The Poetry of Clara Eugenia Ronderos Seasons of Exile (Estaciones En Exilio)

This collection of poetry is a meditation on life. It chronicles the changing seasons, noticing not only the passing of time but also the strangeness of a northern landscape for someone who grew up in Columbia. Clara Ronderos grieves for a lost sense of belonging. Language and culture are no longer comfortable spaces in which she feels at ease.

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This collection of poetry is a meditation on life. It chronicles the changing seasons, noticing not only the passing of time but also the strangeness of a northern landscape for someone who grew up in Columbia, near the equator. Ronderos grieves for a lost sense of belonging. Language and culture are no longer comfortable spaces in which she feels at ease. There is no "here" and "there". For Ronderos "North" and "South" are only names for different ways of being in the world. A witness to both perspectives, she looks at the uneven and contradictory connections between them while meditating on the meanings of life and death. Through intricate imagery the poems express surprise, pain and even ironic musings about her displaced world. Mary berg's translation of Ronderos' poetry is a work of art in its own right. For the colloquial expressions and the rhythmic structures that give originality and strength to the Spanish poems, Berg finds rhythms and words that bring the English version poems to life.