Sílvia Aymerich-Lemos is an author from Barcelona, Catalonia. As a translator, she has rendered a number of literary works from English, French, Occitan, Italian and German into Catalan. Her poetic work has been translated into Romanian by Ion Cristofor for Vatra Veche (2013) and into Italian by Gilberto Isella for Traduzionetradizione (2018). Included in several anthologies, she has also contributed poems translated by herself into French to Forum der Schriftsteller (1995),Le Pan des Muses (2012), and Mot Dit (2016), and into English to Malpaís Review (2013), The tree of peace turns green (2016), Loch Raven Review (2017) and with Kathleen McNerney to Modern Poetry in Translation (2024).
She’s published, among others, La meva Europa [My own Europe], (Amadeu Oller Prize for young poets 1985), Berlín Zoo(Cassà’s Narrative Prize 1991), Els déus de Califòrnia [The Gods of California], City of Elx Narrative Prize 1993) and the collection of poems Bàlsams/Balms (Cork, 2022).
Regarding science-in-fiction, she has authored two juvenile novels using narrative structure for science communication: Ulls de pantera([Panther Eyes], 1994) and Gelati! (1998), and co-authored a third, Roger d’Orlhac (2009), all of them later on translated into Spanish. Her digital novel on health issues, El bloc de l’Eva [Eve’s blog], (2009) was sponsored by the Catalan Department of Education. She has also contributed a short story, Pell de lluna [Moon’s skin], to the monograph Científics Lletraferits (2014), later translated into French by Hélène Beaulieu (2020). As a researcher, she has conducted a study on LabLit and gender in Catalan literature under the patronage of the Department of Culture, and published articles on the same topic in several international academic publications, as well as press articleswith a scientific touch.
Saturn’s Triplets
Ô temps, suspend ton vol.
Lamartine
I
Despondently.
You’ll get up
from where you gave in.
Shoulders drooping.
With an unprecedented calm
putting away arrogance.
Thereupon
you’ll forget Saturn’s mandate extends
over all bodies, all wounds.
An irritating broth that worsens
inasmuch as it heals.
An unflagging devastator,
creating with equal will.
Anew, all will please you:
Sisyphus will have blinked mischievously
from above his mountain top.
ELS TRIGÈMINS DE SATURN
Ô temps, suspend ton vol.
Lamartine
I
Capcot.
T’alçaràs d’on sucumbires
ensorrades les espatlles.
I amb una placidesa inconeguda
Desaràs arrogàncies.
En acabat,
oblidaràs que el seu mandat abasta
tots els cossos, totes les nafres
d’un bull que tot ho endanya,
i tot ho sana.
Demolidor incansable
I creador d’igual perseverança.
De nou, tot et plaurà:
Sísif t’haurà fet l’ullet
del seu monticle estant.
II
The teenager with charcoal eyes
named after a poète maudit
who put his hands on your waist
that night with a silk-varnished moonlight
might currently change child’s diapers
and stir up rhythmically
a glass of milk
he’s not to drink.
Or finds out, every morn,
scattered white hairs on a pillow
which knows no other smell than his own.
II
L’adolescent d’ulls de betum
i nom de poète maudit
que et prenia la cintura
aquella nit amb lluna
de paper de seda,
tal vegada canvia bolquers
I remou amb cadència una llet
que no s’ha de prendre…
O potser troba, cada de matí,
cabells blancs sobre un coixí
que no coneix altra olor que la seva.
III
Before
the third Parcae
cuts her silkish thread
Before
the wick of this candle
is to be blown out
Before this gust of wind
breaks the jar apart
Before the thunderbolt
kicks off a lousy storm
Before the first howl
triggers the brawl,
before the first sigh
unleahes the moaning…
Or better indeed…
before, much before…
III
Abans
Que la tercera parca
Talli aquest fil de seda
Abans
Que s’apagui el ble
d’aquesta espelma
I abans que aquest cop de vent
esquinci la gerra
I abans del llamp
Que enceta la torbonada
Abans del bram
que descabdella la brega,
abans del sospir
que allibera la queixa…
O millor encara…
abans, molt abans…
