Blue Window/Ventana Azul by Indran Amirthanayagam, translated by Jennifer Rathbun
Source: Publisher/GBF Paperback, 228 pgs. I am an Amazon Affiliate
Blue Window/Ventana Azul by Indran Amirthanayagam, translated by Jennifer Rathbun, is a bilingual collection of love poems in Spanish and English that touches the passionate hearts of us all. It is a love letter to lovers, friends, ourselves, and human kind. Amirthanayagam opens the collection with "On my Body," exploring the weakness of the body to be fooled by love, whether that is the desire of the body to get close to another only to find out it is not love or a person who tattoos their body for love and be stuck with the reminder that it is a failed relationship. Love in this opening poem is both bliss and pain. How true that is.
I love that this collection is both in Spanish and English. It allowed me to reach back into my memory to find those Spanish words I recall from high school and attempt to live in the language Amirthanayagam wrote the poems in. While my translations did not always match what was written in the English poem, the feelings evoked by the poems were the same. The beauty of language is that it can transcend the barriers we have to create connections, much like love can connect us to one another.
There is a deep longing in Amirthanayagam's poems. His poems are short but full of poetic longing - to embrace those who have moved, those who are no longer with us, the lovers we remember fondly despite the pain of those relationships ending, and even those we have yet to meet.
Keys (pg. 105)
I would have liked to have taught you to drive, share the stage when you presented your first book,
write its prologue. Your poems accompany me to the rhythm of my pulse. Cars will become more electric
and I will continue loving what we could have accomplished in that other time that was within
our reach and is still present, an open-ended invitation, the car ready to start.
Llaves (pg. 104)
Me hubiese gustado enseñarte a manejar, compartir la mesa cuando presentabas tu primer libro,
escribir el prólogo. Tus poemas me acompañan al ritmo de mi pulso; los autos se volverán más eléctricos
y seguiré amando lo que podríamos haber logrado en aquel otro tiempo que estaba
a nuestro alcance y sigue presente, una invitación sin fecha de caducidad, el auto listo para encenderse. In "Between Google and Face, a Letter," Amirthanayagam speaks to the digital distance many of us face now, making love or the cultivation of love more difficult. "Now when I surf the internet/I see that face like a country/behind the Iron Curtain/that's now rather digital,//bytes of ones, zeroes and light blocking/Cyrano from his beloved. Who will become/his postman and who will make peace"
One of my favorite poems in the collection comes in the back third, "Sustainable Love," where the longing is ever present from the man who will not cry for his love or clean the office or check the email hoping for messages, as the oceans continue to erode the shore and the man has little choice but to get back to life and his work. "To Wake Up with Moon and Sea" also explores this longing, but instead of another person, there's a longing for a home country left behind.
Blue Window/Ventana Azul by Indran Amirthanayagam, translated by Jennifer Rathbun, pays homage to love's beauty, its heartbreak, its longing, and its desire. Fall through Amirthanayagam's ventana azul and revel in the beauty of love. A collection you'll turn to in times of sadness and in celebration.
RATING: Quatrain
About the Poet:
Indran Amirthanayagam is a Sri Lankan-American poet- diplomat, essayist, translator and musician in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. A member of the U.S. Foreign Service, he is currently oa a domestic assignment in Washington D.C. Amirthanayagam has been nominated for the 2021 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Colombo, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), when he was eight years old Amirthanayagam moved with his family to London, England, and at age 14, he moved again to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he began writing poetry. He studied at Punahou School in Honolulu and played cricket at the Honolulu Cricket Club. He then studied English Literature at Haverford College where he also captained their cricket team during his last year. He has a Master's in Journalism from Columbia University. Amirthanayagam writes poetry and essays in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. His Spanish collections include Lírica a tiempo (Mesa Redonda Editorial, Lima, 2020), En busca de posada (Editorial Apogeo Lima 2019), El Infierno de los Pájaros (Resistencia, Mexico City, 2001), El Hombre que Recoge Nidos (CONARTE/Resistencia, Mexico, 2005), Sol Camuflado (Lustra Editores, Lima, May 2011), Sin Adorno, lírica para tiempos neobarrocos (Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Mexico, 2013), and Ventana Azul (El Tapiz del Unicornio, Mexico, 2016). His first collection in French, Aller-retour au bord de la mer, was published in 2014 by Legs Editions. Legs also published Il n'est de solitude que l'ile lointaine in 2017. Sur l'île nostalgique was published by L'Harmattan in Paris in 2020. His works in English include BLUE WINDOW (VENTANA AZUL) (DIALOGOS/Lavender Ink, 2021), THE MIGRANT STATES (Hanging Loose Press, 2020), UNCIVIL WAR (Mawenzi House/TSAR Publishers, 2013), THE SPLINTERED FACE: TSUNAMI POEMS (HAnging Loose Press, 2008), and THE ELEPHANTS OF RECKONING (Hanging Loose Press, 1993). Check out The Poetry Channel he runs.