Stephanie Diaz

on translating Rosario Castellanos

Above all, this poem seemed both intensely personal and yet widely universal. In this poem Castellanos addresses her quarrels with the concept of what a relationship is and what this means to her existence as an individual. I think that it’s particularly important to consider the time and place in which “Poesía no eres tú” was created, as the role of women at this point in time was often very restrictive.

In translating this poem, I stumbled on the first stanza because of the line “Y eso es mentira.” First of all, the line begins with the word “and,” a conjunction which every elementary teacher clearly told me should never start a sentence. In the original version I found that y has a more disruptive quality because the sharp sound of its pronunciation does not allow you to rest after the end of the first sentence, but instead pushes you into Castellanos’ next definitive line. Secondly, the sentence itself is a bit tricky since it does not use an article. Literally, the line reads “And that is lie.” To clear up this issue, I first tried to simply insert the article and say, “And that is a lie.” However, I found that this version did not quite pack the same punch that Castellano’s did. I then realized that what made her version so impactful was that I could imagine the lines being spoken in an argument, so my translation of “and that is wrong” was my effort to replicate this effect.