Translation of the Route

Laura Wittner is an award-winning poet and translator from Argentina. Her books of poetry include El pasillo del tren (1996), Los cosacos (1998), Las últimas mudanzas (2001), La tomadora de café (2005), Lluvias (2009), Balbuceos en una misma dirección (2011), La altura (2016), Lugares donde una no está (2017) and Traducción de la ruta (2020). She has also published more than 20 books for children, most recently Cual para tal (2022), ¿Y comieron perdices? (2023) and Se pide un deseo (2023). Translation of the Route, Juana Adcock's translation Traducción de la ruta is published by the Poetry Translation Centre with Bloodaxe Books in a dual language Spanish-English edition in 2024. As a literary translator Wittner has translated books by Leonard Cohen, David Markson, M. John Harrison, Cynan Jones, Claire-Louise Bennett, Katherine Mansfield and James Schuyler, among many others. She lives in Buenos Aires.Juana Adcock is a Mexican poet, translator and editor based in Scotland. She is the author of Manca (Tierra Adentro, 2014), Vestigial (Stewed Rhubarb, 2022) and Split (Blue Diode, 2019), which was a Poetry Book Society Choice and was included in the Guardian’s Best Poetry of 2019. She is co-editor of the anthology of poetry by Latin American women Temporary Archives (Arc Publications, 2022), and her translation of the Mè’phàà poet Hubert Matiúwàa’s The Dogs Dreamt (Flipped Eye, 2023) received a PEN Translates award. She has also translated Lola Ancira’s The Sadness of Shadows (MTO Press, 2024).

'Wittner's poems in Adcock's deft translation fold entire but only half-seen narratives into brief glimpses, like interior lives flashing past the window of a moving train. They are delivered with a misleading directness – a garrulous voice at your ear, its utterances appearing quotidian but imbued with the weird and cryptic. We sift for clues. How to decipher a particular coffee stain, the distant tinkle of broken glass, arcane road signs, a particular shade of fallen leaf, the shadows cast by dancing laundry? Wittner is alert to these strange messages, curious about them all, and willing to embrace the not-knowing. I could read these poems every day and still find the new in them.

• I. TEN REAL ANSWERS TO FICTIONAL QUESTIONSWhy we women get oven burns 8Why on bad days we look at holiday photos 10Why it shouldn’t rain on Sunday nights 12Why we talk when we talk about love 14Why it’s urgent to get out on the road 16Why remedies over time betray us 18Why it is advisable to read in bars 20Why we must reconstruct ourselves all the time 22Why when I like a song a lot I need to print the lyrics 24Why if they knock me down a thousand times I get up 26II. THE IMPERFECT IS OUR PARADISEKayak 30Love poem 32To a god unknown 34The taxi stops at the lights 36Rothkos 38Sunday noon 40Shadow 42Good morning, Kenneth 44I wake up at 6 46Month 48Iguazú 50Iguazú: says my daughter 52You are here 54To be in a museum 56Reading DL on the 108 58They zoom into photos in a chat 60They walk seven blocks to the subway 62They are blinded for a second whilst correcting a poem 64They try out things on holiday 66They make their voices vibrate at 6 68They interrupt our talk to do something urgent 70They peer into potted plants and confirm their beliefs 72III. TRANSLATION OF THE ROUTEMa 76Thursday, nighttime 78I once again held a lemon in my hand 80We turned onto Libertador 82Dinner 84The origin 86What is that lovely book 88The dark things 90The fragile things 92My daughter likes the wind 94In front of the bay of San Juan in Puerto Rico 96Clearing 98Reminder from sanity 100My baby 102Down Loíza Road (with Mara and Nicole) 104Scene 106Late in the afternoon 108Far from home 110Williams and me 112So much depends 114How it is 116My son tells me his dream on our way to school 118When we travel, time expands: 120Translation of the route 122About the authors 126