Blanca Varela (1926–2009) is the author of nine poetry collections. Daughter of a composer and a journalist, she lived mostly in her native Peru with her husband, the sculptor Fernando de Szyszlo. In 1949 Varela and de Szyszlo lived for a year in Paris among the writers and thinkers who influenced Varela’s work, including André Breton, Simone de Beauvoir, and Octavio Paz. Paz became an early champion of Varela’s poetry and wrote the preface to her first collection, Ese puerto existe (That port exists).

From “The Book of Clay”

by Blanca Varela, translated by Lisa Ortiz
13.
God is there between things, sitting at his own
left hand. When I am lost in the green grass
he saves me from the flames.
People on couch
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