Nostalgia Doesn’t Flow Away Like Riverwater
Deep Vellum’s Phoneme imprint published my translation of Irma Pineda’s 2007 book, in a trilingual edition, in January 2024. You can order the book at Deep Vellum’s website or at Bookshop. I am grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts, which awarded me a 2015 Literature Fellowship to translate this collection.
In January 2024, Irma and I completed a six-state book tour in central and southern Mexico. See my events page for April, May, and June 2024 events for the book in New York City and Seattle.
Read more the book (and my favorite poem from it) at Lit Hub, a wonderful short review at Words Without Borders, and a delightful long review at Rough Ghosts.
What others have to say about the book:
“In these poems, nostalgia is both a running theme and something to be wary of. That tension—and the tripartite structure of this collection—keeps the reader on their toes, emotionally speaking. And the give-and-take of Pineda’s writing summons up something haunting throughout, as in these lines from “Two Paths”: “but hunger hurts us, too / sickness / poverty’s dark night / hurts more.” It’s both a fascinating trip into language and geography and a thoughtful exploration of how the two can influence one another.”
—Tobias Carroll, Words Without Borders
"Poetry not only summons and invokes, it also warns and, above all, keeps us company. Juchiteca poet Irma Pineda knows this well. For her, poetry is living and collective memory, a magnetized concentration of human and non-human traces. Here are words that, in three languages -- written in translation between Zapotec and Spanish, and translated into English with immense care by Wendy Call – tell a story of multi-layered experience that accretes within us as we leave, and we change, and we return once again."
“Nostalgia Doesn’t Flow Away Like Riverwater is a very special collection that lays bare the painful decisions that migrants face and the risks they take to provide a better future for their families, while exposing the sacrifices made by those who stay behind. By publishing her poetry in her native tongue, Didxazá, and in Spanish, Pineda is not only writing of and for the Binnizá (Isthmus Zapotec) people, but inviting others to hear their stories. Now with this trilingual edition, English language readers have the ability to appreciate this vital poetic conversation at a time when we need to be listening to the voices of others more than ever.”
—Joseph Schreiber, Rough Ghosts
"Poetry is what cannot be silenced. Irma Pineda's extraordinary collection--in resonant Isthmus Zapotec and Spanish, lmy events pageucidly translated into precise English by Wendy Call--surveys the echoes of a universal journey across space, time, and language. We are in the hands of a consummate poet through whose vision an entire civilization comes alive. Her protagonists follow the path of Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Neruda. An artistic triumph!"
You can read poems that appear in Nostalgia Doesn’t Flow Away... in the literary journals that first published the English translations:
Five poems by Irma Pineda, ADI Magazine, October 2020
“Like a Flower” by Irma Pineda, Kenyon Review Online, Ohio, October 2020
Seven poems on migration by Irma Pineda, with a Translator’s Note, NAIS (Native American and Indigenous Studies) Journal, Vol 7 No 2, Fall 2020
“[My feet won’t pause]” and “[I traveled the path from the south]” by Irma Pineda, with a Translator’s Note, Shenandoah, Vol 69, No 2, Washington and Lee University, Spring 2020
“[The houses of your village have eyes]” by Irma Pineda in Issue 12, SAND, Berlin, Germany, Fall 2015
“You Will Not See Me Die,” audio recording of poem by Irma Pineda, World Literature Today online, University of Oklahoma, January 2012 and NEA Writers’ Corner, April 2015
“Your Suitcase: Selections from On the Path, by Irma Pineda, Michigan Quarterly Review, University of Michigan, Spring 2013