“Nidia Hernández is a mystic of here and now. When so many of us are in exile, from our countries, from ourselves, these poems remind us that we might find home by standing still. Do you want to become aware of senses you did not know you had? Open the door; read these poems.”
The Farewell Light
by Nidia Hernández
tr. by Rowena Hill
This bilingual edition leaps effortlessly between the natural world and meditations on culture, family, language, and longing. Hernández’s work moves the reader beyond the realm of the individual poet toward a deeper human understanding: “I cried until I was water / until I was sea / and I began to swim / toward the depths.” A recent Venezuelan immigrant to America, Hernández bridges the gulf between her two countries as she laments, “What I thought lost / is in the light of this dawn / I’m not alone / emptiness is only emptiness / the sea speaks to me.” Hernández’s self-possessed poetic voice reflects her decades of engagement with poetry, across languages and continents. Brilliantly rendered from the Spanish by esteemed translator Rowena Hill, The Farewell Light is a debut not to be missed.
These poems are set against an invisible clock ticking, poignantly reminding us of the fleetingness of everything—the stability of the speaker’s home country, familial memories, and lost beloveds all retreat into the sea, like turtle hatchlings guided away from the shore.
~Patricia Guzman, World Literature Today
All around us, our worlds are changing in the face of climate change, political upheaval, and evolving social mores. Under such constant buffeting, Hernández’s work offers us a glimmer of hope, suggesting that we can find stability and beauty at the same time we accept the impermanence that surrounds us.
~Ann Leamon, Harvard Review
Nidia Hernández
Nidia Hernández was born in Venezuela and has been living in the US since 2018. She is a poet, translator of Portuguese poetry, editor, broadcaster, and radio producer. Her editorial project lamajadesnuda.com won the 2011 world Summit Awards, and her radio program (also called La Maja Desnuda) has presented works from the last 35 years with more than 1,820 broadcasts. Currently, she is broadcasting the program through UPV Radio 102.5 FM Spain. She curates Poesiaudio (Arrowsmith Press), is a co-editor for Mercurius Magazine, a UK publication based in Barcelona, Spain, and belongs to the Board of Directors of New England Poetry Club. Hernández is the winner of the 2021 Sundara Ramaswamy Prize for her editorial work on The Land of Mild Light by Rafael Cadenas. In 2022, she published a new anthology, The Invisible Borders of Time: Five Female Latin American Poets, for which she which won the 2023 Mass Poetry Community Award.
Translator:
Translator Rowena Hill was born in England in 1938, and went to school in New Zealand. She taught English Literature at the Universidad de Los Andes in Mérida, Venezuela, where she has lived for forty-eight years. She has published six books of poems in Spanish: Celebraciones, Ida y Vuelta, Legado de Sombras, No es tarde para alabar, Planta baja del cerebro/ Ground Floor of the Brain (bilingual), Marea tardía/ Late Tide (bilingual), and the bilingual selected poems Rastrojos (Alliteration, Miami, 2023). She has translated into English some of Venezuela’s best-known poets, including Rafael Cadenas, Eugenio Montejo, and Yolanda Pantin.
