Hell has many mouths…
One is the addled letter of my life,
Hell has many mouths. One is the addled letter of my life, which bears the mark of my death. I’ve gazed at that mouth before. A terror there, a field of intense, lugubrious energy. From a distance, it resembled a temple, a seething smoke cloud, a few hyenas looking on with lascivious fervor. To that abstract emblem, I owe my best pages, the least false.
María Negroni (born in 1951 in Rosario, Argentina) is an Argentinian poet, essayist, novelist, and translator. She graduated from Columbia University with a PhD in Latin American literature and has received the International Prize for Essay Writing from Siglo XXI, the 2002 PEN Award for best book of poetry in translation, for Islandia, the 2001 Octavio Paz Fellowship for Poetry, the Argentine National Book Award, for El viaje de la noche, and other awards. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.
Michelle Gil-Montero is a poet and translator. She has translated several books of poetry by contemporary Latin American writers, including María Negroni, Valerie Mejer Caso, and Andrés Ajens. Her work has been supported by the NEA, Howard Foundation, and Fulbright.
