Black Box Named Like to Me
Black Box Named Like to Me
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About the Book
Black Box Named Like to Me challenges the limits of syntax and image to hold the full scope of the imaginary in its grasp, touching on questions of motherhood, the future, memory, and the acquisition of language. The page is a zone for play, here, both in the translation and the original Spanish; words and ideas undergo radical transformation to best serve the purpose of the poems, shapeshifting at will. Vocal momentum drives these poems onward and outward with a force that is just as funny as it is poignant. It is Garza Islas’s first book, and the first to be translated into English.
Author
Diana Garza Islas
Diana Garza Islas (Santiago, Nuevo León, México, 1985) is the author of Caja negra que se llame como a mí (Bonobos), Adiós y buenas tardes, Condesita Quitanieve (El Palacio de la Fatalidad), and Catálogo razonado de alambremaderitas para hembra con monóculo y posible calavera (Conarte). Excerpts from this yellow cycle of books can be found in the anthology En el fondo todo poema es yo de niña mirándola (La Cleta Cartonera). She published El sol es verde si lo miras (UANL) as part of a green cycle of books. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Primer infolio de las Vidas reunidas de Almería Smarck (UAEMEX) and La czarigüeya escribe (An.Alfa.Beta).
Translator
Cal Paule
Cal Paule is a translator, poet, and teacher from Saint Paul, MN. Their work has appeared in Waxwing, Reading in Translation, Asymptote, and elsewhere. They are an MFA candidate in literary translation at the University of Arkansas, where they are the comics editor at The Arkansas International. They teach gender studies.
Praise
In the News
Links
Excerpts from Black Box Named Like To Me in Waxwing Mag
Excerpts in Revista Plastico
Excerpts in Asymptote
Excerpt
from “Box of Honey (Example)”
A
aether. Like when a stone cloud falls.
arrow. No routine without the rind.
arachnida scorpiones. Animal that dreams in hexagons.
at. Means that the sun is sprouting from its shell.
amber. They say the symptomatic river envies the sun.
airplane. Example: I built a paper palace tomorrow.
blue. Everything unseen.
B
bone (mandible). You shouldn’t say it out loud or your mandible will fall off.
kiss (blown). You wash this drown while pulling your hair out to the ardor of your glassed crowns.
brilliance. Sun cadaver. Every time.
C
cuticle. At the bottom we’re all purple octopi.
course. Found river. I run.
cumulus. Stairs, staring at no one.
cells (honey, brood, pollen, queen). Can also take the following forms: a jar of blemish cream, a zipper, a man’s shoe, a woman’s, and a razor.
cardiac. Your mechanic means of oxidated sacs.
creak. Happens when different roots yell dead leaves.
corpus. I’m my own castle.