LAS NINÃS - SONG OF THE SILLY GIRLS

MERCEDES ROFFÉ

Mercedes Roffé is one of Argentina’s contemporary leading poets. Widely published in Latin America and Spain, her poetry has also been published in translation in Italy, Quebec, Romania, Belgium, and the United States. In 1998 she founded Pen Press, Plaquettes de Poesía, a successful tiny press dedicated to the publication of contemporary Spanish-language poets as well as poets of other languages in Spanish translation. She holds a diploma in Modern Languages from the University of Buenos Aires, and a Ph.D. in Spanish and Latin American Literatures from New York University. Among other distinctions, she was awarded a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in poetry (2001).

Song of the Silly Girls ------Las Ninãs

(Codex Calixtinus)

*

a round

a round of little girls

tired

messy

sad girls

*
a recess of judicious

industrious

little girls

an ode to obedience and good

will

good

manners

*

the girls repeat the sound

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

the girls repeat the sound

oooooooooo

then some girls hold the

mmmmmm

like the pedal of a harmonium

while the rest melodize

*

it seems that they were told

to shut up

to sing

very softly

as if in petticoats

*

--I love freedom

--one says, making a bird

face

and spreading her arms wide

--me too

--says the other

locking herself in her room

*

there are two who are unbearable

and their voices are much shriller

than the others´

*

--Remember the calligrapher?

The one who spilled her inkwell

over your dress?

--nope.

*

a round

a round of exhausted

lifeless

girls

a recess of shadows

an angle

sliding

along the wall

TeorÍa de los Colores

(del libro La ópera fantasma.

Buenos Aires, Bajo la luna, 2005)