(Observations)

Coral Bracho

Translated from the Spanish

When the hingesthat articulate the worldsnap apart; when their piecesuncouple and isolate; and their outlines,their frames shatter,disintegrating—howand where are we then?How do we account for stupor and palpableemptiness; brillianceand these clear signsof vacuity, of abandonment? Presenceand the nothing that is spoken,that can be named.

(Observaciones)

Cuando los goznesque articulan el mundose resquebrajan; cuando sus tramosse separan, se aíslan; y sus confines,sus encuadres, se rompen,se desmoronan, ¿cómoy en dónde somos?¿Cómo unimos estupor y vacíopalpable; deslumbramientoy concisos rastrosde oquedad, de abandono? Presenciay nada que hable,que la nombre.

Feature Date

March 25, 2022

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“(Observations)” by Coral Bracho, translated by Forrest Gander, from IT MUST BE A MISUNDERSTANDING.
Copyright © 2021, 2022 by Coral Bracho.
Copyright © 2021, 2022 by Forrest Gander.
Derechos reservados © Bracho, Coral, Debe ser un malentendido, Ediciones Era, México, 2018.
Used by permission of New Directions Publishing Corp.

Featured Poet

Coral Bracho is one of the most influential poets in Mexico, her country of birth, and in all of Latin America. In each of her books, a shifting network of images stimulate phenomenological meditations on what happens to the self who becomes the reader of book and world. She has won most of the major prizes—The Villaurrutia Prize & the International Jaime Sabines-Gatien Lapointe Prize among them. Her work has been translated into dozens of languages. In English, she is best represented by Firefly Under the Tongue from New Directions. Her most recent book is It Must Be a Misunderstanding from New Directions.

Featured Translator

Forrest Gander, a writer and translator with degrees in geology and literature, was born in the Mojave Desert and lives in northern California. His books, often concerned with ecology, include Be With, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize, the novel The Trace, and Core Samples from the World. Gander’s translations include Alice Iris Red Horse: Poems by Gozo Yoshimasu and Then Come Back: the Lost Neruda Poems. Often collaborating with artists such as Ann Hamilton, Sally Mann, Graciela Iturbide, and Vic Chesnutt, he has received grants from the Library of Congress, the Guggenheim, Howard, Whiting and United States Artists Foundations.

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It Must Be a Misunderstanding

New Directions

New York, New York

Featured book

It Must Be a Misunderstanding is the acclaimed Mexican poet Coral Bracho’s most personal and emotive collection to date, dedicated to her mother who died of complications from Alzheimer’s. Remarkably, Bracho, author and daughter, seems to disappear into her own empathic observations as her mother comes clear to us not as a tragic figure, but as a fiery and independent personality. The chemistry between them is vivid, poignant, and unforgettable. As the translator Forrest Gander explains in his introduction, the book’s force “builds as the poems cycle through their sequences”— from early to late Alzheimer’s—“with non-judgmental affection and compassionate watchfulness.”

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