It’s a little red mark—we’ve all got it.Mine is on my left hand, the one I write with.If I stare at my oven burn long enoughit unfolds into three above the radius:my wrist goes three ways, other-dimensionaland if you squint you can seemy mother’s wrist, my grandmother’s wristand in a lurch forward, the wrist ofmy daughter, mosquito-bitten, burnished and setfor the mark of the red hot grill. Por qué las mujeres nos quemamos con el hornoLa marquita roja la tenemos todas.Acá en la mano izquierda, con la que escriboestá también mi quemadura de horno.Si la miro muy fijo, sobre el radiose me despliega en tres:se me tridimensiona la muñecay entrecerrando los ojos pueden versela muñeca de mi madre, la de mi abuelay, en un tirón hacia delante, la de mi hijapicada de mosquitos, pulida y ya dispuestaa la marca de la rejilla ardiente.
Why we women get oven burns
Feature Date
Series
- Translation
Selected By
Share This Poem
Print This Poem
“Why we women get oven burns” from TRANSLATION OF THE ROUTE: by Laura Wittner.
Published by Bloodaxe Books and the Poetry Translation Centre on September 19, 2024.
English Translation Copyright © 2024 by the Poetry Translation Centre.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Laura Wittner was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she lives. She has a bachelor degree in literature from the University of Buenos Aires and pursued postgraduate studies at New York University. She presently conducts poetry and translation workshops, and works as a translator for various publishing houses. She has written and published more than forty books for children, the latest of which are El gran manual de la risa, Un cuento con zorros, and Una mosca y un oscam. Her latest books for adults are Se vive y se traduce, Diario de menopausia, and Prueba de sonido. Both her books for children and her books for adults have been translated into many languages. She has received several awards and distinctions, both national and international. She has translated books by Leonard Cohen, David Markson, M. John Harrison, Cynan Claire-Louise Bennett, Katherine Mansfield and James Schuyler, among many others, as well as many books for children.
Saule Zuk
Juana Adcock is a poet, translator and postgraduate researcher. She is the author of four poetry collections in Spanish and two in English, including I Sugar the Bones (Out-Spoken Press, 2024) which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize and for The Saltires, Scotland’s National Book Awards. She is co-editor of the anthology Temporary Archives: Poetry by women of Latin America (Arc, 2022), and her translations of Laura Wittner and of the Me’phàà language poet Hubert Matiúwàa received PEN Translates awards. She regularly performs at literary festivals across Europe, Asia, and Latin America, and she is currently completing a CHASE-funded PhD in Translation Studies at the University of East Anglia, focusing on poetry in indigenous languages of Mexico.
Hexham, Northumberland
England
Translation of the Route is the eleventh collection by the award-winning Argentine poet and translator Laura Wittner. In poems that are precise, frank and finely tuned, Wittner explores the specificities of parental and familial love, life after marriage, and the re-ignition of the self in middle age.
The ‘things’ of life – bus journeys, potted plants, thunder at night, coffee-stained books, fleeting conversations and the rest – are made full through Wittner’s ability to pinpoint in them the consequential, and even the metaphysical, manipulating language with a translator’s delicate skill. There are funny, moving pen-portraits of Wittner’s two children, suddenly grown, as well as bell-clear descriptions of the task of writing. For this is also a collection about language itself – as an interface, as a surface, and as vital communication.
"Poems of the radiant everyday. In Juana Adcock's warm translation, Laura Wittner's chatty, witty voice comes through with gorgeous clarity. Reading this book is like listening to a wise, beloved friend over coffee."
–Clare Pollard
Poetry Daily Depends on You
With your support, we make reading the best contemporary poetry a treasured daily experience. Consider a contribution today.
