Hell has many mouths . . . — Web Exclusive
By Maria Negroni
Translated by Michelle Gil-Montero
Hell has many mouths. One is the addled letter of my life, which bears the mark of my death. I've gazed at that mouth before. A terror there, a field of intense, lugubrious energy. From a distance, it resembled a temple, a seething smoke cloud, a few hyenas looking on with lascivious fervor. To that abstract emblem, I owe my best pages, the least false.
María Negroni (born 1951 Rosario, Argentina) is an Argentinian poet, essayist, novelist, and translator. She graduated from Columbia University with a Ph.D. in Latin American literature and has received the International Prize for Essay Writing from Siglo XXI, the 2002 PEN Award for best book of poetry in translation, for Islandia, the 2001 Octavio Paz Fellowship for Poetry, the Argentine National Book Award, for El viaje de la noche, and other awards. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
Michelle Gil-Montero is a graduate of Brown University and The University of Iowa Writers Workshop. She has published poems, translations, and essays on translation in Jacket, Colorado Review, Hayden's Ferry Review, Conjunctions, Mar Con Soroche, and elsewhere.