WHAT HAS BECOME OF YOU SONIA SUZUKI
by ROXANA CRISÓLOGO, TRANS. BY KIM JENSEN AND JOSÉ LUIS RICO
What has become of you Sonia Suzuki
now that decomposition is the chemistry that makes sense
now that the trees are filled with lemons with no juice
and small birds peck at the leftovers of the day
and it’s the blackberries that stain
the sidewalks with something very much like blood
not the blood of the newspapers nor the blood on everyone’s lips
but the kind that wipes its mouth on newspapers
we summon it
in the flowers I collect
then tuck behind my ear
that’s why the sky is like this
a gray I can’t explain
and clouds can’t seem to agree on whether to blow it all apart
we collect all these flowers just to tear off their petals and suck out the flavor
wondering whether we were the beloved daughters or not
there was no hope back then
but there was a future in chemistry they told you
Everything that explains mixtures and sudden reactions
Everything that involves measuring and combining
adding or subtracting from the body is progress is engineering
but you couldn’t concentrate on more mixtures
other than the ones you held in your chest
in the confusion that was the happiness of not knowing anything about anything
of not wanting anything at all
we were out loose on the streets of old Lima
you were going to tell me about your grandfather who started a business from nothing
how from nothing he opened a little shop and then another
without speaking a single word
once again the chemistry of perfect leaps the perfect
combination of whatever explodes on its axis
the explosion set in motion to bring together
the mythical place of nothingness
you were going to tell me
about Peru Shimpo where they announced every birth
we were going to learn Japanese together and together go off to Japan
over there they’d recognize the merits of crossing into the future without looking back
but again chemistry
the sudden leaps of necessity desire
our last time together we went on foot to register for the mandatory draft
no one needed us back then
not even the fatherland
we would have had to go somewhere far away
back then Africa didn’t exist
we didn’t know that dark times were coming
Lima 1984 loose in downtown Lima
they called out to us chinitas what are you doing out alone
and my timid tongue held itself back for a more opportune moment
and the brain that I kept in a bag that birds were fighting
to puncture
and the streets filled up with more vendors and people who were fleeing
and building a country on top of our feet
and I danced to drown out that country and to you my dance seemed folkloric
the cloth bag I wore across my chest
the braids that began to weave into my face
seemed to you like overcrowded numbers too many mixtures
my doubts rusted the air
growing out of control too many words
something other than me moved against the current
some small animal in conflict with itself
and everything ended up in the desert
like when I fell asleep on the bus and forgot about the world
I came from a Cone[1] and a desert lay behind me
each time I went away I drew closer to the desert
each time I took off my clothes or shoes I leapt
over a desert
I carried that desert to every place in my mind
and spat it out in a few words
that I called poetry
one day I looked for you in the streets of La Victoria
the stocking shop after the dress stores
right before the restaurants with ducks hanging upside down in the windows
awnings that didn’t let us look into the future nor the intentions
between the mannequins with their backs turned
the body that was taking shape in the new city
did not let us see the new city
near the Congress
one day when there were no marches or massacres that forced
mothers and sisters to fill the streets
behind the Central Market
I came I saw you and it was as if chemistry had finally
dissolved everything in the chlorine of a ruthless cleansing
in a huge explosion
in the tea that you offered me
before I continued on my way
[1] Lima is a city built on a desert. In the late 1950s, an influx of migrant families settled in Lima’s periphery. These neighborhoods initially lacked electricity, water, and even a discernable layout, but broadened as they expanded away from downtown Lima. Eventually they became known as “Cones.” In the 1970s and 80s, these makeshift districts became spaces of struggle for recognition, laboratories of syncretism, and breeding grounds for literary movements.
IF PERU IS A RICH COUNTRY
by ROXANA CRISÓLOGO, TRANS. BY KIM JENSEN AND JOSÉ LUIS RICO
If Peru is a rich country
with so much potential to inspire wordplay and puns
why do most Peruvians say they’re poor
and speak in such a low tone of voice
to make poetry out of riches and riches out of poetry
forces me to describe what I can barely hear
while searching for the petroleum of what is ending
the mercury that pierces the hands and falsely shines
to make poetry out of the rich asparagus fields
that steal all the water
from farmers who have no water
so that we who anxiously roam the supermarket
in search of Peruvian asparagus
can have Peruvian asparagus on our tables
I write about a farm that I must fill with happy farmers
who live from the fruit of their labor
to make poetry out of Kindergarten Nº 744
which has no water
they don’t eat asparagus
to make poetry that is acclamation exemplification onomatopoeia
to make science and language out of poetry
and venerate more scraps of plaster that go splat!
to make a history that doesn’t end in thirst
and to speak about defeats that are just half-hearted negotiations
to tell the story of the other side of the page
to speak about heroes while looking at them sideways
to play the fool the madmen
and to not speak of children as little angels who are foreign to this world
and to say they’ll watch over you from heaven
and that death is not the end of the tunnel
and that the women who died sacrificed themselves
so that we could be here
and that the earth cradles and nurtures all her children equally
to write the word agro-exporter without smashing my head against the steering wheel
of the tractor and to breathe
to cultivate plastic
avoiding the mathematics of distribution
I need to banish the servile function of certain words
to turn up the volume the voice
to quell the fury of form
Roxana Crisólogo is a Peruvian poet, translator, and cultural worker who was recently selected to participate in the University of Iowa’s International Writer’s Program. The author of several volumes of poetry, her Selected Works will be issued in 2026 by the prestigious El Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE). Her works have been translated into Italian, German, Finnish, French and Swedish. Her new collection, Esta canción no termina de salir de mi boca, was published by Álbum del Universo Bakterial in 2025. Crisólogo is the founder of Sivuvalo Platform, a multilingual literature association based in Helsinki. She was president of the association of Finnish left-wing artists and writers, Kiila. Crisólogo’s literary work and projects have been supported by the Finnish foundations, Kone Foundation, Finnish Literature Exchange, Arts Promotion Centre Finland, Kari Mattila Säätiö, and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Dr. Kim Jensen (she/her) is a Baltimore-based writer, poet, professor, and translator who has lived in California, France, and Palestine. Her books include an experimental novel, The Woman I Left Behind, and two collections of poems, Bread Alone and The Only Thing that Matters. Kim was a finalist for the Jean Feldman Poetry Prize, the New American Poetry Prize, the Washington Prize, the Tenth Gate Prize, and the Richard-Gabriel Rummonds Poetry Prize. In addition, she was the back-up finalist for the Brittingham and Felix Pollak Prizes and a recent awardee for the Gulf Coast Prize in Translation. Her translations of Afro-Colombian poet Luisa Villa will appear in Deep Vellum’s Best Literary Translations 2027 anthology. Active in transnational peace and social justice movements, Kim’s work has been featured in Fence, Gulf Coast, Lana Turner, MQR, Modern Poetry in Translation, Boulevard, Words Without Borders, Transition: the Magazine of Africa and the Diaspora, Black Warrior, Extraordinary Rendition: Writers Speak Out on Palestine, Gaza Unsilenced, Bomb Magazine, Mizna, and many others. In 2001, Kim won the Raymond Carver Award for short fiction.
José Luis Rico (Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, 1987) is a Helsinki-based poet and translator from Northern Mexico. He holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from New York University and is currently the president of Sivuvalo Platform ry, a non-profit that promotes the integration of migrant writers in Finland and the visibility of Finnish literature in the Americas. Rico has published several poetry books in Spanish, several poems in English, and has curated a few poetry anthologies. He has translated authors like Michel Butor, Annie Ernaux, Ludovic Halévy, from French, and others like Sini Silveri, Juha Rautio, Tiina Lehikoinen, and Antti Salminen from Finnish. Cute Person Stuff, his latest poetry chapbook, appeared under Pitzilein Books in 2025 and was translated into Finnish by Juha Rautio for Koija (Finland) the same year.
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