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Chus Pato | Days of Poetry and Wine
Chus Pato (Ourense, 1955) writes in Galician and is the author of 11 books of poems, published between 1991 and 2019. Her books are translated and published in USA, UK, Canada, Spain, Argentina, Portugal, Netherlands, and Bulgaria, and her poems have been included in dozens of Galician, Spanish, and international anthologies. She has performed at at poetry festivals throughout Europe and in the Americas and her work has been honoured with various prizes including the Spanish National Critics’ Prize and, twice, the Losada Diéguez Prize. Pato lives in the centre of Galicia in NW Spain, near the forest of Catasós, home to the oldest chestnut trees in Europe. Her most recent published book is Un libre favor, translated by Erín Moure as The Face of the Quartzes (Veliz Books, 2021). She is a member of PEN Galicia and the Royal Galician Academy.
The Open Letter is part of the Art Act project, supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union. The poet is coming to the festival with the support of  Embassy of Spain in Ljubljana.
from one of its wings
the beak plunged into flesh
five fingers held over the mouth
o pico enterrado na carne
ningunha interxección para o asombro
boca celada polos cinco dedos
It was the day of my execution
I moved easily, could even embark
that my face is a novel
the pages struck from it are the humus of my character
on the table that might have been mine
a pile of forms I never filled in
the day fritters away as it usually does
and in recuperating from losses
—we tied our hair back with black ribbons—
you throw your belongings into the bag
maybe you’ll be unable to get off the train
be unable to board
from the color of time I get my character
like the March hare
there’s just you sitting down at that table
facing the houses you sought to inhabit
a wind blew them away
Era o día da miña execución
movíame con facilidade, podía mesmo embarcar
lembraba todos os códigos
que o meu rostro é unha novela
as páxinas excluídas son o humus do meu carácter
na mesa que puido ser a miña
amoréanse os expedientes que nunca tramitei
gástase o día no que se gasta
e en recuperar as perdas
un prendedor de pelo
-eran negras as fitas coas que atabamos o pelo[1]non se recupera
botas as pertenzas no bolso
se cadra non poderás baixar do tren
da cor do tempo é o meu carácter
como a lebre de marzo
só ti sentas ante esa mesa
diante das casas que procuraches habitar
That’s why we smelled rust / Por iso uliamos a óxido
That’s why we smelled rust
we weren’t able to get to the prisms of the lighthouse
we wanted to see the sea garden
or swim out to the island
that’s why we smelled tar
our feet slid outward upon contact with the granite
we leaped straight in
opened the skin of the waters
for a moment we buoyed up the weight of the maternal
we hew the muscles of the glottis
the saltpeter the iodine the algae the oil the intelligence
the voices of God
Por iso uliamos a óxido
non eramos quen de chegar até os cristais do faro
desexabamos ver a horta do mar
ou nadar e chegar á illa
por iso uliamos a brea
a fondo de gamela
os nosos pés abríanse ao contacto co granito
ou en forma de acio
abriamos a tona das augas
por un intre soportabamos o peso do materno
tallamos os músculos da glote
o salitre o iodo as algas o aceite a intelixencia
as voces de Deus
we who can’t be seen or heard
we uphold the ogives
we’re loaded onto trains saying
we keep crumbling in huge castles
and on the peaks
ridges that cut the skin
we who speak here are stones
the flight of the cranes*
* The flight of cranes appears in Homer’s Iliad (3.1–9), and
also in Hölderlin’s “The Archipelago.” In Pato, the stones (Gali[1]cia is stones) profess their great age; they witnessed the Homeric
as que non podemos ser ouvidas nin ser vistas
imos en tren e dicimos
imos esbarroando en castelos enormes
cristas que cortan a pel
e desafían os ventos
quen aquí falamos somos pedras
o voo dos grous
Days of Poetry and Wine in LJUBLJANA: Women's Voices
Carolyn Forché (USA), Brynne Rebele-Henry (USA), Chus Pato (ESP), S. D. Curtis (GBR), Vesna Liponik (SVN)
Ljubljana / MGLC Švicarija
Open Letter to Europe
Open Letter to Europe 2022
Ptuj / City Market
Chus Pato About Open Letter to Europe 2022
Ptuj / Dominican Monastery
Days of Poetry and Wine in LAAFELD
Kristina Kočan (SVN), Chus Pato (ESP)
Laafeld / Pavel House
Anna Aguilar-Amat (ESP), Vinko Möderndorfer (SVN) vide reading, Chus Pato (ESP), Anna Terék (HUN), Syds Wiersma (NLD)
Ptuj / City Market
List of all authors
List of all authors
Neubergerjeva ulica 30, Ljubljana
T: 01/ 200 37 00
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