Two Poems
how dark my skin is left by her shadowhow dark my skin is left by her shadownightthe weeping animal arid bareness its hunger I’d known so well oscura deja la piel su sombraoscura deja la piel su sombrala nocheel animal del llanto árida desnudez ya conocí su hambre come alonecome alone silent thirst offer meyour bitter wealth of fleshI am the animal you hush ven solaven sola muda sed ofrécemetu amarga carnadurayo soy el animal que callas
Feature Date
- January 2, 2023
Series
- Translation, What Sparks Poetry
Selected By
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English Copyright © 2022 by Layla Benitez-James.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Beatriz Miralles de Imperial is the author of the debut collection Oscura deja la piel su sombra (Balduque, 2016), along with the chapbooks Y todo es silencio (2013) and La soledad del hombre isla (Creajoven, 2010), as well as her latest collection El viento sopla donde quiere (Libros Canto y Cuento, Colección de poesía 22; 2020). Her award-winning poems have appeared in anthologies such as Desdoblando (Editum, 2014) and Anónimos 2.1 (Cosmopoética, 2013). Bea is founder and director of the micro press Ad Minimum. She has poems forthcoming in English translation in Copper Nickel, Poetry London, and Poetry Magazine.
Layla Benitez-James is a 2022 NEA fellow in translation, a 2022/23 National Book Critics Circle Fellow, and the author of God Suspected My Heart Was a Geode, but He Had to Make Sure, selected by Major Jackson for Cave Canem’s 2017 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize. As Director of Literary Outreach for the Unamuno Author Series in Madrid, she edited its poetry festival anthology, Desperate Literature. Poems and essays are published in or forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Black Femme Collective, Virginia Quarterly Review, Latino Book Review, and Poetry London. Layla received an MFA in poetry from the University of Houston and has published reviews on Poetry Foundation’s Harriet Books.
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Denver, Colorado
University of Colorado Denver
Editor / Managing Editor
Wayne Miller
Poetry Editors
Brian Barker
Nicky Beer
Copper Nickel—the national literary journal housed at the University of Colorado Denver—was founded by poet Jake Adam York in 2002. When York died in 2012, the journal went on hiatus until its re-launch in 2014.
Work published in Copper Nickel has appeared in the Best American Poetry, Best American Short Stories, and Pushcart Prize anthologies, and contributors to Copper Nickel have received numerous honors for their work.
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