Cal Paule Presents "Black Box Named Like To Me"

Translator Cal Paule will be reading from "Black Box Named Like To Me" by Diana Garza Islas.

Black Box Named Like to Me challenges the limits of syntax and image to hold the full scope of the imaginary in its grasp, touching on questions of motherhood, the future, memory, and the acquisition of language. The page is a zone for play, here, both in the translation and the original Spanish; words and ideas undergo radical transformation to best serve the purpose of the poems, shapeshifting at will. Vocal momentum drives these poems onward and outward with a force that is just as funny as it is poignant. It is Garza Islas’ first book, and the first to be translated into English.

Cal Paule is a translator, poet, and teacher from Saint Paul, MN. Their work has appeared in Waxwing, Reading in Translation, Asymptote, and elsewhere. They are an MFA candidate in literary translation at the University of Arkansas, where they are the comics editor at The Arkansas International. They teach gender studies.

Diana Garza Islas (Santiago, Nuevo León, México, 1985) is the author of Caja negra que se llame como a mí (Bonobos), Adiós y buenas tardes, Condesita Quitanieve (El Palacio de la Fatalidad), and Catálogo razonado de alambremaderitas para hembra con monóculo y posible calavera (Conarte). Excerpts from this yellow cycle of books can be found in the anthology En el fondo todo poema es yo de niña mirándola (La Cleta Cartonera). She published El sol es verde si lo miras (UANL) as part of a green cycle of books. She is also the author of two chapbooks, Primer infolio de las Vidas reunidas de Almería Smarck (UAEMEX) and La czarigüeya escribe (An.Alfa.Beta).

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