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POEM "THAT MOMENT AN ENORMOUS TAIL" BY BRAZILIAN POET ALICE SANT'ANNA



ALICE SANT'ANNA is a Brazilian poet, born in 1988 in Rio de Janeiro. She graduated in journalism in 2010. At the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, she earned her Masters Degree in Literature and Culture (2013) and later a PhD in Literature.


In 2013, Sant'Anna was a visiting fellow in Comparative Literature at Brown University, Rhode Island, in the USA. From 2010 to 2016, she co-edited the Brazilian literary magazine Serrote. Since 2016, she works as an editor at the Brazilian publishing house, Companhia das Letras.


Her work has been translated into Spanish and English and she has been a guest at literary festivals in Sweden, Latvia, France, USA, and elsewhere.


With a poetic style that is colloquial, limpidly imagistic, and dreamlike, Sant'Anna follows in the path of Brazil's "marginal generation" poets of the 1970s.


Her books of poetry include: Dobradura (2008), Pingue-pongue (2012),

Rabo de baleia (2013) – won the 2013 APCA Poetry Prize from the São

Paulo Art Critics’ Association and published in English as Tail of the Whale with translation by Tiffany Higgins (2016), Ilha da decepção (2014), Vinhetas (2015), Pé de ouvido (2016), and Speak low (2021) – translated by Eric MB Becker.


Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons



THAT MOMENT AN ENORMOUS TAIL BY ALICE SANT'ANNA



of the whale would cross the room

without much ado the beast

would dive deep into the floorboards

and surface without us noticing

on the sofa the missing subject

what I would like to but do not tell you

is to embrace the whale to plunge deep with her

I feel a scary tedium to these days

of standing water attracting mosquitoes

in spite of the agitation of these days

exhaustion of these days

the body that arrives exhausted at home

with hand stretched out in search

of a cup of water

any urgency to follow through to tuesday

or wednesday just floats and the only wish

is to embrace the enormous

tail of the whale and to follow her


TRANSLATION BY TIFFANY HIGGINS



UM ENORME RABO DE BALEIA POR ALICE SANT'ANNA



cruzaria a sala nesse momento

sem barulho algum o bicho

afundaria nas tábuas corridas

e sumiria sem que percebêssemos

no sofá a falta de assunto

o que eu queria mas não te conto

é abraçar a baleia mergulhar com ela

sinto um tédio pavoroso desses dias

de água parada acumulando mosquito

apesar da agitação dos dias

da exaustão dos dias

o corpo que chega exausto em casa

com a mão esticada em busca

de um copo d’água

a urgência de seguir para uma terça

ou quarta boia e a vontade

é de abraçar um enorme

rabo de baleia seguir com ela


SOURCE: FROM HER POETRY COLLECTION, RABO DE BALEIA (TAIL OF THE WHALE), BRAZIL 2013, AS PUBLISHED ON THE BLOG THE [BLANK] GARDEN.