and
Fogarty & Garrido: A Bilingual Conversation between Four Poems

1 November 2012
Pages: 1 2

Urban Black – Lionel Fogarty

Today a lot actions and words
Are about aboriginal land rights
Let’s work about the urban land rights…
Where is the land?
We don’t want the sewered bad rubbish air in cities
so can’t find the land, no land.
Urban aboriginal, go back in time
You will find you are a tribal person
You’ll find the tribe
That roamed the land
That is now dumps.
You’ll find your customs are to carry on.
Once done, you know you don’t want the city core.
GO BACK
To find you are related to Aboriginal or faraway green,
Go out, help them fight now for land rights.
It’s your land too.
No matter where you from
You got land rights.
Urban blacks
Don’t die in wine
Soon this city will spread out over your lands.
Move, move .
Go, go
Urban black the time is
NOW

Aborígenes Urbanos (translated by Juan Garrido-Salgado)

Hoy en día hay muchos acciones y palabras
Sobre los derechos a la tierra de los aborígenes urbanos.
Vamos a trabajar sobre los derechos
A la tierra de los urbanos.
¿Dónde está esa tierra?.
Como ellos dicen
no queremos la cloaca en el aire
basural de las ciudades.
Así no podremos encontrar la tierra, así no hay tierra.

Aborígenes urbanos regresen al tiempo
Encontraran a la persona de la tribu que perdieron.
Encontraran la tribu
Que ruje en la tierra y que hoy es basural.

Encontraran su usanza tan alta
Que una vez hecha, tú sabes lo que no deseas;
El meollo de la ciudad.
Regresen ya!
Para revivir la relación ancestral,
El verde que se vuelve pasado.

Vamos anda, ayúdanos
A luchar por el derecho a la tierra.
Vamos anda, ayúdanos
A luchar por el derecho a la tierra,
Esa que también es tuya;
Sin importar de dónde vienes
Tienes derecho a ella.
Aborígenes urbanos
No mueras en el alcohol
Pronto la ciudad te borrará de ella.

Muévete, muévete
Cambia, camina
Ahora es el momento.

La Llave de Mi Casa – Juan Garrido-Salgado

Para miles de palestinos
la casa ya no existe.
¡Por qué!
Casa y llave tienen igual recuerdos
Usted puede entrar y permanecer allí
Comer, hablar y reír
Dormir con sus hijos y su familia
No en Palestina.
¿Por qué?
La llave abre no sólo la puerta
Es el lugar donde vives y donde están provenían sus raíces
La Llave no es sólo un pedazo de metal, la llave es una vida abierta
de amor y felicidad
La llave no es solo un símbolo, es parte de tu vida
La llave es dada a ti por la confianza y para cuidarte
Entonces, ¿por qué me quitan mi casa y solo me dejan la llave?
Abro mis recuerdos, mi corazón y través de mis ojos
Las lágrimas caen como terremoto o bombas en mi alma.
No sé qué hacer
Sin tierra, sin casa sólo esta llave es la evidencia de lo que soy.
Soy palestino, crecí y vivo aquí en esta tierra sagrada.

The Key of My House

For thousands of Palestinian people
Home doesn’t exist anymore.
Why!
Home and this key have equals memories
You can go in and stay there
Eating, talking and laughing
Sleeping with your children and family
Not in Palestine.
Why?
The key opens not only the door
It is where you live and where your roots came from
The key is not only a piece metal, key is an opened life
Love and happiness
The key is not a symbol it is part of your life
The key is given to you by trust and care for
So why take away my home and leave me the key?
I open my memories, my heart and through my eyes
Tears fall like earthquakes or bombs in my soul
I don’t know what to do
Without a land, without a home only this key is evidence
I am Palestinian and I grew up and live here in this holy land.

Pages: 1 2
This entry was posted in TRANSLATIONS and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.
Lionel Fogarty

About Lionel Fogarty


Lionel Fogarty was born in 1958 at Barambah, now known as Cherbourg Aboriginal Reserve, in the South Burnett region of southern Queensland. Since the 1970s he has been active in many of the political struggles of the Aboriginal people, from the Land Rights movement, to setting up Aboriginal health and legal services, to the issue of black deaths in custody. His first collection of poetry, Kargun, was published in 1980, and he has gone on to publish eight further collections, as well as a children’s book, Booyooburra, a traditional Wakka Wakka story. Fogarty has also travelled widely in the United States and Europe, reading from his work and participating in conferences of Indigenous peoples. An unabashedly political poet, Fogarty’s poetry employs Aboriginal English in innovative ways, challenging readers to reconfigure cultural assumptions.



Further reading:
View all posts by Lionel Fogarty on Cordite →
Juan Garrido-Salgado

About Juan Garrido-Salgado


Juan Garrido-Salgado was born in Chile and was a political prisoner under the Pinochet regime. He now lives in Adelaide. He has published three books of poetry, and his poems have been published in Chile, Colombia, Spain, El Salvador, Brazil, Europe, New Zealand and Australia. He has also translated into Spanish works from John Kinsella, Mike Ladd, Judith Beveridge, Dorothy Porter and MTC Cronin, including Talking to Neruda’s Questions. He has translated five Aboriginal poets for Espejo de Tierra/Earth Mirror Poetry Anthology. With Steve Brock and Sergio Holas, Garrido-Salgado also translated into English the trilingual Mapuche Poetry Anthology, and has translated many of Lionel Fogorty’s poems into Spanish. He is currently working on the Spanish translation of a selection of Jumoke Verissimo’s poems, to be read at the Granada International Poetry Festival in Nicaragua.



Further reading:
View all posts by Juan Garrido-Salgado on Cordite →

Related Posts:

One Response to Fogarty & Garrido: A Bilingual Conversation between Four Poems

  1. Pingback: The Poetic Politics of Lionel Fogarty « Australian Poetry

Please read Cordite's comments policy before joining the discussion.