Poet and author Pablo Medina will read from his newest publication, “The Foreigner’s Song: New and Selected Poems” (2020). Medina is the author of several books in Spanish and English and has translated works of Federico García Lorca and Virgillio Piñera into English. He has won numerous awards and received prestigious foundation support. Born in Cuba, Medina moved to the US with his family at the age of 12. He now lives in Williamsville and is on faculty at the Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers. Light refreshments will be provided by the library.
From “The Foreigner’s Song”, here is “Who Wins Out” (page 28)
The poet makes things appear
out of thin air — coffee on the table,
table in the living room,
living room under the dome of the sky.
Look at the stars, how they multiply!
You, my rabbit, are back in the hat.
Magic taught me to make
crevices through which the truth
and the lie leak like rhetorical twins:
the one-eyed man and the wicked swan,
the laughing gull and the coconut.
You have to know them very well to tell
the difference between the mountains
and the church bells.
The sea flattens all forms and the words
to describe them. Far from the sea,
forms become their meaning —
nude woman in bed, man hoeing a field,
the deep sleep of a pregnant snake.
Who wins out in the end,
my mother telling me her dreams
or my father calibrating fantasies?
