Erica Mena

Diana's Tree by Alejandra Pizarnik, translated by Yvette Siegert

January 10, 2015 by Erica Mena

After reading Diana’s Tree by Alejandra Pizarnik, in Yvette Siegert’s translation, all the way through in one sitting, I wanted immediately to read it again. It’s a slim volume of equally slim poems, but they’re the kind of sparing that is deceptive. I hadn’t read much Pizarnik before, I’d seen her pop up in anthologies and translation workshops, I can’t tell you how many emerging translators I know who’ve started with her work. But, I think mostly because of estate issues and […]

Categories: Poetry, Reviews, Translation • Tags: alejandra pizarnik, diana's tree, literary translation, poetry, translation, ugly duckling, yvette siegert

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What's in a name? If it's The Eternonaut, it's a lot.

November 7, 2014 by Erica Mena

The graphic novel I translated a few years ago is in production, and coming out with Fantagraphics (swoon) next year. It’s an amazing work by the phenomenal Argentine author Héctor Germán Oesterheld, illustrated by the incredible Francisco Solano López. I’m so excited to see it brought out in English, I can barely contain myself. And for the most part, I’ve received some really great feedback on the translation and my advocacy for the work. But there’s this thing that has come up […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: el eternauta, francisco solano lopez, graphic novel, hector german oesterheld, literary translation, the eternonaut, translation

Translation is a Compromised Body

October 23, 2014 by Erica Mena

Some smartening of some stuff I said about translation and poetry and compromised bodies at a poetry-gathering last week in LA made its way onto the Poetry Foundation blog. Amanda says these things way smarter than I think I did, though. “Here is what Erica Mena (of Anomalous) discussed in response to these questions (of course, this is just a summary, and many parts are missing): She wanted to contest the idea of translation as a the idea of equivalence—one […]

Categories: Poetry, Translation • Tags: experimental poetry, experimental translation, poetry, translation

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5 Things That Chester Could Be Listening To That Would Be Way, Way Worse For Us

August 29, 2014 by Erica Mena

We have a new downstairs neighbor. Well, actually, we’re his new upstairs neighbors. Chester. Chester has lived in our building for almost twenty years. Chester is a cab driver in San Francisco, who is almost always at the lovely across the street bar for happy hour. Chester has excellent taste in classic jazz. How do I know that? Because our building used to be sort of a tenement, with all the cheap flimsy materials and thin walls and floors that […]

Categories: Uncategorized

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Moving Wrap-up (I Hope): aka, The Move Part 4

June 21, 2014 by Erica Mena

[Part 1 & Part 2 chronicle the unbelievable nightmare of moving with Fidelity Moving Group. Part 3 has some advice and things I wished I had thought of before moving.] We finally arrived, the day before what was supposed to be our delivery date, in San Francisco, exhausted, sun-burnt, stressed out, and at night. We knew that we should expect a strange, overstuffed couch sitting in our apartment, in addition to what we hoped was all of our own stuff. And there it […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: cross country move, fidelity moving, fidelity moving group, moving nightmare, moving scam

Call for Critical Writing on the Gurlesque

June 21, 2014 by Erica Mena

I don’t usually post calls for submissions on the blog, but this one is too exciting not to. Call for Critical Writing on the Gurlesque In the anthology Gurlesque: the new grrly, grostesque, burlesque poetics (Saturnalia, 2010),editors Lara Glenum and Arielle Greenberg gathered work from eighteen contemporary women poets who are “writing about and through femininity . . .brashly, playfully, provocatively, indulgently.” These poems have “unicorns inthem, and sequins, and swear words, and vomit.” Gurlesque alsoincludes eight visual artists […]

Categories: Call for Papers • Tags: call for submission, gurlesque, poetry

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What I Learned About Moving, AKA, The Move (Part 3)

June 11, 2014 by Erica Mena

[Part 1 & Part 2 chronicle the unbelievable nightmare this move has been in more detail.] Though I’m still in the middle of the country, well, not exactly the middle anymore – now we’re in Arizona – and so the move has not finished because I still have to deal with getting a stranger’s couch out of my apartment when we arrive to San Francisco, I’ve been thinking a lot about this experience. The various other options we had. How […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: cross country move, fidelity moving, fidelity moving company, moving nightmare

Providence to San Francisco: The Move (Part 2)

June 10, 2014 by Erica Mena

Oh, and actually that wasn’t the end of it.[Part one: pickup, and botched delivery before we arrived.] Today, June 9, I heard from my friend that the driver had contacted him (not me, not the manager or dispatcher) to get access back to our apartment. Because he had accidentally delivered someone else’s stuff as well as ours. I told my friend not to do anything, and that we would handle it, since I didn’t trust these people to figure out which stuff […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: cross country move, fidelity moving, fidelity moving group, moving nightmare

Providence to San Francisco: The Move (Part 1)

June 10, 2014 by Erica Mena

Moving with Fidelity Moving Group The estimate was extremely low, almost unreasonably so, but Manisha seemed professional, and was very reassuring. The estimate was for 40 medium UHaul boxes, a 3-person couch, a queen sized mattress, a cedar chest, and a large piece of artwork, and was $1100 from Providence to San Francisco, including carrying up 2 large flights of stairs in San Francisco. The communication was bad from the beginning. Manisha told me that we would get a call […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: cross country move, fidelity moving, fidelity moving group, moving company, moving nightmare

The End of Night by Paul Bogard

April 22, 2014 by Erica Mena

I’ve never really been afraid of the dark, which is odd because I’m an anxious person in general and the dark is a primal fear. I’m clinically phobic of spiders, and of heights, and it turns out thanks to a good friend one summer I was able to prioritize those fears. I am more afraid of spiders than of heights. We were on a bus day-trip into Albania, to see the spectacular ruins at Butrint, curving along narrow dirt roads. […]

Categories: Reviews • Tags: dark, dark sky week, darkness, light, light pollution, light tresspass, paul bogard, review, the end of night

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