{"id":463,"date":"2009-08-31T20:00:51","date_gmt":"2009-08-31T20:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/nucleus-import\/?p=463"},"modified":"2009-08-31T20:00:51","modified_gmt":"2009-08-31T20:00:51","slug":"carmen-beltran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/carmen-beltran\/","title":{"rendered":"CARMEN BELTR\u00c1N"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

\nCarmen Beltr\u00e1n was born in Logro\u00f1o, Spain in 1981. She has her degree in humanities and is a member of the Asociaci\u00f3n Cultural Planeta Clandestino (Underground Cultural Planet Association) as well as Ediciones del 4 de Agosto (August 4th Publications). She has collaborated with literary magazines such as Portales, F\u00e1bula y Bart<\/i> and has published a book of poetry Prohibido jugar<\/i> [Playing Prohibited] (CELYA, Salamanca, 2005) as well as several poems and short stories in different compilation books. She was the coordinator for the book La otra voz. Poes\u00eda femenina en La Rioja<\/i> [The Other Voice. Feminine Poetry in La Rioja] (Ediciones del 4 de Agosto, 2005). Her poetry has also appeared in the anthology La verdadera historia de los hombres<\/i> [The True Story of Men] (Eclipsados, Zaragoza, 2005). Currently she is the coordinator of the Aula Literaria de Logro\u00f1o [The Literary Lecture Hall of Logro\u00f1o] as well as the literary magazine Portales<\/i>. <\/p>\n

——————
\nWinter Poem<\/b><\/p>\n

I walk alone on the street now
\nSlowly, so as not to slip
\nI look up and see steam on the window panes.
\nA young boy in the window.
\nAlone.
\nA girl about my age in pajamas.
\nAlone in another window.
\nMore steam through which I cannot make out the faces.
\nEveryone is waiting for the sky
\nto pour down frozen cotton without fury,
\nfor the white cloak to freeze the sadness
\nof this season with an embrace,
\nfor the spectacular snow to bring them
\n(perhaps the only big hug of the day)
\nheat from the touch of other bodies
\nwhich huddle together behind each window
\nto contemplate the sweet shrapnel of winter.
\nBut a clear sky is opening
\nand a sun ray, cold like steel
\nstrikes the shy and sleet filled window panes
\nwhich gave so much light to the afternoon.
\nThe sun has never been so disappointed.
\nThe steam dissolves,
\nthe faces become hidden in their routines
\nand I keep walking alone on the street
\n(more alone if you like)
\ncursing this untimely January sun.<\/p>\n

——————
\nCold<\/b><\/p>\n

Nothing is palpitating below the ice.
\nI soon found out that under your cold skin
\nthere never lived any heartbeat
\nnor any murmur of blood.
\nBegin, my friend,
\nby considering an ends to the other
\nand not the means
\nand perhaps you will save yourself from dying
\nfrozen.<\/p>\n

—————-
\nGrowing<\/b><\/p>\n

It’s always autumn on the calendar.
\nThe months dry up and the leaves,
\nsometimes parched by a very sweet heat,
\nother times frozen in distress,
\nkeep falling
\nhushing
\nfalling.
\nAs this fashion
\nof tree that I am
\nages,
\nI continue to better understand the forest.
\nWeeping willow
\nI have harmed myself a thousand times before,
\nI have poked around my bark with knives
\n(where would that vitality hide
\nwhich so painfully kept me alive?)
\nI poked around my roots with my fingers
\ncrazy about trying to hollow me out
\nabout denying me nutrition,
\nI rummaged through my heart of shattered wood,
\nI touched it and my breathing halted.
\nFoolish, stubborn tree,
\nI didn’t know that such a pain would save me
\nor that, by chance,
\nit would only succeed in making me stronger.<\/p>\n


\n*Poems translated from the Spanish by Andr\u00e9s Alfaro<\/i><\/p>\n

If you’d like to read the originals, check out Carmen Beltran’s Afinidades Electivas page HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Carmen Beltr\u00e1n was born in Logro\u00f1o, Spain in 1981. She has her degree in humanities and is a member of the Asociaci\u00f3n Cultural Planeta Clandestino (Underground Cultural Planet Association) as well as Ediciones del 4 de Agosto (August 4th Publications). She has collaborated with literary magazines such as Portales, F\u00e1bula y Bart and has published […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":548,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/548"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mahmag.org\/archive-english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}