Humans

• Israel Dominguez (author)
• Margaret Randall (translator)
• JR (artist)
• José Parlá (artist)

ISBN

978-1-946031-22-8

LCCN

2017919158

Page count

128

Keywords

Poetry, Essay, Essays, Biography, Archive, Translation, Spanish, Spanish-English, Spanish To English, Dual Language, Memory, In Memoriam, Cuba, Cuban Poetry, Cuban Spanish

Publication date

2018

Language(s)

Spanish, English

Publication media type

Print Document
Translation
Dual-Language

Publication series

Glossarium: Unsilenced Texts

Viaje de Regreso / Return Trip

Viaje de regreso / Return Trip is a compendium of nostalgia, in which a familiar street, an old photograph, or memory of when the trains ran on precision time take up residence in poems in which a mature philosophy of life breaks through a patina of childhood wonder. A clothesline becomes a highway. A plum tree calms the spirit. A public restroom holds a dark menace. A woman’s name floats in a swimming pool. A hero of the Great War looms upon the horizon. Through it all, the music and culture of the country to the north refuse to fade into oblivion; despite the ever-present weight of political attack from the United States, a love for its popular culture remains familiar and strong. The poet writes: “Glory belongs to my neighbor / who owns a Buick / and wears a lot of gold.”

Margaret Randall’s clear and lively translation of Viaje de Regreso / Return Trip invites us into the life and work of a poet born in the early 1970s, nearly 25 years into the Revolution. Domínguez’s poems represent the lyric tradition in the best sense; they are poems investigating the emotion of the experience living in one’s body, in one’s mind. Written from a photograph or a memory, these poems explore love, family, spirituality, material reality. Many of these poems are dedicated to friends, family, mentors, and attest to a relationality and love that’s both humbling and inspiring. In these poems of dense image and rich sensation, Randall presents us with the gift of her translation of Israel Domínguez’s poetry.” — Stephen Motika

“A breathtaking book by a major Cuban poet. Margaret Randall’s translations beautifully embody Israel Dominguez’s yearning for a future of justice for all. His yearning is his gift to all of us who seek a different way of being in the world. The Return Trip is a welcome and necessary poetry.” — Demetria Martinez, recipient of an International Latino Book Award and an American Book Award for The Block Captain’s Daughter.

About the Contributor(s)

Israel Domínguez was born in Placetas, Villa Clara, in 1973. Throughout his childhood his father recited poetry, and he and his mother often accompanied him to his performances. By the time Domínguez graduated from the University of Havana in 1996, his family had moved to Matanzas and he joined them there. His work has been awarded numerous prizes. Among his poetry collections are: Hojas de cal (2001), Collage mientras avanza mi carro de equipaje (2002), Sobre un fondo de arena (2004), Después de acompañar a William Jones (2007), and Viaje de regreso (2011). In an interview, Domínguez has said: "Memory is a return trip, inherent of course to the human being. In my poetry it is not simply an instrument but also its landscape, that is to say, a poetic event [ . . . ] It's not a matter of reducing memory to its individual manifestation because collective memory influences the individual and viceversa." Domínguez lives in Matanzas, where he also works as a translator. Like so many others, his professional life has been affected by Cuba's precarious economy; for a number of years, and because he could earn so much more in the tourism sector, he quit a job in his profession to take one as a bellboy at a hotel on Varadero Beach. The experience provided material for a book of poems. Happily, he is once more working in his chosen field.

Margaret Randall is a feminist poet with a long history of social activism (in Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua, as well as the United States). More than 150 published books reflect her personal experience and generational struggles. She has also translated much poetry by others. In Mexico, she co-founded El Corno Emplumado, a bilingual journal that published more than 700 writers from 35 countries. Returning to the US in 1984, the government ordered her deported, claiming her writing subversive. She won her case in 1989. Among her recent awards are the Poet of Two Hemisphere Prize (Quito, Ecuador 2019) and the 2020 George Garrett Award given by AWP.

The image used on the cover of VIAJE is part of the "Wrinkles of the City" collaboration between JR and José Parla, shot in Havana (Used with permission from the artists). Learn more about the artists and this collaboration here.