When You Fly You Can’t Stop to Think

Tilsa Otta
Translated from the Spanish

Less plastic in bottlesEasier to crush when you’re ragingIn those moments you can recycle everything with your own handsLucky world that it can count on youSaturn’s rings suit your fingersYou’re all-powerful when you tell the truthThe gods use megaphonesBecause some refuse to listenThey drink the water and no longer have anywhere to walkThe fourth dimension of desire Reproduces the wind in your gesturesThis night crashes into the carsI have feelings I found inside you Garbage trucks come out of the skyWhere abysses are lit up by the promise of seeing youYou leave me until you come backThe days that separate us are lost soulsSoon they’ll be able to rest in peace and fade awayThe future will be a garden of children of flowers of stonesOf skin particles that every day slough off of loveAnd in smoke signals they ascend                                                                                    AscendLove poemsSexual positions of the godsChoreographies the planets memorize Cuando vuelas no puedes detenerte a pensarMenos plástico en las botellasMás fáciles de aplastar cuando te llenas de iraEn esos momentos puedes reciclarlo todo con tus propias manosSuerte del mundo que puedes contar contigoLos anillos de Saturno le hacen a tus dedosEres todo poderoso cuando dices la verdadLxs diosxs usan altavocesPorque algunos se resisten a escucharSe beben el agua y ya no tienen por donde caminarLa cuarta dimensión del deseoReproduce el viento en tus gestos Esta noche se estrella contra los autosTengo sentimientos encontrados en tiLos camiones de basura salen del cieloDonde hay abismos iluminados en la promesa de vertePartes de mí hasta que regresasAlmas en pena los días que nos separanPronto podrán descansar en paz y desvanecerseEl porvenir será un jardín de niños de flores de piedrasLas partículas de piel que cada dia se desprenden del amorY en señales de humo ascienden                                                                                    AsciendenPoemas de amorPosturas sexuales de los diosesCoreografías que aprenden los planetas

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A black and white photo of a woman looking off into the distance
Photo:
Víctor Idrogo

 Tilsa Otta (Peru, 1982) has published five collections of poems, short stories, a comic in collaboration with Rita Ponce de Leon and the magic novel Lxs niñxs de oro de la alquimia sexual. A multimedia artist, Otta works across video, illustration, and text. She lives in Mexico.

An image of a man looking off into the distance
Photo:
Roberto Guerra

Farid Matuk is the author of the poetry collections This Isa Nice Neighborhood (Letter Machine Editions, 2010), The Real Horse (University of Arizona Press, 2018), and the forthcoming Moon Mirrored Indivisible (University of Chicago Press, 2025). With visual artist Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez, Matuk created the book-arts project Redolent, recipient of the 2023 Anna Rabinowitz Prize from the Poetry Society of America. From Spanish, Matuk has translated Tilsa Otta’s selected poems, publishing these under the title The Hormone of Darkness (Graywolf Press, 2024). His work has been supported by residencies from the Headlands Center for the Arts, a visiting Holloway Lectureship in the Practice of Poetry at the UC Berkeley, and a 2024 USA Fellowship from United States Artists.

a woman taking a photo of herself in a mirror behind the words "The Hormone of Darkness"

Minneapolis, Minnesota

In Tilsa Otta’s The Hormone of Darkness, we find a queer, Latinx person who has lived through iterations of authoritarian rule, and who answers these conditions by creating poetry that doubles down on a life force that precedes and exceeds received notions of the poetic. Here poetry is bawdy, fabulist, and spiritual—in short, it is alive. Otta has created a heaven where readers can go after they die.
 
Drawing from four volumes spanning Otta’s career, translator-poet Farid Matuk has curated a playlist we can dance and dream to, one that honors Otta’s drive toward liberation through both perreo in the club and transdimensional wandering among the stars.

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