James Wagner

about Trilce

The auralgraphs that make up the collection of poems in my Trilce are framed in large part by the sound of the Spanish words chosen by César Vallejo in his original Trilce. At the thin risk of sounding defensive, it should be stated, however, that Vallejo does not own the Spanish language (he never made enough money), and I do not own the English language (nor have I made enough). I am not doing a disservice to his work. I feel like I am honoring it. But I am honoring it in my own way, by writing through passed Spanish frames, to make different enigmas. Needless to say, of course, but when someone doesn’t speak another language one hears the language as “gibberish”, or as near-sounds to one’s own colonized tongue. There are also moments of mishearing when this happens. I am interested in these encounters and also how they intuitively point things away from a simplified storyboard, how they diffuse and curl back and break apart suddenly, and how this doesn’t end poems in the way that poems have grown accustomed to doing themselves in, aiming toward that false beacon of summation in the final sentence, which is actually begging relief from its position of soothsayer.

from Trilce