Poetry Thursday: Luis Palés Matos

July 4, 2019 at 8:18 pm (Personal Bookshelf, Places)
Tags: discoveries, poetry, Puerto Rican writers, translation

Antille, steaming pasture
of freshly crushed cane syrup.
Constant activity of the sugar mill
Molasses Turkish bath.
White-linened aristocracy
skimming over life’s waves
on milk-curdled phrases
and mellifluous metaphors.
Stylized coast drafted
by languid palm trees.

— translated by Rosario Ferré

Luis Palés Matos was born on March 20, 1898, in Guayama, Puerto Rico, a small village with a predominantly black population.

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