Titles from... / Títulos de... GALVART PUBLISHING
OMNIPRESENCE / OMNIPRESENCIA by Dania Rodríguez Alfonso
The rhythm of the Caribbean is evident in the lines of Omipresencia / Omnipresence. Dania is a new voice in poetry, and this is her first international presentation. Her Cuban Spanish verse is delicious to read and listen to; her dialogue is strong and sensually soft.
El ritmo del Caribe es evidente en las líneas de Omnipresencia / Omnipresence. Dania es una nueva voz en la poesía, y esta es su primera presentación internacional. Su verso español-cubano es delicioso para leer y para escuchar; su dialogo es fuerte y suavemente sensual.
ORIGIN
(excerpts)
I have in my hair
black coweries and
eyes of honey.
I was born of the
jungle, vegetable creole,
in the fresh
memory of thirsty nights,
made of nocturnal mint
and dawn caimitos.
...
Shhh...let it sound,
hear a black song.
Sing...
hear my black jungle,
forest, destiny,
song.
ORIGEN
(excerpts)
Traigo en los cabellos
caracoles negros y
ojos de miel.
Nací del
monte, vegetal, criollo,
en el recuerdo
fresco de noches sedientas,
hecha de
hierbabuena nocturna
y camitos de amanecer.
...
Ssss...deja que suene,
escucha un negro cantar.
Canta...
escucha mi negro monte,
selva, destino,
canto.
Trade paperback, 5.5x8.5, xviii, 62 pp.
ISBN 0-9644836-8-8, LCCN 2001139356, 2003.
In English and Spanish.
Translated by Alicia Zavala Galván, cover art by Enedina
Casarez Vasquez, Introduction by Felipe Lazaro.
$12.95
A vigorous and lyrical dreamsense guides the poems in Dania
Rodríguez Alfonso's Omnipresence. Her rhythms are
strong, and her ideas and imagery evoke a neatly sassy sensibility
that's capable of exquisite longing.
--James Hoggard, co-winner of the 1999 Soeurette Diehl Fraser
Award for literary translation for Alone Against The Sea by
Raul Mesa (1998).
Poetry has many faces and the one it wears in Omnipresence
is a familiar tropical one of lush gardens and deep oceans of self.
Dare I say, a familiar female face? After all it flirts and
castigates and powerfully speaks of interiors and of secrets, regrets
and silences. Time. Light. Birds. Swords. Seeds. All of these and a
path, a vereda tropical, a rambling lush path opens before us as we
read these poems full of insight and passion. The words, beautiful
and subdued, belie the power and depth of the images and thoughts.
Rodríguez Alfonso knows just what her thoughts must wear to
please the eye, the ear and most of all the heart and soul. Brava! Omnipresence
is ably translated with the nuanced and subtle language of the original.
--Norma Cantu, author, Canícula: Snapshots of a
Girlhood en la frontera (1995); Telling To Live (2001); editor,
Chicana Traditions (2002).
Between questions that do not expect answers, and answers that are
much more than questions, are accurate verses. Dania spreads the
enchantment of suggestion, and without dramatization, without
nostalgias invites us to share the remnants of a country that ages
precociously by the effect of unfortunate circumstances, but without
discarding the hope that in her verses shine the magic ray of light
when it filters through the cracks of a wall of old planks. Saints
and Orishas from the altar of the country bless the Cubaness of this
poetry collection.
--Julio Ernesto Cintado, author, Cuaderno de un viaje
sin retorno (2003).
"In OMNIPRESENCE we are before a new
voice, but highly original, whose maturity demonstrates to us,
precisely, the valor and acceptance of the newest Cuban poetry
written by women. Going over this moving collection, we enter an
imaginary world, but at the same time one real like all existence
with all its hopes and uneasiness where love and disaffection
blossom, and moulds a tremendous challenge--like all true poetry--where
the author demythifies the world and the time in which she has had
to live."
--From the Introduction by Felipe Lázaro, author, Cuban
Women Poets in New York (1990) and "Poesía Cubana:
La Isla entera" (1995).