Ni visible, ni palpable

This expanded edition of Ruben Medina's 2010 chapbook Nomadic Nation / Nacion Nomada includes a new introduction by the author about his poetics as well as new translations of work originally written in Spanish. Composed in English, Spanish and Spanglish, these important poems reflect on the lives of immigrants/emigrants, our restless spirits, and the human journey: "We are at the periphery of the center / and at the center of the periphery / at the same time." Writes Medina in "Una poetica norteada" "There is no purity in language. There never has been. ... Interference can at times simply...

Cuando amanece, los niños refugiados corren al centro del temple: Europa parece ciega, escucha sorda. Si pueden llegar a las puertas, aceptará 400 mil refugiados para que hagan gustosamente mondadientes para las ruedas dentadas del capitalismo. Estarán hambrientos, sedientos pero aún vivos si pueden pasar las olas del Egeo, los garrotes de la policía griega, las vallas de alambre húngaras, los ferrocarriles macedonios, si pueden llegar a Europa.

Una manera de expresar lo que se siente cuando se est viviendo una serie de circunstancias a veces de amor intenso, o desamor, agradecimiento o ingratitud, los pensamientos que se basan a veces en fantasas que uno quisiera vivir, y tantos hechos que los Gobiernos o cometen mal o dejan de realizar sus obligaciones por la corrupcin, o por la desmedida ambicin de poder y riquezas, simplemente una forma de ver las circunstancias de la vida. Por lo que ver un poco de los pensamientos que se crean por las circunstancias de la vida quizs ayuden a reflexionar la vida misma.

Gabriela Mistral (1889-1967), Chile's 'other' great poet of the twentieth century, is little known outside the Spanish-speaking world, and unlike Pablo Neruda has not been extensively translated into English. She deserves better, particularly as the first Latin American recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature (1945), and this selection of her poetry is designed to introduce her to an English-speaking public. Born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga in the Elqui valley in the 'little north' of Chile, she became a schoolteacher at the age of fifteen and went on to become an educator of international...