Dan Eltringham tr. Leire Barrera Medrano
Updated: Aug 12
Dan Eltringham is a poet, researcher and translator based in Bristol. His academic monograph, Poetry & Commons: Postwar and Romantic Lyric in Times of Enclosure, is out with Liverpool University Press (2022). Recent poetry and (co)translations have appeared in Firmament, Ludd Gang, Revista Kokoro, Protean and Cambridge Literary Review, as well as in two anthologies of poetry in translation: Poetry’s Geographies (Eulalia/Shearsman, 2022) and Temporary Archives (Arc, 2022). A chapbook of his translation of Alonso Quesada’s Scattered Ways was published by Free Poetry (Boise, 2019) and his poetry collection Cairn Almanac was published by Hesterglock Press (Bristol, 2017). He co-edits Girasol Press, a small publisher that explores handmade poetics and experimental translation.
Leire Barrera Medranois a lecturer, writer and translator raised in the Basque Country and based in Bristol. She teaches Spanish Studies at the University of Bath and co-edits Girasol Press, a small publisher of experimental translation. She wrote a PhD thesis on Decadence and the Anglo-Spanish cultural encounter at Birkbeck College, University of London. In her previous life as a journalist, she wrote and translated for The Wall Street Journal Europe, Dow Jones Newswires and EFE news agency. Since then, she has continued translating for several non-profit organisations. She has published literary translations in Jukub (Girasol Press, 2022), Volupté: Interdisciplinary Journal of Decadence Studies (2019) and in Wretched Strangers (Boiler House Press, 2018).
The Emptying (from Off/Set)
Dan Eltringham
For Encarna & Juan
The river the same verse recited
over & over with water distinct,
Mijares cutting down through karst
mountain goats & morisco caves
carved in caliche, yes,
but only really feeling out the edges of erosion
shepherds making space for habitation or flight
or refuge, really, from the transhistorical revanche
securing the endless perimeter
sod it, getting the reconquista done
those guardia fuckers driving about in their little cars
under this endless quota of sky, they don’t even see the brilliance
or doubled deaths at sea this year,
2021, year of death by drowning
until next
while at another level
the old reservoir & the new arguments
the edges of the ravine thick with rosemary
the open land around the ruined tower & ancient holm oak
sea of kermes oak
waistprickle
no way in even
for hounds
but below the same old speculations:
truffle fields (€500/kg)
water, Roundup®, 14yr foreyield
times for watering & times for gathering
inscribed in the almanac according to Monsanto
even shrooms subscribed or renewed
as direct to debit fungibility’s finest, like all fields
stretching out their soil so thinly into translucence,
that’s time, but sums might not
booms & bubbles burst in time or they swing around
and knock you in the head, but
these are the old farmers
but made new as little capitalists of the old ways
winter’s burning sun brings in the contradictions
but still Los Mases might still time
time as the shadow of the memory of autonomy:
the way it’s always been done
up until the emptying of the uplands
before water or light starve em into the cities
all through the long forties, fifties “urbanization”
cutting supply-lines & social bases
los guerrilleros del levante
Florencio Pla Meseguer, “La Pastora”
between his legs
social categories
& sex fade out
en las sierras de Gúdar, Javalambre
(s/he knew the lie of the land
they didn’t catch her till ’60…
masoveros between maquis & guardia
(remember the CNT transmitter in Los Baltasares…
the little left
subsistence terraces growing back into self
same low-sown,
boar paths over the no-grow clay
globe galls pend this long winterval
ways with energy & estovers rotation
take the dead & only
only fell when sap wanes to soil
only the absolute relativity of relations in time
here is an imprint for passing through market & state
to something, the spider’s structure
arbitrary points give the sensation of order or
in time,
or stasis within movement,
a new image that can’t be descried
just not yet:
no new art unless new forms of living
easy to find, but very hard to do
or vice versa,
the only experimental procedure left in art today
is to see whether it’s to the planet’s liking
or not,
then you’ll know, or not, placing
bets on the nearest future of all
my next hand is killer
órdago, I’m calling it
they’ll never snout them truffles up.
El vaciamiento (parte de Com/Pensación)
Traducido por Leire Barrera Medrano
Para Encarna y Juan
El río canta siempre el mismo verso
pero con distinta agua,
el Mijares se abre un paso cárstico
entre cabras montesas y cuevas moriscas
talladas en caliza, claro,
tanteando tan solo los cantos de la erosión
pastores que abren espacios para vivir o escapar
o refugiarse, en realidad, de esa revancha transhistórica
asegurando ese perímetro infinito,
a la mierda, cerrando la reconquista
esos cabrones de la guardia
de un lado a otro en sus coches de mierda
bajo esta interminable cuota de cielo, ni siquiera ven la luz
ni las muertes; el doble este año en el mar,
2021, año de muertes por ahogamiento
hasta el próximo
y mientras tanto a otro nivel
el viejo embalse y las nuevas disputas
los bordes del barranco repletos de romero
el terreno abierto alrededor de esa torre en ruinas y la antigua encina
un mar de coscoja
cinturaespinosa
de ninguna manera ni siquiera
para los perros
y abajo las mismas viejas especulaciones:
campos de trufa (500 € / kg)
agua, Roundup®, rendimiento a 14 años
tiempos de riego y tiempos de recolección
inscritos en el almanaque de Monsanto
hasta hongos suscritos o renovados
como débitos directamente fungibles,
lo mejor de lo mejor, como todos los campos
dándose de sí en el suelo, tan débilmente que se vuelven translúcidos
el tiempo es así, pero puede que no sume
los booms, las burbujas estallan con el tiempo o viran
te dan en la cabeza, pero
estos, los viejos agricultores,
ahora nuevos mini capitalistas de las viejas costumbres,
el sol ardiente del invierno trae estas contradicciones
y aún así los mases aún pueden aplacar al tiempo
el tiempo como sombra del recuerdo de la autonomía:
así es como se ha hecho siempre
hasta el vaciamiento de las tierras altas
antes del agua o de la luz matadlos de hambre hasta las ciudades
durante todos los cuarenta y los cincuenta la “urbanización”
cortando líneas de suministro y bases sociales
los guerrilleros del levante
Florencio Pla Meseguer, “La Pastora”
entre las piernas
las categorías sociales
y el sexo se desvanecen
en las sierras de Gúdar, Javalambre
(él/la conocía la configuración del terreno
no la pillaron hasta el 60...
masoveros entre maquis y guardias
(acuérdate de la emisora de la CNT en Los Baltasares…
las sobras
terrazas de subsistencia que vuelven a crecer en sí mismas
los mismos caminos
de jabalí, bosques bajos, sobre una arcilla de crecimiento cero
agallas terráqueas penden en este largo invierno
costumbres energéticas y rotación de suertes
coge la seca y solo
solo tala cuando la savia mengua en el suelo
solo la absoluta relatividad de las relaciones en el tiempo
una huella para traspasar al mercado y al estado
a algo, estructura de araña
puntos arbitrarios que dan la sensación de orden o
en el tiempo,
o inercia en movimiento,
una nueva imagen casi imperceptible
pero aún no:
no hay arte nuevo sin nuevas formas de vida
fácil de encontrar, difícil de hacer
o viceversa,
el único procedimiento experimental que queda en el arte hoy en día
es ver si es del agrado del planeta
o no,
entonces lo entenderás, o no, haciendo
apuestas sobre el futuro más cercano de todos
la próxima mano es mortal
órdago, me la juego
no van a esnifar ni una miaja de trufa en su puta vida.
Notes
1. The Mijares river rises in the Sierra de Gúdar and flows from this inland mountain range through the Aragonese and Valencian autonomous communities to the Mediterranean.
2. Los Mases refers to masoveria, a medieval sharecropping system in which tenant farmers worked land for the farm’s owner in exchange for the right to live in a building rent-free, along with a share of yields and other customary entitlements. Historically grounded in Catalunya, masoveria was widely adopted across the rugged interiors of Valencia and Aragón where arid conditions discouraged more intensive forms of cultivation. This poem’s particular station is Mas Blanco, Teruel (Aragón), near the frontier with Castellón (Valencia) and its surroundings. The concept has recently been recuperated as masoveria urbana, a form of property guardianship, in response to the housing crisis; and by groups such as Recartografías (University of Valencia), which organise findes masoveros(masovero weekends) focusing on particular aspects of rural life, traditional knowledge, social issues, and environmental stewardship: http://recartografias.es/category/findes-masoveros/.
3. The information about Florencio Pla Meseguer is from the Museo de Las Masías y de la Memoria Rural (Museum of the Mases and Rural Memory), Mas Blanco, curated by the research group Recartografías. Los Baltasares is another Mas nearby; the CNT (anarchists; Confederación Nacional de Trabajo) radio transmitter is now housed in the museum.
4. Órdago is the Spanish orthography of the Basque expression “hor dago” [“there it is”], out of place here in Teruel. The term is used in the popular card game mus to mean something like “all or nothing”; it is typically a bluffing strategy used by the losing player towards the end of a round when your opponent cannot risk throwing away their lead on such a risky bet.
