America

By Fernando Valverde

In Fernando Valverde’s América, “sorrow is ancient.” Mournfully lyrical, politically sharp, with a sweeping view of American roots, dysfunctions, and ideals—as if from above, and yet also from within—this is a book that deconstructs the legacy of empire. From the Mississippi River to Fulton Avenue, from slavery to “lone wolf” shooters, Valverde grieves but does not wince away from all that is lost to greed and a culture of violence, painting an urgent portrait of “the thirst of America / a smile satisfied to death.” Valverde is widely regarded as one of the most important younger Spanish-language poets. Here his vibrant voice and convictions are translated and introduced by Carolyn Forché, herself a world-renowned poet of witness. Bilingual, with Spanish originals and English translations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Copper Canyon Press
• Release date: Dec 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781619322448

Fernando Valverde

Fernando Valverde is a preeminent poet writing in the Spanish language today, and he has received international acclaim for his contributions to the art of poetry. Born in Granada, Spain, Valverde has been awarded some of the most prestigious awards for Spanish poetry, and his books have been published across Europe and the Americas. In 2014 his book The Insistence of Harm received the Book of the Year award from the Latino American Writers Institute of the City University of New York. Before coming to the United States, Valverde served as a foreign correspondent for Spain’s major paper, El Pais,covering war zones in the Balkans and the Middle East. He directs the International Festival of Poetry in Granada, and is a distinguished visiting professor at the University of Virginia.

Book preview

America

FERNANDO VALVERDE

TRANSLATED AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CAROLYN FORCHÉ

COPPER CANYON

PRESS

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This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

To Nieves

Y así volvimos a nuestro lugar, estos Reinos,

pero ya sin la paz, en este viejo régimen,

con un pueblo extranjero aferrado a sus dioses.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

T.S. Eliot

Índice / Contents

Title Page

Note to Reader

Introduction

Los hijos del emperador celebran la abundancia unidos por lo que ya no existe

Los condenados de Fulton Avenue persiguen las señales del cielo y de la tierra

Los muchachos de Camden

La noticia de Dios al otro lado del puente Benjamin Franklin

Herida frente a la tumba de Walt Whitman

LA TIERRA PROMETIDA

Ellis Island

Esclavos de Guinea llegan a la plantación de Buenaventura

El cuerpo sin vida de Hernando de Soto se hunde en el río Mississippi

Butch Cassidy ingresa en la prisión estatal de Wyoming

Antonio Machado escucha las sombras del atardecer en Long Island

La casa de Lake Alfred

1. Ruta 66

2. Gales–Pensilvania

3. John H. Evans

4. Artemisa

5. Arthur McNeer y Florence Root

6. Base aérea de Edwards, California

7. Artemisa María Consuelo Ramonet

8. Lake Alfred, Florida

La balada de Nueva Inglaterra

LA PATRIA ES UNA MADRE QUE REPARTE LA SUERTE ENTRE LAS BOCAS

Raza

La patria es una madre que reparte la suerte entre las bocas

La ceguera

La soledad es un invierno frente al mar del pasado

Ruby Bridges camina con escolta federal hacia la tierra prometida

JFK abandona la patria para conquistar la muerte

SHOOTINGS

Austin, Texas, 1966.

Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado, 1999.

Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, 2007.

Westroads Mall, Omaha, Nebraska, 2007.

Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut, 2012.

Pulse, Orlando, Florida, 2016.

Mandalay Bay Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, 2017.

First Baptist Church, Sutherland Springs, Texas, 2017.

LA TIERRA SALVAJE

El reverendo Martin Luther King Jr. avista la tierra prometida

Gwendolyn A. T. borrada del paisaje del golfo de Mississippi

Eagle Pond: el pasado es un país bajo la tierra

Edgar Allan Poe es alcanzado en el puerto de Baltimore por las sombras que le persiguen

Jack Kerouac busca una moneda para cruzar el último río de America

Kurt Cobain cierra la puerta de su invernadero

Jeff Buckley se adentra en las aguas del río Mississippi

El país de los lobos solitarios

The Sons of the Emperor Celebrate Abundance at One with What No Longer Exists

The Condemned of Fulton Avenue Follow the Signals from Heaven and Earth

The Boys of Camden

The News of God on the Other Side of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge

The Wound before the Tomb of Walt Whitman

THE PROMISED LAND

Guinea Slaves Arrive at the Plantation of Bonaventure (Bonaventure Cemetery, Savannah)

The Lifeless Body of Hernando de Soto Sinks in the Mississippi River

Butch Cassidy Enters the State Prison of Wyoming

Antonio Machado Listens to the Shadows of the Sunset in Long Island

The House in Lake Alfred

Route 66

Wales–Pennsylvania

Arthur McNeer and Florence Root

Edwards Air Force Base, California

The Balada of New England

THE COUNTRY IS A MOTHER WHO DISTRIBUTES LUCK AMONG THE MOUTHS

Race

The Country Is a Mother Who Distributes Luck among the Mouths

The Blindness

Solitude Is a Winter before the Sea of the Past

Ruby Bridges Walks with Federal Escort to the Promised Land

JFK Leaves the Country to Conquer Death

THE WILD LAND

The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Sees the Promised Land

Gwendolyn A. T. Erased from the Mississippi Gulf Landscape

Eagle Pond: The Past Is a Country under the Earth

Edgar Allan Poe Is Reached at the Baltimore Harbor by the Shadows That Pursue Him

Jack Kerouac Looks for a Coin to Cross the Last River of America

Kurt Cobain Closes the Door of His Greenhouse

Jeff Buckley Goes into the Waters of the Mississippi River

The Country of Lone Wolves

About the Author

About the Translator

Books by Fernando Valverde

Acknowledgments

Copyright

Special Thanks

INTRODUCTION

I FIRST ENCOUNTERED THE WORK OF FERNANDO VALVERDE at the Congreso Internacional de Poesía y Poética in Puebla, Mexico, in 2016. The auditorium that night was filled, so I stood in the back to experience the frisson of this rare literary event for Puebla: a reading by Valverde, whose vibrant, incantatory, lyric art is regarded as among the finest produced by the new generation of poets writing in Spanish. He had, two years earlier, been nominated for a Latin Grammy for his collaboration with flamenco musician Juan Pinilla. Poet Alí Calderón of Mexico urged me to meet him, as did Colombian poet Federico Díaz-Granados. Together with Raquel Lanseros of Spain and Francisco Ruiz Udiel of Nicaragua, these poets were building a pan-Hispanic poetry movement, reaching across oceans and continents to enliven poetic art in their common language. Although Valverde is from Europe and not the Americas, he is considered vital to the project.

Later in the festival, we met and talked, and so began a friendship, with further meetings at festivals in Bogotá, Colombia, and his natal city of Granada, Spain. He was already living in the United States, where he had begun an unusual pilgrimage: to visit as many sites of mass shootings as he could, to walk through the scenes of these horrific crimes, to talk to survivors, to study the perpetrators, and even to fire the weapons they used—to experience what it felt like to fire them. He was on a singular mission, in some respects resembling one undertaken by another poet from Granada almost a century earlier: Federico García Lorca, who visited