Excerpts From WIDE SCREEN
Original by Víctor Cabrera
Translated, from the Spanish, by James Richie
from “William Blake Arrives in the Violent Station”
Groundwork for the metaphysics of Westerns:
Cowboys who drink the shadowy thirst of an apparently day for night take
Evanescent bounty hunters and ghostly wenches found the remotely provable background
Suddenly everything takes on a dream density:
But only one passenger gets off in Machine Foreseeing fraud after confusion in his name
His suitcase is not for this trip either: he hides the destiny code in his verses cautious prop handling
The man does not know but guesses that sainthood too has its masks:
The image faintly resembles a Marriage between Heaven and Hell
from “A Sad and Beautiful World”
There is a contiguity a neutral point a split where two gazes coincide:
a
cross
roads
What matters at this point is not choosing a lane or the destination where a road will lead
Rather, this momentary impasse,
a fleeting and random encounter with
a destination not belonging to us
de “William Blake arriba a la estación violenta”
Apuntes para una metafísica del Western:
Cowboys que beben sed de sombra de una toma velada a todas luces
Evanescentes mercenarios y putas vaporosas se funden en el plano de lo remotamente comprobable
De repente todo adquiere la densidad del sueño:
pueblo Pero en Machine sólo baja un pasajero En su nombre se adivina la confusión
antes que la impostura Su valija tampoco es para este viaje: esconde la cifra de un
destino entre versos de cuidada utilería
El hombre no lo sabe pero intuye que también la santidad tiene sus máscaras:
La imagen recuerda oscuramente un matrimonio entre el cielo y el infierno
de “A Sad and Beautiful World”
Hay una colindancia un punto neutro un empalme en que coindicen dos miradas:
un cruce
de
caminos
Lo importante en este punto no es tanto la elección de una vereda o
el final al que conduce aquella vía
sino ese empate momentáneo el encuentro azaroso y fugaz con un destino
que no nos pertenece
Víctor Cabrera (1973) is an author and editor originally from Arriaga in the Chiapas State of Mexico. He is the author of many volumes of poetry including Signos de traslado (2007), Wide Screen (2009), Filipo contra los persas (2010), Guijarros (2014), Un jardín arrasado de cenizas (2014), Mística del hastío (2017), and the forthcoming anthology Goyira. In addition to his poetry, Cabrera has also authored the collection of short stories Episodios célebres (2006). Cabrera edited and wrote the introduction to the collected poetry volume David Huerta: Poesía moderna (2019) as well as the collection of essays Una raya más: ensayos sobre Eduardo Lizalde (2010). Cabrera is a recipient of the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y los Artes (FONCA) grant. He works as an editor for the literary press (Dirección de Literatura y Fomento a la Lectura) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). His writing has been recognized and included in several anthologies of contemporary Mexican poetry.
James Richie (1992) is an interdisciplinary researcher and a literary translator. He has translated poetry and plays from Russian, Italian, and Spanish into English, and these translations have appeared in a variety of publications including Journal of Italian Translation, Four Centuries: Russian Poetry in Translation, Anomaly, and the Asymptote Blog. His academic writing has appeared in the journals Translation Review, and Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, and Culture, as well as the edited volume Cross Cultural Influences between Japanese and American Pop Culture: Powers of Pop (2023). He is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Louisville, pursuing his PhD in Humanities. His main research interests include contemporary Mexican poetry, the Siglo de Oro (Baroque period), film studies, translation studies, and philosophy of art. He teaches coursework on the humanities and film studies as part of his graduate teaching assistantship.
Translator’s Note:
The following excerpts are from Víctor Cabrera’s collection WIDE SCREEN (2009), a work of poetry that explores the filmography of American independent director Jim Jarmusch. These fragments are from the section “A Sad and Beautiful World,” which draws inspiration from Jarmusch’s absurdist crime film Down by Law (1986) and the section “William Blake arriba a la estación violenta” [William Blake Arrives in the Violent Station] which is inspired by Jarmusch’s surrealist Western Dead Man (1995). Both excerpts carry over literary allusions from Jarmusch’s films. There is an allusion to Robert Frost reflected in the poetry about Down by Law and an allusion to William Blake in the poetry about Dead Man. Each allusion originates in the corresponding film and provides an opportunity to reflect critically on the nature of poetry in Cabrera’s literary recreation of Jarmusch’s films. Throughout WIDE SCREEN, there are many instances in which Cabrera engages with the subject matter, themes, and formal elements (such as cinematography, editing, and mise en scène) of Jarmusch’s films. In addition to the dialogue with Jarmusch’s filmography and Anglophone poetry, Cabrera also incorporates several allusions to the poetry of Octavio Paz throughout this collection (and the title “William Blake Arrives in the Violent Station” is one such allusion).