The moth stutters,
stares, voracious,
knots staying,
cloud, cloud.
Silhouette
of the cold,
bat,
tides,
relamps
pride,
cricket, cricket.
Night
lightnings,
fireworks
in a jar,
floods
its river
with an iris.

-George Mario Angel Quintero

translated into English by the author

 

La polilla gaguea,
mira, voraz,
amarra estadía,
nube, nube.
La silueta
del frío,
murciélago,
marea,
relámpara
el orgullo,
grillo, grillo.
La noche
relampaguea,
pólvora
en un frasco,
inunda
su río
con un lirio.

-George Mario Angel Quintero

 

This untitled poem by George Mario Angel Quintero was first published in Spanish in his third collection of poetry, ‘Tentenelaire’, by Editorial Párpado in 2006. George Mario Angel Quintero also translated the poem into English. Both the original poem in Spanish and the English translation have been republished in Rochford Street Review with the author’s permission.

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George Mario Angel Quintero is a multitalented, bilingual poet, author, playwright, theatre director, artist, and musician who was born in San Francisco, California to Colombian parents. He studied literature at the University of California and was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Fiction from Stanford University. He has published two books of fiction in English under the name George Angel: The Fifth Season (FCII, 1996) for which he received the Nilon Award from Fiction Collective 2 and Globo and Design for a Tablecloth (Will Hall, 1996). His poetry and essays in English have been published in literary magazines, the chapbook Globo (1996), and most recently in a collection of new and selected poems, On the Voice (2016). Since 1995, George has lived in Medellin, Colombia, where he has published six collections of poetry and three books of plays in Spanish, under the name Mario Angel Quintero. He has been the director and playwright of the theatre company Párpado Teatro since 2003. George has also exhibited and published his visual art, illustrated books, and is a founding member of the musical groups Underflavour and Sell the Elephant.