Blanca Varela (1926-2009)

Blanca Varela was born in Lima, Peru in 1926. Octavio Paz praised her poetry identifying one of her gifts as knowing when to be silent if it is time not to write. It's true that she has not published prolifically but perhaps this could account for the dense precision of her poems: dense with meanings precise in her choice of words. Varela's poems often seem to be about the act of writing itself. To me the first of the two poems `Secreto de Familia' explores this. Other aspects of her work which are important are her irony the affinity her poems have with painting and her refusal to see herself as a social poet.

Poems we've translated
Distant Yet Never So Close
Family Secret
I Go Bodiless

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Family Secret
by Blanca Varela
I dreamed of a dog
a skinned dog
its body sang its red body whistled
I asked the other one
the one who turns out the light the butcher
what has happened
why are we in the dark

this is a dream you are alone
there is no one else
light does not exist
you are the dog you are the flower which barks
sharpen your tongue sweetly
your sweet black four-legged tongue

dreams scorch the skin of man
human skin burns disappears
only the mutt's red pulp is clean
the true light dwells in the crust of its eyes
you are the dog
you are the skinned mongrel every night
dream of yourself and let that be enough