Eine Sternwarte im Badezimmer

Poems by Tomás Cohen

Translated from Chilean Spanish by Luisa Donnerberg

The world map is spun into a web of meridians and parallels. Meeting points at poles and in infinity. Perhaps this is the moment when poetry leaves its origins without denying them. That it leaves Chile to open up to the world. To embrace many-armed goddesses in Indian temples as the sculptor once did, to touch the other side from the front. Perhaps the moment lies in the sound of music by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók or in a movement of a Beethoven symphony. In any case, Tomás Cohen's verses set out to meet the grandmother as a child in the shadow of eternal time.