10 Questions for Laura Cesarco Eglin

- By Danielle Brown and Amal Zaman

"Sharp
hurting like stakes
or licking so sweet

How will you take me?"
—from Da morte. Odes mínimas which appears in the Summer 2016 issue (Volume 57, Issue 2).

Tell us about one of the first pieces you’ve written.

I started out by journaling, and then the entries turned into prose poems, even though I didn't really realize at the time. When I was a teenager I started to write poems in verse.

What writer(s) or work(s) have influenced the way you write now?

My first influences were the Uruguayan Idea Vilariño, the Argentinean Alejandra Pizarnik, and the Peruvian César Vallejo. Then came Emily Dickinson, Sharon Olds, William Carlos Williams, Claudia Rankine, and the Brazilian Ana Cristina Cesar. Influences change with time. Actually, I think I am influenced by everything I read; it teaches me what I am drawn to, what I want to move away from, how to find my own voice. It dares me to push myself in other directions. For example, a few years ago I read Maureen Thorson’s Applies to Oranges and I fell in love with the poems: the way that one connected to the other, the physicality of the book itself, and also because I am very partial to oranges. I read someone and I am not necessarily immediately influenced by them, or sometimes, I am not aware of the influence or of how I have been influenced. I also wrote my dissertation on three wonderful poets who have been with me for several years and I am sure they have influenced (and still do!) my work: the Brazilian Hilda Hilst, the Uruguayan Ida Vitale, and the Argentinean Juana Bignozzi.

What other professions have you worked in?

Aside from being a poet and translator, I have taught and teach Spanish, Portuguese and Creative Writing. I am also the co-founding editor and publisher of Veliz Books. In the past, I’ve worked as an editor for two bilingual English-Spanish literary journals, as a waitress, as a salesperson at a bakery, as a customer care representative in a high-tech company, as a transcriber of taped classes on VCRs, and as a secretary.

Is there a city or place, real or imagined, that influences your writing?

I’ve lived in Uruguay; Rochester, NY; Israel; El Paso, Texas; and Boulder, Colorado, and they have all left a mark on me. A place is not just a place; it’s a culture, a language, people, geography, weather, topography, conventions to be negotiated, spaces that generate questions about identity, etc. Many of these places and everything that they entail appear in my poems.

What inspired you to write this piece? (translations of poems from Hilda Hilst’s Da morte. Odes mínimas)

I’ve been studying Hilda Hilst’s work, not just her poetry but her prose as well, for a few years now. I find this author absolutely fascinating because her writing is intelligent, it engages with philosophy, it’s irreverent of social expectations, it’s playful. This book in particular, Da morte. Odes mínimas (Of Death. Minimal Odes), is deceptively simple. In reality it is complex and powerful. Da morte. Odes mínimas opens our world to complexities and possibilities of living fully and ways of inhabiting time. These complexities demand new language. Hilst always complained that people neither understood nor read her. I translate Hilst’s work because I want to read and engage with it, and I definitely want others who do not know Portuguese, to be able to read her.

Who usually gets the first read of your work?

Until I was in my mid-twenties I used to show my poetry to my brother. Now I show it to friends who are either poets or writers. It has to be someone who I trust, because when you show your work to someone, you open yourself up to a moment of extreme vulnerability, similar to the space you are in when writing poetry or when translating. With translations, it’s different. I still haven’t found that person who I show my work to before sending it out.

Do you have any rituals or traditions that you do in order to write?

Before writing poetry, I always read. And before I even dare translate: I study that author, I read them, I “live” with their work.

If you could work in another art form what would you choose?

I’d love to dance.

What did/do you want to be when you grow up?

I wanted to be a bus conductor, I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to be a librarian, I wanted to be a poet, I wanted to be a translator, I wanted to be a publisher. I am a poet, a translator, and a publisher. My dreams have come true.

What are you reading right now?

The book I’m reading now is Mezzanines by Matthew Olzmann.

Laura Cesarco Eglin is the author of three collections of poetry: Llamar al agua por su nombre, Sastrería, and Los brazos del saguaro. A selection of poems from Sastrería was translated collaboratively into English with Teresa Williams and subsequently published as the chapbook Tailor Shop: Threads. Cesarco Eglin recently published the chapbook Occasions to Call Miracles Appropriate. She has translated works of Colombian, Mexican, Uruguayan, and Brazilian authors into English. Her poems and translations have appeared in journals in the US, UK, Spain, Mexico, and Uruguay. She is the co-founding editor and publisher of Veliz Books.