Weaving the Threads of Desire

We will work on a similar exercise but this time reading the Brazilian poet Hilda Hilst, I will read a fragment of her book Do desejo [On Desire] the poem X in Portuguese and offer the English translation. Our focus will now shift on naming desire from an author that writes from edges of language. How is that conveyed in translation? How can we work either translating these poems into a third language or using them as fuel to write from our own perspective on desire? We return again to the word(s) we selected in the beginning of the lesson and think if we can incorporate them into the new poem we have either written or translated.      

X

Pulsas como se fossem de carne as borboletas.
E o que vem a ser isso? perguntas.
Digo que assim há de começar o meu poema.
Então te queixas que nunca estou contigo
Que de improviso lanço versos ao ar
Ou falo de pinheiros escoceses, aqueles
Que apetecia a Talleyrand cuidar.
Ou ainda quando grito ou desfaleço
Adivinhas sorrisos, códigos, conluios
Dizes que os devo ter nos meus avessos.
Pois pode ser.
Para pensar o Outro, eu deliro ou versejo.
Pensá-LO é gozo. Então não sabes? INCORPÓREO É O DESEJO.

X

You pulsate as if butterflies were made of flesh.
And what does that mean? you ask.
I say that’s how my poem will start.
So you complain that I’m never with you
that I suddenly hurl lines into the air
that I speak of Scottish pine trees, those
that Talleyrand felt like taking care of.
Or even when I scream or lose heart
you guess smiles, codes, plots
you say I must have them in my insides.
Well, maybe.
To think of the Other, I hallucinate or versify.
Thinking HIM is joy. So you don’t know? DESIRE IS INCORPOREAL.

Translated by Laura Cesarco Eglin

Hilda Hilst

Hilda Hilst was born in 1930 in Jaú, Brazil. A prolific writer whose work spans many different genres, including poetry, fiction, drama and newspaper columns, her eccentric personality — she claimed she would go to a planet called Marduk in her afterlife — attracted more public attention than her work. She was a beautiful woman with an active social life in São Paulo, but at a certain point she decided to retreat to the countryside to dedicate herself entirely to writing. She died in 2004, and while she had already received some public recognition, many of her important books were already out-of-print by then. Her popularity has grown since then, and all of her books have been published in new editions. Some of her work has also been translated into Italian, French, Spanish and German.

Laura Cesarco Eglin is a poet and translator from Uruguay, and co-founding editor of Veliz Books. She is the author of three collections of poetry and several chapbooks. She translates from Spanish, Portuguese, Portuñol, and Galician, and her translations include Of Death. Minimal Odes by Hilda Hilst (co•im•press), winner of the 2019 Best Translated Book Award in Poetry, and by Lara Dopazo Ruibal, longlisted for both the 2023 PEN Award and the National Translation Award in Poetry. She teaches creative writing at the University of Houston-Downtown.  

Extension

I invite you to read a selection of poems by Hilda Hilst accompanied by English translations by Beatriz Bastos and Laura Cesarco Eglin.