Angélica Freitas: Biography and Poems | Brazilian Poetry

Biography.

Angélica Freitas (born April 8, 1973) is a Brazilian poet and translator. Angélica Freitas had her poems published for the first time in an anthology of Brazilian poetry published in Argentina, titled Cuatro poetas recientes del Brasil (Buenos Aires: Black & Vermelho, 2006), organized and translated by Argentine poet Cristian De Nápoli. Her first book of poems was Rilke Shake (São Paulo: Cosac Naify, 2007). In 2012 her book um útero é do tamanho de um punho was a finalist on 2013 Prêmio Portugal Telecom.The English edition of Rilke Shake (translated by Hillary Kaplan) won the Best Translated Book Award for poetry in 2016. Freitas's poetry was published in France, Germany, Mexico, Spain and the United States. Her poems were published at several print and digital magazines

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The Woman Is A Construction

the woman is a construction
must be

the woman is basically meant to be
a housing complex
all the same
everything plastered
just change the color

particularly I'm a woman
of bricks on display
in social gatherings having to be
the most hardly dressed

I say I'm a journalist

(the woman is a construction
with too many holes

leaks

the revista nova* is the ministry
of cloacal affairs
pardon me
do not talk about shit in the revista nova*)

you are a woman
and if you suddenly wake up binary and blue
and spend the day turning the light on and off?

(do you like being brazilian?
to be called virginia woolf?)

the woman is a construction
makeup is camouflage
every woman has a gay friend
how good it is to have friends

all friends have a gay friend
who has a woman
who calls him fred astaire

at this point, it's already late
the psychologists of the freud coffee shop
look and smile

nothing is going to change–

nothing will ever change–

the woman is a construction

Translated by Rosaliene Bacchus

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Grad

men women are born they grow
they see how others are born
and how they disappear
from this mystery a cemetery arises
they bury bodies then forget

men women are born they grow
they see how others are born
and how they disappear
they record, record with their phones
make spreadsheets then forget

they hope their time comes slowly
men women
don’t know what comes next
so they go to grad school

men women are born they grow
they know that one day they’re born
and the next they disappear
but that’s not why they forget
to turn off the lights and the gas

Translated by Daniel Medin

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One More (tiny) Thing

don’t calculate what you’ve lost in buying a box of pins (made in china)
and from where exactly they emerge with heads (flat)
and your cursing mao tse when a drop of blood appears (from the finger)
and when you find a pin in the street, leave it there (it’s not dead)
the same kind of pin pointing to the blouses (in your closet)
and brushing your skin it produces a red (so rare)
and someone is dreaming of pins (in china)
in this life only valued by a dozen (clearly)

Translated by Farnoosh Fathi