Excuse me for saying so

But you look like Tuesday

was payday, and Monday had never

come.

-Alexander Hutchison

This morning, needing something to cheer me up after the day after the most depressing day of the year, I turned once again to the work of Alexander Hutchison, especially his most humorous poems, and I felt once again refreshed. Translating these poems into Spanish was a tremendous adventure which I will carry with me always.

Gavia Stellata, a selection of his work, is published in a bilingual edition in Mexico by Mantis Editores. The book launch took place at the Guadalajara Book Fair in 2015. We received our copies in November, only a few days prior to the author’s death. I will always treasure the lively debates I had with Alexander (“Sandy,” as his friends called him) on the meanings of various words and phrases – in English, Doric, and Spanish!

This was made possible thanks to an award by Creative Scotland. If you would like a copy, please let me know. I’m at juana.girasola@gmail.com.

This is the second in a series of exclusive publications out of the One-Handed project, curated by Juana Adcock and Rahul Berry, featuring Omar Pimienta, Rosalind Harvey, and Rachel McCrum http://mexicocitylit.com/one-handed-2-afternoon-light-a-house-within-a-house/#more-806

‘One-Handed is an experimental translation project. We worked by pairing Mexican and Scottish poets together. The Mexican poet translated a source text taken from the poetry collection Manca by Juana Adcock (Fondo Editorial Tierra Adentro, 2014). The resulting text was then both translated into English by a literary translator, and fed through Google Translate and sent to a Scottish poet, who used this “literal version” to produce their own translation of the poem. The source texts by Juana Adcock have been lost, decaying and falling away like a perishable item cast in plaster. Or alternatively, they can be found in the pages of the above-cited book. The focus of the One-Handed project is on the process of writing as translation and viceversa.’

Guido Floyd’s collage series Metamorphosis will be included in Collage Mexico, a forthcoming book from Mexico City Lit.

One-Handed: poetry by Mexicans, translators, Scots and Google

This is the first of three exclusive publications from the One-Handed project in Mexico City Lit. Poems by Amaranta Caballero and Lorna Callery, with Guido Floyd’s collage series Metamorphosis. Read the poems here: http://mexicocitylit.com/one-handed-1-survival-journey-into-exile/

One-Handed is an experimental translation project, curated by Juana Adcock and Rahul Bery: ‘We worked by pairing Mexican and Scottish poets together. The Mexican poet translated a source text taken from the poetry collection Manca by Juana Adcock (Fondo Editorial Tierra Adentro, 2014). The resulting text was then both translated into English by a literary translator, and fed through Google Translate and sent to a Scottish poet, who used this “literal version” to produce their own translation of the poem. The source texts by Juana Adcock have been lost, decaying and falling away like a perishable item cast in plaster. Or alternatively, they can be found in the pages of the above-cited book. The focus of the One-Handed project is on the process of writing as translation and viceversa.

Published in fourfold, issue 2, March 2014

Invitación muy cordial a quienes anden en Monterrey por esas fechas.

Is It Work? : Patricia Lockwood : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation.