"Speech on the Body" by Sara Uribe, translated by JD Pluecker

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September 6, 2024 
 

Speech on the Body

Sara Uribe
translated from the Spanish by JD Pluecker

Let’s say something about distances that escape through the body. About what the body needs to say as its joints go silent. Let’s say the body needs to remain quiet to say something about distances. Something left undone, you clarify. Something we did not say and now these swift fingers attempt to stammer on the keyboard. Because, after all, what are we but awkward fingers stammering in an attempt to name? Trainees? Tightrope walkers? We bet everything we had that the body could say something about our distances. Did we lose it all? What was it, anyway, that everything that we bet? What was it but the body and its distances? Let’s say something now, that nothing has been left standing. That someone delivers a speech to us about that everything left unsaid. Say someone, for example, stands upon the ruins and delivers an eloquent speech on the void. Or on what, once broken—after the collapse—can no longer sustain itself. Say someone—despite the collapse—sustains themself on an empty speech. Let’s say something about the body that falls on the ruins or on the void or on the collapse. Let’s say something about a bet that in the void vanishes. Say someone, say that speech mentions distances or everything the body did not say. Say someone flaunts a border. Say someone else tries to defile it, you add. Say someone knows their body is also a distance. Say someone builds themself up or rebuilds themself out of distances that open or close. Say someone rewrites herself with a speech of an other. Say someone or say their distances. Say everything be said and simultaneously each of the words written here be lost. Say someone trims off all the lifeless branches. Say each of the fallen stones give shape to a new structure. Say each word might be a stone and no one throws the first. Say someone structures a body as distance. Say someone names themself in the loss. Say the unbreathable air from the fires is expelled, is vanished. Say someone. A trainee or a tightrope walker. Say a body or a  speech. Say this distance be sufficient to name ourselves otherwise. 

 



Discurso sobre el cuerpo


Digamos algo sobre las distancias que escapan por el cuerpo. Sobre lo que el cuerpo necesita decir mientras enmudecen sus articulaciones. Digamos que el cuerpo necesita quedarse quieto para decir algo sobre las distancias. Algo que quedó pendiente, aclaras. Algo que no dijimos y que ahora estos dedos céleres sobre el teclado intentan balbucear. Porque, después de todo ¿qué somos sino balbuceos en torpes dedos que intentan nombrar? ¿Aprendices? ¿Equilibristas? Apostamos todo lo que teníamos a que el cuerpo podría decir algo sobre nuestras distancias ¿Lo perdimos todo? ¿Qué fue, en todo caso, ese todo que apostamos? ¿Qué fue sino el cuerpo y sus distancias? Digamos algo ahora que ya nada queda en pie. Que alguien nos dé un discurso sobre todo aquello que quedó sin decirse. Que alguien, por ejemplo, se ponga en pie sobre las ruinas y dicte un elocuente discurso sobre el vacío. O sobre lo que una vez roto, tras el derrumbe, ya no puede sostenerse en sí mismo. Que alguien, a pesar del derrumbe se sostenga sobre un discurso vacío. Digamos algo sobre el cuerpo que cae sobre las ruinas o sobre el vacío o sobre el derrumbe. Digamos algo sobre una apuesta que en el vacío se esfuma. Que alguien, que ese discurso hable de las distancias o de todo aquello que el cuerpo no dijo. Que alguien ostente una frontera. Que alguien más intente profanarla, añades. Que alguien sepa que su cuerpo es también una distancia. Que alguien se construya o se  reconstruya a partir de distancias que se abren o que se cierran. Que alguien se reescriba con un discurso ajeno. Que alguien o que sus distancias. Que todo quede dicho y al mismo tiempo se pierda cada una de las palabras que aquí se escriben. Que uno pode todas las ramas que se han secado. Que cada una de las piedras caídas conformen un nuevo edificio. Que cada palabra sea una piedra y nadie tire la primera. Que alguien edifique un cuerpo como distancia. Que alguien se nombre a sí mismo en la pérdida. Que el aire irrespirable de los incendios se expulse, se esfume. Que alguien. Un aprendiz o un equilibrista. Que un cuerpo o un discurso. Que esta distancia sea suficiente para nombrarnos otros.

Copyright © 2024 by Sara Uribe and JD Pluecker. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on September 6, 2024, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“Let’s say a note and a translation arrive together, as one entity. Because readings shift on the void, the collapse. Say the impossibility of saying what she meant to say. All that which she intends shifts. Or the translator, shiftless, rewrites herself into the speech of another. Say a possessive that sustains multiple genders in another tongue. Say belonging is not the same as a possessive. Say poetry is a removal, or was it a moving? Say it is not loss or lack, but prosthesis. The many originals deliver consolers, two-tongued consolations. Say a body retrained—no, restrained—or a tightrope walker flaunts a new method for falling. Say lifeless branches. Or a speech on the void of the border, on its ostentation. Let’s say distances, opened or closed, are expelled. Upon the escapings, deliver a speech on distances that become new—and other—names.”
—JD Pluecker

Sara Uribe, born in Querétaro, Mexico, in 1978, is poet and essayist. She authored several poetry collections, including Rosario Castellanos: Materia que arde (LUMEN, 2023) and Antígona González (Les Figues Press, 2016), translated by JD Pluecker. Uribe teaches and is a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores de México [National System of Creators of Mexico (SNCA)]. She lives in Mexico City.

JD Pluecker is the author of The Every Wild (Mouthfeel Press, 2024) and Ford Over (Noemi Press, 2016). They are the translator from the Spanish of Gore Capitalism (Semiotexte, 2018) by Sayak Valencia. Pluecker cofounded Antena Aire, a language justice and experimentation collaborative, and Antena Houston, a social justice collective dedicated to providing translations and interpretations. Pluecker lives in Houston on Karankawa land.

Antígona González

Antígona González
(Les Figues Press, 2016) 

Ford Over

Ford Over
(Noemi Press, 2016)

“future somatics to-do list” by Jen Hofer
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“Regarding the Future The Donkey” by Kazuko Shiraishi
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Thanks to Sawako Nakayasu, author of Pink Waves (Omnidawn, 2023), who curated Poem-a-Day for this month’s weekdays. Read or listen to a Q&A about Nakayasu’s curatorial approach and find out more about our Guest Editors for the year.
“Poem-a-Day is brilliant because it makes space in the everyday racket for something as meaningful as a poem.” —Tracy K. Smith

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