Three Poems

We Learned to Pronounce Brooklyn in the Movies we learned to pronounce brooklyn in the movies to undress in the backseats of cars to await chance with a roll of the dice we learned the calmness of the cigarette smoker and the coldness of the one aiming a revolver but we also learned to go it alone to die to say leave my sight stay the night that the life of a man is measured by the size of his shadow and that leaving is not always the opposite of staying Nothing Extraordinary Take a look at the street where nothing extraordinary goes on, or where everything is so common that you don’t pay it much attention. The mundane fights to overcome its transparency. And of all these things – the sun that falls through the trees, the fatigued cars, the woman pushing a stroller – the traveling salesman goes door to door, offering a springtime in miniature. poetry Three Poems by Juan Bello Sánchez 18 WLT MAY–JUNE 2018 PHOTO: PALON YOUTH/UNSPLASH Juan Bello Sánchez is a Spanish poet and teacher from Santiago de Compostela. He has published six poetry collections, three chapbooks, and has been awarded the IV Premio de Poesía Joven “Pablo García Baena,” the XVI Premio de Poesía Emilio Prado, and the VI Premio de Poesía Joven RNE. Emily Socha is a translator of Spanish and Latin American poetry. She is currently focusing on the works of younger peninsular Spanish poets. The Green Café Someone told me that if you open the door of a tree you can see the sea playing the accordion. At night, the woman in the red dress drank champagne in the star tamer’s tuxedo pocket. There were bells that could only be heard in coffee cups, and actresses who painted their lips on the keys of the old piano. The waitress cleaned the bar with a Bengal tiger’s pelt, her face marked by the dark circles of an exiled soldier. There, the poet emptied wine bottles to refill them with crescent moons and shimmering fish. The sailors spoke with words of sand and the dancers stitched the rain to the golden hips of the trumpets. All before the sun rose in the eyes of the stuttering rooster, tinting the windows with its garish light. Translations from the Spanish By Emily Socha Book Review Editor Rob Vollmar hopes to spend as much time as possible in his slowly expanding home garden but has his eye on these three books for the summer. Alisa Ganieva Bride and Groom Trans. Carol Apollonio Deep Vellum Alisa Ganieva’s debut novel, The Mountain and the Wall (Deep Vellum, 2015), introduced anglophone readers to the intricacies of Dagestani culture and society. Her second novel in translation promises not only another glimpse into this poorly understood Muslim-majority subject nation of the Russian Federation but a refinement of Ganieva’s already impressive gifts as a writer, artfully presented by translator Carol Apollonio. Eddie Campbell The Goat Getters: Jack Johnson, the Fight of the Century, and How a Bunch of Raucous Cartoonists Reinvented Comics IDW Scottish cartoonist Eddie Campbell (From Hell, Alec) delivers his first major work of comics history in a quest for the holy grail: Who invented comics? Campbell thinks he has the answer, and armed with his meticulous eye for scholarship and an alwaysraucous storytelling instinct, he’s guaranteed to entertain as well as educate. Roberto Tiraboschi The Apothecary’s Shop: Venice 1118 A.D. Trans. Katherine Gregor Europa Editions I am an absolute mark for imaginative historical fiction, and the more exotic the time and place, the better. This dramatic story involving a missing aristocrat’s daughter, occult mysteries, and the intermingling of East and West emerging from the Dark Ages checks off all my literary boxes. editor’s pick: summer reads WORLDLIT.ORG 19

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