Rosa Alcalá is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, most recently, MyOTHER TONGUE (Futurepoem), and translator of several full-length translations including the recently released New and Selected Poems of Cecilia Vicuña (Kelsey Street Press) for which Alcalá received a translation fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts in 2015.
Alcalá talks to Commonplace host Rachel Zucker about the experience of translating and transcribing the poetry and performances of Chilean-born artist Cecilia Vicuña. Alcalá speaks about growing up in Paterson, N.J., having been a child interpreter and mediator for her Spanish-speaking parents, language shame, studying at Brown and meeting Vicuña for the first time, studying transcription and ethnopoetics with Dennis Tedlock at SUNY Buffalo, grappling with how to record ephemerality, inaudibility, temporality, volume, tone and the feeling of listening (and mishearing) when translating, transcribing, and editing Vicuña’s multi-lingual performances for the book Spit Temple. Alcalá describes her long friendship with Vicuña, accepting the invitation to edit and translate Vicuña’s New and Selected, retranslating earlier translations, how the work of translating others affects her own writing, poetry as a space to say what is impossible to say in any language, literary and linguistic heritage, her interest in the NY School poets (especially Frank O’Hara and Bernadette Mayer), raising a bilingual child, and her poem “Heritage Speaker” from MyOTHER TONGUE.
EXTRA RESOURCES FOR EPISODE 61Books by Rosa AlcaláMyOTHER TONGUE (Futurepoem, 2017)
A Third Instance, with Craig Watson and Elisabeth Whitehead (Instance Press, 2014)
The Lust of Unsentimental Waters (Shearsman Books, 2012)
Undocumentaries (Shearsman Books, 2010)
New and Selected Poems of Cecilia Vicuña (Kelsey Street Press, 2018)
Spit Temple: Selected Performances of Cecilia Vicuña (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2012)
Bestiary by Lourdes Vazquez (Bilingual Press, 2004)
Guardians of the Secret by Lila Zemborain (Noemi Press)
Mauve Sea-Orchids by Lila Zemborain (translated w/ Mónica de la Torre)
Books by Cecilia Vicuña not translated by Rosa AlcaláAbout to Happen (Siglio, 2017)
Read Thread / The Story of the Red Thread (Sternberg Press, 2017)
Samborami (Chainlinks, 2011)
The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry (editor) (Oxford University Press, 2009)
Instan (Kelsey Street Press, 2002)
The Precarious / QUIPOem: The Art and Poetry of Cecilia Vicuña (Wesleyan Poetry Series, 1997)
Unraveling Words and Weaving Water (Graywolf, 1992)
Other Books and Writers Mentioned in the EpisodeÉdouard Glissant’s “Poetics of Relation” (University of Michigan Press, 1997)
Walter Mignolo
Jena Osman
Frank O’Hara
Langston Hughes
Bernadette Mayer
Joe Brainard
Dennis Tedlock & ethnopoetics
C.D. Wright
Rosemarie Waldrop
Keith Waldrop
Amiri Baraka
Daniel Borzutzky
Raúl Zurita
David Shapiro
Federico García Lorca
Juliana Spahr
Rubén Darío
Other translators of New & Selected: Edwin Morgan, Eliot Weinberger, Christopher Leland, James O’Hern, Anne Twitty, Esther Allen, Suzanne Jill Levine, Urayoán Noel
Other Relevant LinksOriginal music for our translation series by composer and sound designer Nathaniel Wolkstein.
Episode 60: Robin Coste Lewis
Episode 59: Alison S. M. Kobayashi
Episode 58: Cate Marvin
Episode 57: Dorothea Lasky
Episode 56: Jennifer Kronovet
Episode 55: Anne Waldman
Episode 54: Gerald Stern
Episode 53: Tommy Pico
Episode 52: Richard Siken
Episode 51: TC Tolbert
Episode 50: Inside Commonplace
Episode 49: CAConrad
Episode 48: Poets at MacDowell: Destiny Birdsong, Juleen Johnson, Jenny George, Eloisa Amezcua, & Amanda Galvan Huynh
Episode 47: Erin Riley
Episode 46: Allison Parrish
Episode 45: Tyehimba Jess
Episode 44: Matthew Zapruder
Episode 43: Airea D. Matthews
Episode 42: Gabrielle Calvocoressi
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