November 2023 - Featured Artist - Willy Francisco Ramirez (MCC)
About the Artist -
Willy Francisco Ramirez is a poet, cultural advocate, and professor of English, creative writing, and humanities at Middlesex Community College. He is the founder and director of La Guagua Reading Group, as well as of the La Guagua Poetry Festival, which is hosted by MCC and features local, regional, and international poets who read their works in translation. Ramírez has published the poetry collection "Fiebre de los días" (Efímera Publisher) and has co-edited the anthologies "Voices and Translations" (Loom Press) and "The Path Belongs to Us" (Casasola Editores). Along with Rhina P. Espaillat, he translated the collection, "Poemas para dormir en tres cuartos” by Taty Hernandez. His poetry has been published in the literary journals Dead River Review and Trasdemar, and in the “Lyrical Somerville” column of The Somerville Times, as well as in numerous poetry anthologies. Ramirez has conducted workshops and presented his work at colleges and literary festivals across the United States and internationally.
Featured Poems -
No más poesía…
… Y que callen las palabras.
Quiero quedar tranquilo.
No quiero metáforas.
Quiero partir de lo soy.
Pues no hablaré de música o de olas.
Sino de carne y de sangre.
de hueso y de polvo.
de tierra y de silencio.
Acabó el tiempo de las invenciones
y de las contemplaciones.
Las palabras intoxicaron la esencia de las cosas.
No quiero más poesía.
Mi cuerpo sobre la tierra:
la palabra, la poesía, y la metáfora.
No more poetry…
… And let the words fall in silence.
I want to remain calm.
No more metaphors.
I want to part with what I am.
For I will not speak of music or of sea waves.
But of flesh and blood,
of bone and dust.
of earth and silence.
The time to invent and to contemplate has ended.
Words have intoxicated the essence of things.
No more poetry.
My body lying down upon the earth:
the word, the poem, and the metaphor.
Translated from Spanish by Willy Ramirez