Featured poet: David Villagrán Ruz

David Villagrán Ruz (Santiago, 1984) published Solsticios [Solstices] (Marea Baja, 2009) after receiving a grant from the Consejo Nacional de la Cultura. His books include Declinación de un astro [Declination of a star] (La Calle Passy ediciones, 2011) and Habitar [Dwell] (TEGE, 2016), a plaquette that includes an excerpt from an unpublished book of the same name. He is one of the editors of the publisher Cal y Canto and the poetry micro-publisher Cástor y Pólux.

The music of the reader

No convention prevails
over the mystery of existence.

There’s an inhuman silence
in the written word.
The solitude
of an uninhabited body.

Only music breaks through the masks
with redemption.
A living gaze recomposes itself
without words.

A melody that dissolves into light,
very clear tones
and a longing to die.

The tone alters
in just one
uncertain measure.

— translated by Jessica Sequeira