Pedro Mir, Dominican Poet
Feb 27th, 2009 Posted in Literature | no comment »Today is Independence Day in the Dominican Republic. Let’s read a poem that I just think is awesome by the Dominican poet, Pedro Mir. It don’t speak Spanish myself (but I did add the link to the original Spanish below). However, as you will see, the poet himself wholeheartedly praised this English translation of his poem by Jonathan Cohen:
The Countersong to Walt Whitman
a son of the Caribbean,
Antillean to be exact.
The raw product of a simple
Puerto Rican girl
and a Cuban worker,
born precisely, and poor,
on Quisqueyan soil.
Overflowing with voices,
full of eyes
wide open throughout the islands,
I have come to speak to Walt Whitman,
a kosmos,
of Manhattan the son.
People will ask,
Who are you?
I understand.
Nobody had better ask me
who Walt Whitman is.
I would go sob on his white beard.
And yet,
I am going to say again who Walt Whitman is,
a kosmos,
of Manhattan the son.
Links:
Contracanto a Walt Whitman
The Colonial Zone-DR – tons of information about the Dominican Republic with great Carnivale photos
Pedro Mir and His Countersong by Jean Franco
