María Soledad Quiroga (Bolivia)

Por: María Soledad Quiroga
Traductor: Sebastián Antezana

I want to be one with you in the water

to feel in transparence

the body's weight,

to be real volume

in the midst of what flows

under an open sky

"diluted and translucent clouds"

I want to be color, defined shape

against foam and air

to be shadow among the sparks

that light up and fade

I want to be surface

for the liquid blow of the tide

and its desertion,

to be body

and possess its limits.

María Soledad Quiroga was born in Santiago de Chile in March 22 of 1957. She has the Bolivian citizenship. She made studies of Sociology and Literature. She has published the poetry books: Ciudad Blanca, 1993; Recuento del agua, 1995; Maquinaria mínima, 1995; Casa amarilla, 1998; Los muros del claustro, 2004; and Islas reunión, -cuentos-, 2006. Her work has appeared in diverse anthologies, among them: Poemas en Escritoras de América del Sur, 1996; Cuento en Antología del cuento femenino en Bolivia, 1997; El aliento en las hojas. Otras voces en la poesía boliviana, 1998 and Poemas en Una revelación desde la escritura. Interview to Bolivian woman poets, 2001. She has been a columnist for The Newspaper La Prensa in La Paz and in The Weekly Journal Pulso in the same city. According to the words of the Bolivian poet Eduardo Mitre: Maria Soledad Quiroga threads dramatically a poetics of time based in a poetics of space which is expressed in the city, the high plateau and the concrete objects. However in the conquered acceptation that the universe and our mutable identity are made up from its enigmatic nature symbolized by the water they appear an ethics and an erotica that opens a path towards reconciliation. In regards of Casa Amarilla by the way: With a smooth and spontaneous writing as they are the waves that form and expand by the plain surface of a lake, she prolongs and deepens that poetics of intimacy already present in her prior books: lovable poetry that goes by with the stealth of a snake that slides through it as an emblem of the mutations of desire and the never ending metamorphosis of reality. (…) So, Bolivian woman poets, 2001. She has been a columnist for The Newspaper La Prensa in La Paz and in The Weekly Journal Pulso in the same city. According to the words of the Bolivian poet Eduardo Mitre: Maria Soledad Quiroga threads dramatically a poetics of time based in a poetics of space which is expressed in the city, the high plateau and the concrete objects. However in the conquered acceptation that the universe and our mutable identity are made up from its enigmatic nature symbolized by the water they appear an ethics and an erotica that opens a path towards reconciliation. In regards of Casa Amarilla by the way: With a smooth and spontaneous writing as they are the waves that form and expand by the plain surface of a lake, she prolongs and deepens that poetics of intimacy already present in her prior books: lovable poetry that goes by with the stealth of a snake that slides through it as an emblem of the mutations of desire and the never ending metamorphosis of reality. (…) So, the half opened door of Casa Amarilla guides us to an epiphany expressed with the clearest voice of the actual Bolivian poetry.