Tr. Paula Querido and Alexis Graman

Editor’s Note: I Say, from Peruvian poet, feminist, and political activist (and co-founder of the APRA party, with which she later broke) Magda Portal’s book Constancia de Ser was first published in 1965.

I Say

I say they be damned
those that deny your right to sing
those that will not allow you to light the herb or the spike
nor vibrate the air with the voice of the child.
I say damn those who thrive off your pain and mine
those barren of beauty
those who steal their gifts from life
those with hands putrified in blood
that have sterilized all the earth.
Those that made the wailings of Hiroshima
and its silence and those that mutilated Nagasaki
and are raining their hatred down on Cuba.
The executioners of Algeria
and Vietnam
and the agrarian workers from my land.
Now where is hope placed?
Where the sweet flower of the smile
of the mothers who gestate and nurse
if we walk at random wounded
from death?
we do not know
the direction of their daggers their breath
poisonous their sinister and certain undertaking.
They invent prisons and walls
stone by stone they manufacture the shame
erect their alters of ignominy
they are the masters of fear
and suspicion.
Since the beginning of time
they drew the borders.
But they say words and words
they say “liberty" “progress" "justice"
“peace" “coexistence."
they rent out leaders
auction awarenesses
and manufacture their heroes from rags
so that the town admires and believes them.
Remove the pigment Black brother
leave the poncho the sandal old Indian
hide your secular hunger
tear out your dark root
and macerate your skin
if you must sit at their banquet
and learn foreign words
understand their language
agrarian worker Chinese Black
from Puerto Rico or from Japan
from New York or from Brazil.
Helots of your own land
nomadic from latitude in latitude
the paths of the world know you by memory
stateless wonderer
you transpose the mountains
cross the rivers…..tread jungles
bountiful…..and inhospitable
you are passed on anopheles….or silicosis
or hunger simply rusts your lungs
in the slums
where no more misery fits.
While they keep waving their flags
proclaiming doctrines
and dogmas and principles
to continue squeezing you out in their name
the humoral juices
the light the voice the air
the wishes.
They mutilate the words
break the signs
erase the stars
embitter the bread
and deny you the dream.
They follow you….chase you….and accuse you
and signal to you with their finger.
Night after night they light up the firmament
with the luminous claims
of atomic bombs
and even if you flee….and submerge yourself underground
the red death will follow you
the giant mushrooms will rise
and will cover the atmosphere.
Your children and grandchildren will gather their inheritance
mutilated….deformed….maddened….or
simply….immersed
in the great night of unconsciousness.
Only that they too will breathe poison
and will be afraid
and then yes there will be justice
equitable blind
they will have their own death
manufactured by their own hands
cruel….without truce.
Murderers….hypocrites….traitors
prophets of horror
this is why I say
for centuries and centuries be damned.
A m e n.

Magda Portal was a hugely influential force in Latin American and specifically Peruvian politics and literature. Early work was published in, among other places, the incredibly important literary journal Amauta, though she was an activist (and co-founder) in the APRA political movement. She broke with the APRA over issues including their stance on the liberation of women. A committed feminist throughout her life she published a number of works of poetry and fiction including the semi-autobiographical La Trampa, the work of feminist historical recuperation Flora Tristán Precursora, and the text from which this poem was translated, La Constancia del Ser. A selection of her poems with an extended biographical and historical consideration was translated by Kathleen Weaver as Peruvian Rebel : The World of Magda Portal, With a Selection of Her Poems (Penn State, 2009)