Post Poet Pop, Episode 27 features poems from the new anthology of Venezuelan poets living in Chile entitled A Scar Where Goodbyes Are Written (Louisiana State University Press, 2023). The anthology showcases the work of 15 poets, including: Ivana Aponte, Georgina Ramírez, Miguel Ortiz Rodríguez, Sara Emanuel Viloria (all of whose work you will hear today) and many others. The book is translated and edited by David Brunson.

This work is crucial because it elucidates the diasporic experience of being a migrant, not only to Chile, but away from a misunderstood homeland; and now—at a time when many diasporas are being ignited or re-ignited in Haiti, the Sudan, and of course the genocide in Palestine—it is even more important to become more than acquainted with that experience. The term diaspora comes from the Greek and means to scatter across but it also means to be forced to leave home. Venezuela has seen nearly 8 million of its citizens depart its borders and over 5,200 Venezuelans have been killed, extrajudicially. Chile has its own complications and repressive history and this enmeshing of two cultures at the very least sets the stage for poets to, in the words of David Brunson’s introduction, empathetically reclaim identity and more fully realize a sense of humanity.

Get an e-Book or print copy of A Scar Where Goodbyes Are Written from Louisiana State University Press (or order one from your local bookstore), and learn more about David (the book's translator and editor) at DavidMBrunson.com and Ivana (poet in the book) at CopihuePoetry.com/who-we-are.

All poems are performed by Ivana Aponte and David Brunson and all the author’s poems discussed are published in A Scar Where Goodbyes Are Written: An Anthology of Venezuelan Poets in Chile (Louisiana State University Press, 2023). The poems are the property of the author(s) and the publisher(s) listed. The song played during the introduction is “Sunday Afternoon” and is performed by The True Loves. Please support their work.

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