Quiltras' worldwide synonyms / Sinónimos de "quiltrx" alrededor del mundo

Quiltra, quiltro: Chile
Vira lata: Brasil
Embwa: Uganda
Cane randagio / Cani randagi: Italy
Stray dog: USA
Chusco or Chusca: Perú
Chandas: Colombia

"I'll be cryin', Mountain Lion," or animals saying goodbye greeting card

Poem to Take the Belt Out of My Dad’s Hands, poem by José Olivarez translated from English by Arelis Uribe

Poem to Take the Belt Out of My Dad’s Hands

in this story, he is wearing the belt instead of bringing it down. my ass
stays soft. my head hard. in this story, the belt hangs in his closet. i snatch
it & bury it. in this story, the belt acts alone. it is not his hands. he is
watching TV. SportsCenter or whatever. he would stop the belt if he could.
in this story, i grab the belt & beat myself with it—in this story, it is my
own hands. his hands stay innocent. i stand above myself and it is for my
own good. in this story, i bury the leather belt in a cement coffin. i eat a
whole cow and wear the skin like a luxurious silk. in this story, i am wait-
ing for the whip. in this story, i am already crying. in this story, he doesn’t
reach for the belt. the belt is buried. he reaches for my head and rubs it.
soft. he says it’s okay. in this story, there is no but.
this story ends here. my dad. me. still under his hands. still crying.


Poem para quitar la correa de las manos de papá

en esta historia, él se deja la correa puesta en vez de quitársela. mi culo
permanece suave. mi cabeza, dura. en esta historia, la correa cuelga en el clóset.
la robo & la entierro. en esta historia, la correa actúa sola. no son sus manos. él
está viendo tele. SportsCenter o algo así. él detendría a la correa si pudiera.
en esta historia, agarro la correa y me azoto yo mismo—en esta historia, son
mis propias manos. sus manos quedan inocentes. estoy por sobre mí por mi
propio bien. en esta historia, entierro la correa de cuero en un ataúd de concreto.
me devoro una vaca completa y visto su piel como lujosa seda. en esta historia, estoy
esperando el latigazo. en esta historia, ya estoy llorando. en esta historia, él no
toma la correa. la correa está sepultada. él toma mi cabeza y la acaricia.
suavemente. dice que todo está bien. en esta historia, no hay peros.
aquí termina esta historia. mi papá. yo. aún en sus manos. aún llorando.

Las Horas II (Todo lo iguana que se puede), poem by Carlos Pellicer

La tierra es como el cielo. Todo es fruto
de una máquina de soledad. El viento
campea displiciente. Nada tiene
sino una enorme juventud. El tiempo
carece de estatura. Por el día
pasa la flecha de todo lo que hiere.

El lugar de las cosas sobrevive
a cada instante. De una palmera salen
altas sonrisas y el agua sonríe
la tristeza. Quieto a fondo, miro
la destrucción de mi espesura.

Y es la tierra, mi tierra, el polvo mío,
el árbol de la noche sollozada,
las puntuales blancuras de la garza,
las luces de mis ojos,
el trayecto de una mirada a otra mirada.
El cielo que vuela de mis ojos a los cielos
de unos ojos terrestres
y las nubes que desbordan el canto.

Nada vive para morir sin dar.
En todo encuentro algo de mí
y en todo vivo y muero.
Estoy todo lo iguana que se puede,
desde el principio al fin.
Hay ya un lucero.


Villahermosa, una vez de octubre de 1966.

Cover letter structure (by Yuwei Pan)

1st paragraph: introduce myself very briefly, grab the reader's attention
2nd paragraph: why I am interested in this position and this organization
3rd paragraph: why I am going to be good at this position and my past experiences to back it up

Carta abierta a la poetisa Emily Dickinson, by Luis Pescetti

Editorial Negra: Chilean pocket poetry echoing in New York City (article by Arelis Uribe)

Photo: Daniel Wang @dwangphoto

In early 2019, I was at a crossroads moment in my life: living in Chile and recently recieving a scholarship to move to NYC within six months, however, this amazing gift was preventing me of finding a regular job in my hometown. Excited about the future but desperately unemployed, an idea occurred to me: creating art. Particularly, making up zines.

​I'd heard about zines before—some friends I met in college printed their own drawings and poems, and photocopied them, merely for spreading creativity. After graduation, I started work as a journalist and author and later on I published my debut in fiction “Quiltras,” a collection of stories that has been highly praised by critics in Chile and abroad. Thus, once I was invited to host a writing course, which finished with a zines workshop where I learned how to make the classic one-page format.

​Thereby, jobless in 2019 I fancied: What if I make and sell zines?

​Since I couldn't think of anything new to write, I picked my favorite tweets. Are you on Twitter? It's microblogging on social media, and back in 2019 only 140 characters per tweet were permitted. I used every tweet as a verse, arranged them by topics—love, friendship, drugs, politics, feminism—and made up what I called "poetweets." Illustrations by Sofía Flores were added through friendly collaboration, and Vicenta Mendoza designed it as a one-page zine. I titled the piece "Cosas que pienso mientras fumo marihuana" (Things I Think When I Smoke Weed) for sounded funny to me and by then I used to be such a pothead. I'm rehabbed now.

​Long story short: I printed a thousand copies, and sold them all out.

 I paid my bills and went off to New York.

After landing in the big city, I restarted the project, this time founding a pocket poetry imprint: Editorial Negra. Allison Braden and Patricio Baeza translated my poems into English. I visited Endless Editions (a risograph studio in midtown, nearby The New York Times) and printed a thousand zines again, both in English and Spanish.

Afterward, I published another title "Everything Fits Harmoniously Into Everything Else," pocket poetry by Hernán Miranda. He's a Chilean poet born in 1941, who was my professor at Journalism School. I've always been fond of his oeuvre, so wanted to spread it among New Yorkers. Same story: I picked my favorite poems by him, Allison Braden translated them from Spanish, Jenny Frias aka Siempre Gótica drew the illustrations, and Maritza Piña designed it. A thousand copies were printed in fluor pink risograph at Endless Editions.

That was September 2019. One month later, Chile started burning all down.

​On October 18th, 2019, the Chilean people rose up against a system that has privatized social rights and divided the country into a rich privileged class and an impoverished working class. Whole families went onto the streets to protest. The government's response was police brutality. Cops shot directly into the population’s eyes. Now there are hundreds of half or completely blind citizens by the Chilean state. I'd recently moved to NYC, witnessing all this on social media or in the news. 

​Devastated by the idea of being away from home and safe from bullets, I used art as my weapon and contribution to the revolution: Editorial Negra made an open call for poetry regarding the Chilean uprising, and blissfully we’d got more than a hundred manuscripts.

​Authors Macarena Araya and Francisca Molina helped out in selecting the pieces for the zine. I wished to include as many poems as I could, so repeated the technique used for my own zine: I picked my favorite verses by different authors and shaped them into collective poems. This congregated style also sounded like a metaphor for revolution to me: something we hold up together. Later I learned this artistry is known as "centón" in the Hispanic literary tradition.

​Last, the same team was assembled: translator Allison Braden, illustrator and designer Maritza Piña. A thousand units of “Nuestro Fuego” / “Our Fire” were printed in Endless Editions, two hundred of them were gifted for free in Santiago de Chile.​

Now, I'm an art book-maker. I go to fair upon fair selling my zines. Still pay my bills.

​*This​ article was originally published en La Revista: https://www.larevista.nyc/editorialnegra