Laura Solórzano was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco in 1961. She currently runs a small independent business as a textiles artisan in Guadalajara. Her poems have been published in various Mexican literary journals, most recently in Hoja Frugal (available free of cost from the editor, Dolores Dorantes, at doloresdorantes@hotmail.com); her most recent books are lobo de labio (chapbook, Serie poesía, Cuadernos de filodecaballos, Guadalajara: 2001) and Semilla de Ficus (Ediciones Rimbaud, Tlaxcala: 1999).
Jen Hofer is the editor and translator of an anthology of contemporary poetry by Mexican women which will be co-published by University of Pittsburgh Press and Ediciones Sin Nombre in 2003. Her other works include “Laws,” the July 2001 issue of A.BACUS, and The 3:15 Experiment, in conjunction with Lee Ann Brown, Danika Dinsmore and Bernadette Mayer (The Owl Press, 2001). Her first book of poems, Slide Rule, will be published by subpress in March 2002. Recent poems, translations and collaborations can be found in forthcoming issues of Antennae, Aufgabe, Chain, Kenning and Tripwire.
Poem on the Wall
In the tenor of the elapsing, she is constant. On the wall is the map (the suggestive message of all maps). I bring my thumb to the crack as if it were a question of resurrection. My eyes pursue the veinof a certainty: tongue that palpates the description of time falling within its own infinite white dust. Diagram delineated and cyclical. Challenging wrinkles. My days are surprised to see the trace that remains molded against the immobile vertebra of a home.
Poema en el muro
En el tenor del transcurrir, ella es constante. En la pared está el mapa (el sugerente mensaje de todos los mapas). Acerco mi pulgar a la grieta como si se tratara de una resurrección. Mis ojos persiguen la veta de una certidumbre: lengua que palpa la descripción del tiempo cayendo en su propio e infinito polvo blanco. Diagrama delineado y cíclico. Arrugas desafiantes. Mis días se sorprenden de ver el rastro que queda plasmado en la vértebra inmóvil de un hogar.