Fernando Valverde
Award-winning Poet
Readings &
Lecture Topics
- An Evening with Fernando Valverde
Biography
“Valverde with the gait and melodies of Lorca, with the brush of Dalí, where we blur between death skulls and majestic singers simultaneously, he goes, with his coat pockets stitched with murmurs of ancient prophets, and his lips parched with the thirsts of Whitman — relentless, he witnesses, he notes and measures somehow, the vast ruptures across our paradox called America.” –Juan Felipe Herrera
Fernando Valverde has been voted the most relevant Spanish-language poet born since 1970 by nearly two hundred critics and researchers across more than one hundred international universities, including Harvard, Oxford, Bologna, and the Sorbonne.
His book, The Insistence of Harm (University Press of Florida, 2019) which was translated by Allen Josephs and Laura Juliet Wood, has been the most-sold book of poetry in Spain for months and has received the Book of the Year award from the Latino American Writers Institute of the City University of New York. His other titles include America (Copper Canyon, 2021) translated by Carolyn Forché.
Valverde’s writing has received some of the most significant awards for poetry in Spanish, among them the Federico García Lorca, the Emilio Alarcos del Principado de Asturias and the Antonio Machado. For his collaboration in a work of fusion between poetry and flamenco he was nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2014.
For ten years, Valverde has worked as a journalist for the Spanish newspaper El País. He directs the International Festival of Poetry in Granada, one of the most important literary events in Europe, that has received more than 300 authors, including several Nobel Prize laureates.
He is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia.
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Publications
America
2021
In Fernando Valverde’s América, “sorrow is ancient.” Mournfully lyrical, politically sharp, with a sweeping view of American roots, dysfunctions, and ideals―as if from above, and yet also from within―this is a book that deconstructs the legacy of empire. From the Mississippi River to Fulton Avenue, from slavery to “lone wolf” shooters, Valverde grieves but does not wince away from all that is lost to greed and a culture of violence, painting an urgent portrait of “the thirst of America / a smile satisfied to death.” Valverde is widely regarded as one of the most important younger Spanish-language poets. Here his vibrant voice and convictions are translated and introduced by Carolyn Forché, herself a world-renowned poet of witness. Bilingual, with Spanish originals and English translations.
The Insistence of Harm
2019
The Insistence of Harm is a series of poignant lyric poems that takes readers from India to the Balkans to Spain and to Latin America, exploring the nature of “harm” in its various guises—war, disease, heartbreak, suicide. The poems grapple with both the reality of loss and the distance that language imposes on it. The English translations by Allen Josephs and Laura Juliet Wood effectively capture both tone and content while attending to subtle nuances of the original Spanish, bringing a new and important voice to students of Spanish and poetry readers alike.
Articles & Audio
Read What’s In Print
• Review of America – Good River Review
• “Mud Stuck to our Shoes”: On The Insistence of Harm – Kenyon Review
• The City and the Writer: In Granada with Fernando Valverde – Words Without Borders
Listen to Audio
• Carolyn Forché and Fernando Valverde read “The Balada of New England” – Poetry Magazine
Selected Writings
The Country Is a Mother Who Distributes Luck among the Mouths
To have been born
with this language of words
and of ashes.
To have seen the light breaking through
in a country
with rifles trained on the enemy,
in a country
mother of all my equals,
all opening their mouths at the same time,
hunger choosing with unequal fortunes,
that is the homeland.
Blessed be its name,
its mark etched on the teeth
and in the face bitten by smallpox,
its children
see the high seas,
they sight ships,
their interrupted dreams
rippling like war,
now they can
sacrifice their lives,
now they are ready,
they have braved
storms,
they have left their dreams
floating
like cargo
that once nourished them,
they have felt doubt
and they have cried out,
dissatisfied,
hungry and betrayed,
rifles trained
on the enemy,
in a country,
made of earth and blood.
La patria es una madre que reparte la suerte entre las bocas
Haber nacido
con esta lengua de palabras
y de ceniza.
Haber visto a la luz abrirse paso
en un país
fusiles apuntando al enemigo,
en un país
madre de todos mis iguales,
todos abriendo la boca al mismo tiempo,
el hambre señalando con desigual fortuna,
eso es la patria.
Santificado sea su nombre,
su marca en el esmalte
y en la cara mordida por la viruela,
sus hijos
ven las altas mareas,
divisan barcos,
los sueños detenidos
ondulan como la guerra,
ahora ya pueden
sacrificar sus vidas,
ahora ya están listos,
han navegado
por la tempestad,
han dejado los sueños
flotando
igual que mercancía
que un día fue alimento,
han sentido la duda
y han gritado,
insatisfechos,
hambrientos y traidores,
fusiles apuntando
al enemigo,
en un país,
hecho de tierra y sangre.
