I translated the poems that make up Black Tulips: The Selected Poems of José María Hinojosa (University of New Orleans Press, 2012).This Ping-Pong folio* is inspired by several of Hinojosa’s relatively early poems, poems largely made out of questions. The question is a central trope in general in the work of Hinojosa. His poetry is a kind that is speculative and imaginative, with a language that grows increasingly richer, symbolic, and dense. The act of wondering fills his work, wondering about the world, about love, and finally about the present and future of the country he loves. Though his politics could not be further from my own, being the first translator of Hinojosa into English, becoming his voice in this language for the first time, was a great pleasure and a great responsibility. There was a great injustice in erasing such a gifted, significant poet. “Lost, but now found,” writes Jonathan Cohen, translator and poet. I can only hope he stays found for a very long time- Mark Statman
*Each year Ping-Pong magazine has a folio where we invite responses to various poems in translation. This year we will feature Alexander Blok.
Write your own poetic response to the following questions posed in this poem (in Spanish and English) by José María Hinojosa.
¿Dónde comienza el cielo?
In Black Tulips Mark Statman presents the first English translations of the works of a well-known poet of Spain’s famed “Generation of ’27,” José María Hinojosa, which also included Pedro Salinas, Rafael Alberti, and Federico García Lorca, among others. Hinojosa’s surrealist poetry contrasted with his right-wing politics, causing him to break with the group during the Spanish Republic. He was assassinated by Republican sympathizers in 1936 and his writing disappeared from Spanish culture until the end of the twentieth century.
Mark Statman’s writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Tin House, Cincinnati Review, The Florida Review, Ping-Pong, and American Poetry Review. His work has been featured on Poetry Daily, as well as on The Bob Edwards Show, The Leonard Lopate Show, and PBS’ New York Voices. He is the author of Listener in the Snow, and, with Christian McEwen, edited The Alphabet of the Trees: A Guide to Nature Writing and his essays, poetry, and translations have appeared in nine other anthologies. With Pablo Medina, he translated Federico Garcia Lorca’s Poet in New York. Statman’s most recent collaboration is with the composer Dennis Tobenski. A recipient of awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Writers Project, Statman is an associate professor of Literary Studies at Eugene Lang College of The New School.
I think the questions written in the poem Calm by Jose Maria Hinojosa. Where does the ocean end? Where does the sky begin? Are questions with no answer. In life we will encounter many mysteries in our lives, and we will never know why. The ocean and the sky are the biggest mysteries in life. There’s no end or beginning to both. The boats go floating or do they overcome flight? The sky and ocean are the most beautiful things in this world, and I think a lot of people look to the sky or the ocean to find peace.
A Ship to Eternity
He woke up this morning and walked to the end of the pier. This was his last chance to tell his brother how sorry he was. They had their share of arguments and a few that ended in bloodied noses, but today they seemed like child’s play. He stared out over the water’s edge, reminiscing about baseball games and high school girlfriends. His gaze narrowed as he strained his eyes on the horizon, watching the colors fade to a blended hue, hoping to catch one last look at his brother before he sailed off into eternity.
Life has many mysteries and unanswered questions. Our love no matter how much we try to be apart really has no end. We argue too much, and we miss each other desperately. It’s those questions that can never really have a true answer. I’m like the sky and you are like the ocean. We have a lot in common, and we can’t survive without one another. We look toward the sky for answers, and we look toward the ocean for a sense of peace. The ocean and the sky have no real end. Our love has no real end.
Once you swim with the mermaids and become one with the ocean, you never really leave even when you go back to land. Once you’ve truly soared in the sky amongst the cotton ball like cumulus; that careless feeling remains with you always. The sea and the sky are not two separate entities, but a whole. The flying fish of the Caribbean chooses to exist in both worlds. As does the ship the Jolly Roger of Peter Pan, why must they choose one world or the other when in fact they are truly one?
The deep-sea has no end.
Like a dream it is filled with the wonders of my world.
Memories in depth re-appear and repeat.
The sea is quiet and at peace.
The sound of the waves keeps me sane.
I lay on the beach to open my thoughts, to close my eyes, and breathe.
When I wake, I see the distant sky.
How blue and bright turn to the dark of the night.
Clouds diminish yet I’m still here.
The cast of my shadow disappears into the deepest part of my soul.
These worlds collide.
Yes, it’s big, round, and never-ending.
I start my new chapter in my life; time to go far far away. I decided to go away from all the negativity that the small town left me. As the boat takes off, I carry all belonging in my Hot Pink luggage. As the boat drives off, we are suddenly in the deep blue sea. I see a few boats floating around and endless blue ocean waters. I’m enjoying the ride I can’t lie. I daydream and think to myself, where must I start, and where am I going to end up? My thoughts are endless like the ocean and as wide as the sky.
John watched closely as the razor sharp line between ocean and sky disappeared behind swells and then reappeared. He tried to time it, counting seconds between the rolling waves, but he could find no consistency. It pleased him to be navigating through places undiscovered by time, the unrelenting oppressor.
Dusk began to fall, and with it the horizon disappeared. Once John noticed the ocean blended seamlessly into sky in every direction, he began to panic. He suddenly found himself longing for something he understood, like the horizon, the ticking of a clock, the burden of routine, day to day life.
As I stood at the edge of the beach and the cold water gently touched my feet, I wondered “Where does the ocean end?” I quickly closed my eyed and listened to the waves they sounded so intense yet so soft. My imagination took its course as I pictured myself on a huge boat traveling the mystery of this question. I traveled and traveled and the end of this immense ocean was nowhere near to be visible. I could see nothing but blue waters all around, I refused to give up. Reality struck and I opened my eyes, my question was answered. The end of the ocean is the beginning of the sky.
As I stand at the edges where the sand meets the ocean I stare off into the distance and ponder human existence? We take many paths on this great blue world but they all converge to one horizon. But what lies beyond that? At the end of our physical existence does a cosmic spiritual life begin? Or does emptiness just await us at the end of our journey?
Being faced with the eternity of unsatisfaction, he looked at the finish line between the sea and sky and wished it would all end. But his eyes were deceiving him; that finish line is frustratingly imaginary and no matter how long he stares at it, the sea and sky will ever merge and the colors coagulate into darkness. If only that infinite darkness would overtake him as well, just swallow him whole; put him out his misery. He couldn’t tell where the race began anymore, but he could see the end, all he had to do was make the jump.
Where does the ocean come from and where does the sky end? Is there a limit to life or is it forever expanding? The breeze was pulling back on the pages making it difficult to read the last few pages of Nicole Journey’s newest novel, A Dead Man’s Path. How would anyone even begin to answer these questions? And who holds the answers? Will he share them with me? Do I deserve to know the truths? Placing my book against my chest and my head against the bark I rested on the ideas in my head.
The fish faces rise in the night, the water sparkling with moonlight, and they converse with boat captain’s daughter. They speak of the glittering gems hidden in the corpses of old ships, and the trenches from which tentacles emerge, groping.
The daughter drops bread crumbs to the water, if her mother found her then she might have her thrown off the side too, all the wheat fields were drowned by the salty blue green water, along with the rest of the land.
“Where does the ocean end? Where does the sky begin?” are just a couple of the questions that only children ask. I am laying down on the deck of the boat watching the sunset turn from its purples and pinks into a subtle blue that darkens. The stars start to peak out and then I find myself as a child wondering where does the ocean end and where does the sky begin?
As she sat in the beach and ran her fingers across the sand, she imagined herself walking straight into the sky. She imagined how the ocean would take her there. Cold water at her feet, the rough sand scratching in between her toes, her jeans beginning to feel heavy from the water, as the water is now at her waist. She now runs her fingers across the top of the waters as she was earlier on the beach, and realizes she wants to touch the sky, she turns back to the beach, with the sea salt mist behind her and the stars in front of her, tears flowing from her eyes and a smile brighter than the moon, there was no stopping her, she was determined to live.
I stood on the end of the pier, wind tickling my face as I stared into the horizon. I drift in and out of my day sometimes, asking myself silly yet understandably logical questions as I tend to life’s daily tasks. What’s the point of all of this? What is life? Who is my creator? What else is out there that I have yet to- and might never see? The mystery of an ocean and a sky that has no end consumes me in wild, beautiful confusion- and in the midst of it all I stand a simple, little droplet.