De Cartografías sentimentales/Affective cartographies de Luisa Futoransky

Argentine poet, Luisa Futoransky, has a long-standing fascination with the urban in her poetry. The following poems are a taster of her forthcoming bilingual anthology, Cartografías sentimentales/Affective cartographies, which brings together her poems about cities. The poems composing this new anthology together create an affective map that spans both decades and continents, each city ultimately co-existing in this mnemonic and sentimental cartography in the present. Some of the poems in this sample are the fruit of a fleeting encounter with the cities in question. Others lay bare a much more intimate relationship to the surroundings: namely Paris, Luisa Futoransky’s current home, and Buenos Aires, the poet’s home city, which often bears an unspoken -almost spectral-presence in her work. Here, she unmasks the urban and takes us into the viscera of cities that take on a personality of their own.

Insomnia on the rue de Charenton

familiar sounds tendered by anonymous inhabitantsthe newsboy at 3:35the milkman at 4:15the baker at 5:40

the neighbor relieving herself      a lover departing          rag-pickers rummaging through the trashcans                  oh! Paris la nuit

Insomnio en la Rue de Charenton

los ruidos amigos que me tienden habitantes desconocidosel repartidor de diarios a las 3,35el repartidor de lácteos a las 4,15el repartidor de pan a las 5,40

la vecina que orina      el amante que parte            los cirujas que revisan los tachos de basura                  oh! paris la nuit

South bank selfie

After many years living in the back yardof cities that scintillatelet me beginby telling you about one:

my city is not foundationally evasive but became that way over time;dodging reality out of some sort of defensive bad habit,ready to avoid she dribbles as if with a football,she lies in truco,² lies for all she’s worthuntil even she believes herselfshe rewrites historyand repatriates remainsall that is left to entertain herself

for this and other great weaknesses my citydresses up in a cape of pure paradoxinvisible to those outsidewhat I mean is she believes hook line and sinker in one thing and its opposite

sometimes my city is diagnosed with schizophreniaand autism to an extreme degreeadd to this a foolproof sense of prideand a cocky disdainand the veristic portrait hardly bears temptation

in short a city of little checkand a lot of mate

and I who know not how to swimflailI flail to keep my head above waterbut what of my feet

Selfie Costanera Sur

Tras largo vivir en el patio traserode ciudades rutilantesempiezocontando una:

mi ciudad no es fundacionalmente huidiza pero se fue haciendo así;por una suerte de vicio defensivo esquiva la realidad,puesta a esquivar gambetea como en el fútbol,miente en el truco miente a más no poderhasta que ella misma se la creemodifica la historiay no le queda otra que entretenerserepatriando restos,

mi ciudad por estas y otras grandes debilidadesviste una capa de pura paradojainvisible para los de afueraes decir cree a pie juntillas en una cosa y su contrario

a veces diagnostican a mi ciudad esquizofreniay autismo en severas proporcionessi a eso le sumás soberbia y un menosprecioel cuadro verista es poco tentador

ciudad en suma, de poco jaquey mucho mate

y yo que sin saber nadarmanoteomanoteo por sacar la cabeza fuera del aguay los pies qué

Luminaries

      to Jason Weiss

instead of christmas lightsthe menorahs of brighton show off with airs and gracesbanks and convenience stores along the main avenuea mottled steppeof poor tastemarkets and smoked fish stalls, stores offering leather, vegetablescaviar and manicures.

advertisements for sword swallowers, mermaidshuman pyramids of coney islandrollercoaster, or russian mountain rather,and other summer daredevilry

hunched over plastic laminate clusters of mafiososreminiscence is a step enclosed within the step...