The debut collection by this Venezuelan writer based in Madrid sits within the tradition of silent poetry. A book about exile, though not only that, it whispers softly yet with conviction. The best thing one can do with it is to read it and, in reading it, grasp its power.
In Zenda we reproduce five poems from Agua sin voz (Piezas Azules), by Ana Meucci.
***
to embrace the water
to ask for words
to teach us
the craft of the river
the lightness of the rain
the detachment of the sea
to reveal to us
the hidden language
of the shore
***
the big house leaps
the small one, the medium
the one with empty shoes
empty
full of doors
the roots
like masts
fallen toward the sky
rebuking the gods
nursing the inclement weather
the eyes search
along the floor
for their lost sockets
***
eras passed
of ice, of gunpowder, the unfinished era of uranium
and I see us, tiny skeins
of wet paper
beating
***
two are the faces
that tell me of dawn
in this room
they attend the dawn
in this house
that does not touch the earth
two and only two
stone-like faces
gods of clay and ivory
unconnected to the trees, distracted
ignoring the horizon
my bird-like face
avoids
looking at the sea
***
edge of skin
changing shore
a threshold that becomes voice, word, imprint
then only that fleeting gust
that we called
presence
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Author: Ana Meucci. Title: Agua sin voz. Publisher: Piezas azules. Sales: Todos tus libros.
BIOGRAPHY
Ana Meucci (Caracas, 1978) is a former architect, an architect, and a photographer. Spreading herself between the distracted calm of Madrid, the company of the stones of Tuscany, and the backlit sight of Caracas’s yagrumos, and among other visible and invisible cities. She is currently pursuing a PhD in the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at the Autonomous University of Madrid. To make ends meet, she also works in interior design.
