, DC). The program opened with tribute to Egla Morales Blouin by her daughter Wendy Harmic Blouin and Egla Blouin’s best friend Dr. Miriam Davis. Blouin worked on Al pie de la Casa Blanca but did not live long enough to see the work in print. She also did translation work for DC’s Gala Hispanic Theatre.

Congratulations to Luis Alberto Ambroggio for his upcoming induction in the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language (an honor from the government of Spain). The ceremony will take place September 30, 2011 at the Library of Congress.

Congratulation to Rei Berroa for The International Poetry Award that will be bestowed to him by the City of Trieste, Italy in December 2011. The International Poetry Award is an honor that has been given to highly esteemed writers from around the world for each of the past 12 years in recognition of lifetime achievement.

 

Here is the list in the order of their appearance and the country of origin:

-Wendy Harmic Blouin, Egla Morales Blouin's daughter (US)

-Dr. Miriam Davis, Egla's best friends (Argentina)

-Alberto Avendaño  (Spain)

-Ada Vilageliu Díaz  (Spain)

-Rei Berroa (Dominican Republic)

-David Camero (Venezuela)

-Yvette Neisser Moreno (US)

-Carlos Parada (El Salvador)

-Luis Alberto Ambroggio (Argentina)

This poem is a translation of Sami Miranda’s word play poem “Como vino.” Word play is very difficult to translate, but this translation by Yvette Neisser Moreno seems to please those in the know. 

WINDING UP HERE (“Como vino”)

Like wine.

Like red wine,

like white wine.

How’d a black man wind up here?

Wandering on a raft.

How’d he wind up here?

Like wine in a bottle,

a message crossing

the sea.

When I saw that

they didn’t want me,

I drank a bottle

of wine. So what?

Red wine.

White wine.

Black man came on a raft,

four days on a raft.

When the helicopter wound down

and took me to Guantánamo

I stayed.

They asked: How’d you wind up here?

Like a bottle of wine

crossing the sea

with a message

no one reads.

Since he had come,

I sat and talked with him.

We drank a bottle of wine

and when he asked:

How’d you wind up here?

I said, what does it matter  
if I'm already here.          

‘Como vino’ by Sami Miranda

Translation by Yvette Neisser Moreno




COMO VINO

Como vino.
Como vino tinto,
Como vino blanco.
¿Cómo vino el negro?
En una balsa.

¿Cómo vino?
En botella,
un mensaje cruzando
el mar.

Como vi que no
me querían,
me tomé una botella
de vino. ¿Cómo?

Vino tinto.
Vino blanco.
Vino negro en balsa,
cuatro días en balsa.

Como vino el helicóptero
y me llevó a Guantánamo
me quedé.
Me preguntaban: ¿Cómo vino?

Como botella de vino
cruzando el mar
con un mensaje
que nadie lee.

Como vino,
me senté a hablar con él
y nos tomamos una botella de vino
y cuando me preguntó:

¿Cómo vino?
Le contesté, qué importa
si ya llegué.

by Sami Miranda

About Al pie de la Casa Blanca: Poetas hispanos de Washington, DC:

The anthology includes the work of 24 of the most prominent Hispanic poets who have lived in the DC area in recent years, including Naomi Ayala, Quique Avilés, Rei Berroa, Consuelo Hernández, Gladys Ilarregui, Mayamérica Cortez, Arturo Salcedo Martínez, Alberto Avendaño, Marty Sanchez-Lowery, Milagros Terán and Vladimir Monge.

It also includes a pair of essays by the editors, putting in context the thematic and aesthetic development Hispanic poetry in Washington within American poetical perspectives and the local history of Hispanic-Latino poetry. The poetry is interspersed with photographs by the Spanish academic, writer and photographer Gerardo Piña Rosales, which offer a cutting-edge visual essay that creates a stimulating dialogue with the poetry. The English translation of this anthology is in progress now.

The NEXT CAFÉ MUSE program will happen August 1, 2011 and feature Poets Kyle Dargan & Lew Watts with tribute to Sterling Brown. Please join us for another outstanding program.