If we translators awarded a prize to whoever best defends our profession without exercising it, Yamil would be among the finalists. He was in charge of the conception of number 21 of the Amnios magazine , as well as the selection and edition of the texts included in it. This number, a luxury for translation and translators, could have the subtitle «Another feast of poetry», recalling that of Samuel Feijoo , of whom several poetic versions are included here.

Among the books by Villa Clara poet Yamil Díaz Gómez (Santa Clara, 1971) are Mi pan rebano en solitaria mesa. Ten Martian sonnets (Santa Clara, 2019) and The books that daily (Santa Clara, 2020, review). Yamil has worked as an editor at Editorial Capiro and Signos magazine , and has kindly agreed to answer some questions and comments about this issue of Amnios .

Amnios has been presenting translated poetry since its inception; I remember that translations of Saint John Perse (Lourdes Arencibia, Jesús David Curbelo ), Cecília Meireles ( Olga Sánchez Guevara ) and Theodore Rothko ( Manuel García Verdecia ) were already published in its first issue . But number 21 is entirely dedicated to poetic translation. How did this idea come about?

The idea that Amnios dedicate a monograph to poetic translation arose in a simple and inevitable way. The director of the magazine, the poet Alpidio Alonso , in recent years has taken on another task in parallel, extremely exhausting, which devours his time. He then went to a group of intellectuals-friends and asked each of them to imagine a number. Among these proposals, he prevailed (and here you force me, dear Olga, to speak in the first person) my project. It was then the core of what would finally materialize, although along the way it was enriched with numerous proposals from the director.

What is your relationship with translation? Did your reading, the great translator poets, Borges , Octavio Paz , Tagore influence this?

Of course, this was influenced by the "great translator poets"; but also the «great translated poets». I am unfortunately very bad at languages. In fact, in my academic career, the only time I failed an exam was an English exam. But, since I have been reading poetry since I was a child, I feel profound gratitude for those who have allowed me to read, in the only language I know, French, English, German poetry, etc. It always frustrates me when I can't find in the credits of the book or the serial the name of the person who allowed me to bypass my limitation. That is to say: that cruel undervaluation that translators have suffered for a long time —and among them those of the most difficult genre— keeps alive in me a vindictive desire that found its channel when Alpidio summoned me to think about a number ofamnion . It was, after all, a platform that has always given space to translated poetry; but, for this time, he would not arm himself thinking of the world's poets but of their translators.

In principle you are a poet, what is your experience as a poetry editor?

My experience as a poetry editor initially took place in the field of books. A couple of months after graduating with a degree in Journalism, I found myself working at the Capiro publishing house in Santa Clara. There I had to edit originals of almost all genres, including poetry. I believe that the culminating point of that experience occurred when, among the ten winners of the 1996 Critics Award, two collections of poems that I had edited were included: Last passengers in God's ship , by Carlos Galindo Lena , and Here , by Roberto Fernández Retamar . My commissioned works for other publishing houses (April, Sed de Belleza, Ediciones Obrador) have also included volumes of verses. Later, I worked for a few years in the magazineSignos —that precious legacy that Samuel Feijoo left us— , where I had the pleasure of approaching Cuban popular poetry, bringing many jewels of our poetry from orality to print.

This issue includes Cuban translators and translators from other countries: tell me about the selection and editing process. How was your editorial relationship with the translators included?

Number 21 of Amnios includes numerous Cuban translators: from Zequeira to those of today. With the current ones we have had a fluid dialogue, which began with the request for collaborations and went through each one reviewing the proofs of the plans that corresponded to him. But we are not a chauvinist magazine. We wanted the reader to enjoy good poetry well translated in other regions of the world, which explains the presence on these pages of signatures such as those of Borges , Neruda , Coronel Urtecho , Cardenal , Paz , Gelman and the great Spanish poet Antonio Gamoneda ., who had the generosity to give us some of what he calls his “removals”.

I remember you asked me to choose between my favorite texts. I guess it would be the same or similar with the other colleagues, was no translation repeated?

It happens that we had the intention of helping to make our translators visible; in the case of them, Cuba has them very good and from different generations. Of course, if they are not all that are, at least they are all that are... And, well, there were a couple of poems in which we had more than one translation, so we had to choose: there will always be a margin for the taste of the editors.

How long did it take you to “put together” the number? Difficulties, support, satisfaction derived from this work?

This issue, due to its complexity and length (it reached four hundred pages), was quite laborious. It took almost eleven months of work before we could declare it ready to print. Difficulties, dissatisfactions: the inevitable ones: missing translators, details that deserved one last correction... But nothing significant compared to the pleasure of joining a team very dedicated to their work and the constant dialogue with creators like Nancy Morejón —the leading figure in this number that, in addition, bears his illustrations—and all the others. And to that we add the ultimate satisfaction of caressing a polygraphic product so pleasing to our eyes and our sensitivity as readers.

I am reading the magazine. What a marvel you have achieved! From Netzahualcóyotl, passing through examples of Hebrew, Greek, African, Russian, Hungarian, Antillean, English, German, French, Italian and Portuguese poetry, up to what you have called “New Echoes of the Rhine”… The beautiful illustrations of Nancy are always timely; the translations that she gathered have a harmony with each other, they form a body. And here a new question arises: how was the task of organizing the material you had? How did you achieve the balance between translators and translated authors?

Before editing magazines, I edited books and I got used to looking for dramaturgy, especially poetry. That's why I try that my magazines are not catch-alls. That is all.

Some translations are grouped under titles given by their authors ("Mudanzas" by Gamoneda , "Com/Posiciones" by Gelman , "Festín de poetry" by Samuel Feijóo , "By the path of Judas" by Jesús David Curbelo ), but many others they were grouped by the publisher, that is, you, under titles like Aphrodite divine» for Greek poetry, which includes Laura Mestre 's versions of Pindar ; «A rose from France» for Francophone poetry, or «Perfume de mujer» for a poetic miscellany poured by Cuban translators. Tell me about what we could call "the magic of names."

The magic of names lies in the unifying force of meaning: to portray something with a minimum of words. Many times a single verse or phrase contains the spirit, the essence of a bunch of texts. But if the editor doesn't come up with something like that, he has to turn to his imagination... You will find, Olga, in Amnios 21, a long sample of North American poetry translated by Cardenal and Coronel Urtecho . I put “Gas Station” on it, like a poem by Elizabeth Bishop . It turns out that Cardenal coined the term exteriorismoprecisely because he found in American poetry an abundance of objects, an interest in the outside and concrete world. I cannot conceive of an "object" more typical of the United States than a gas station; That's why I kept that name. In the case of “Borges de Vuelta y Vuelta”, it was a title of my own: we had the great poet in his double role as translator and translated; It seemed to me that calling his part that way would not be far from Borges ' own scathing style .

The authentic feast of poetry that is Amnios 21 is completed with several reviews of translated books, and a multiple interview that gives voice to five translators, who answer questions about concepts such as fidelity and autonomy in translation, details of their work processes and visibility of translators in Cuba.

Now I only have to thank Yamil for answering my questions, and for his work in this issue of Amnios , whose reading I recommend to all those interested in poetry and translation.

Thank you very much.