Where fears are plumed like pheasants . . . — Web Exclusive
By Maria Negroni
Translated by Michelle Gil-Montero
Where fears are plumed like pheasants, I, brittle, tenebrous man, inconsolable widow, immerse myself in doubt. Here, I find refuge: flaunting my trophy injuries, feasting what is forbidding in being. Little else is possible: a dictionary of the body in motion, a frenzy of private images against a background of massacres and shame. On this embrangled route, figureless space, the rest of the creatures. Torches flare up. Tousled frieze of desires.
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.