DANIELA CATRILEO

Piwke Heart

Translated by Rodrigo Rojas Bollo


The Mapuche are a native nation of South America that has lived in the central valley of Chile and in the grasslands across the Andes, in Argentina. Their language, Mapudungun, has been studied since the Spanish and other Catholic Missions were established in the region and admired only by a few dedicated scholars throughout the centuries. From their very first contact with the Spaniards in the 1540’s they have been fighting for the survival of their culture. The poets in this selection challenge the central cannon of poetry in Chile by expanding the sensibility and cultural references in the poetic repertoire. Part of the linguistic and artistic resources that they use are a particular syntax, words in Mapudungun and references to the experience of displacement, among others.

Read works by two other Mapuche poets Maribel Mora Curriao here and Yeny Díaz Wenten here.


Tañi Piwke (my heart)

Piwke heart 
oh, beat my piwke heart

after twenty years 
I realized that my heart 
beats to another name 

 
the sound of its voice 
was denied to me 


until I woke up 
amid its thunder 
beat 


my piwke heart 
my piwke 
piwke heart.

Diaspora

This wild grass has grown 
in the expanse of the journey

in the sow sometimes 
seeds are lost.


Grabbed a backpack and left

with what was left from the severance package 
I bought a bus ticket and a sack of potatoes.

On the bus I listen to rancheras 
and the voice of other passengers 
while the conductor checks the tickets:
Collihuin    Catrileo    Cayuman 
we are majority, I think.

I look past the night 
a low fog under the highway lights

–It’s my stop– I tell the driver.
–It’s a conflict zone– he replies.

I smile and load onto my shoulder 
the ten kilos.



Before getting on

you gave me a notebook 

on the first page you wrote:
the bridge we built.  

Later I lost your face 
in the crowd.

I waved good bye
like in a rogation 
not knowing if I’d return.




Returning

like someone continuing the journey 
of the names of the missing 

to honor the ashes 

and to weave the cloth 
to the copse of memory



I cross the boardwalk

A patrol car 
is waiting at the other side 

I walk down unafraid 
until I reach the tiny store 

I manage to cross 
without being checked 

I send out a text:
I’ve returned.


A yellow light

plastic mantel piece
some garlands are hanging 
the TV is on 

I leave my backpack on the table  
the air is heavy 
with stir-fry 

My eyes examine 
the cracks on the wall,
waiting for someone to take my order.

A woman comes 
I ask for a beer.
–You are not from around here, she says.

How do I respond to that?

As I write this, she brings a coffee 
and disappears again.

 

Daniela Catrileo (1987) is a Mapuche poet and teaches philosophy in Santiago. She is a founder of the Mapuche art collective Rangiñtulewfü dedicated to critical works on feminism, racism and decolonization. She is the author of four poetry collections, a short story collection and a novel. The poems included in this selection come from the book “El territorio del viaje” (The Journey’s territory), published by Archipielago ediciones in 2017. It discusses the subtle rituals and transformations that are set in motion once the speaker must return from the city to the native land, considering not only the cultural tension experienced but the political tension with the nation state. 

Rodrigo Rojas, b. 1971, is a Chilean poet and translator. He is a graduate from NYU’s MfA where he worked with Philip Levine, Derek Walcott, Sharon Olds and Elizabeth Alexander, among other poets. He is the author of two books of essays and four poetry collections, the latest is “Estrella de la mañana” (Garceta ediciones, 2016). His translations into English are available in Barbaric, Vast & Wild (Black Widow Press, 2015); and in journals in the United States, Mexico, South Africa, Peru, Spain and Chile. As a contributing editor to Rattapallax Magazine, from 2003 to 2009, he constantly published poets from South America in translation. He is currently  collaborating with visual artists in creative projects and curatorship. Among these projects is the Mapuche artist Francisco Huichaqueo who explores pottery shattering and the language of dreams as a creative practice of resistance. He is also part of the art collective Setebos that develops a transdisciplinary creative practice across Patagonia, and part of the faculty in the Creative Writing program at Diego Portales University, Santiago.