Lúa Mosquetera

- Spain -

Lúa Mosquetera (Miño, 1988) is a Galician Language and Literature graduate of the University of Santiago de Compostela. She has self-edited two poetry books: Rasrás (2018) and Aunque seas rara y seas pájaro (Even if you are strange and you are a bird) (2020).

Her third poetry book, this time written in Galician, Espíderman (2022) is published by Galaxia. ‘Anorak de pel de caribú’, a piece that is included in this volume, has received the ARitmar award for Best Poem in Galicia 2021.

She published her first novel, Yo vivo (I live) (2022) with publishing house La Moderna.

Her poems are always connected to the musical and audiovisual world: she has collaborated with artists such as Bala, Pablo Seijas or Lilaina, and has worked with director Bastian Rodríguez to produce professional videopoems.

She is the champion of the Galician Poetry Slam, and a finalist in the Spanish edition, performing spoken word to spread her message, and believes in the verse as a tool for transformation and battle.

‘Aunque seas rara y seas pájaro’ (Even if you are strange and you are a bird) by Lúa Mosquetera, is the second book of a poet. This much seems unexceptional, but perhaps what is surprising is that this poet is also the editorial director of the book, the bartender from a nearby town, the girl with those old-school tattoos that are so well done, an old friend’s unrevealed love, the person who has turned a bad night around with just one poem for more than one friend, or that young and brave writer who unknowingly made you cry and gave you goosebumps with one of her passages. And that is rather exceptional, because poetry is supposed to be dead, out of fashion, archaic even. Why read poems when with only a basic level of education, a good pair of tits/biceps, and an ephemeral match one can solely worry about the flavour of condoms? Why dream? Why suffer? Why leave your soul, lament, laughter, and melancholy on paper? Ultimately, why write?

The answer I offer: to discover things like this “Aunque seas rara y seas pájaro” by Lúa Mosquetera. To know that, in spite of the jerks, there are poets out there and they are truly strong, resilient, and talented. Through her pages and her pulses, Lúa discusses politics without mentioning it, she does so as can only be done by a person who knows and feels injustices and knows the need and the courage needed to overcome them, she speaks about feminism, unashamedly, candidly, fearlessly. Because dancing reggaeton, oral sex, feeling powerful, beautiful, or tremendously ugly, can be the most empowering thing in the world when, faced with society’s prejudice and judgement, you scream “Fuck it!”. When truth bleeds, when truth laughs, when life cries and it cums, screams and gets angry, apologises and falls in love. When goosebumps appear because of some genuinely beautiful detail, it turns out that there is no greater pleasure than being able to transform the world into art. And that, art, is what Lúa’s poetry is. Art and revolution, internal revolution that is born from that waitress’ chest, and more than one asshole has undoubtedly checked out her tits while ordering at the bar without imagining, or even wanting to imagine, what beats in there, and who someone else victimised or blamed before dumping her, before leaving… Because poets too, as well as birds, are dumped this way, trying to cut off their wings. It is beautiful that a poet is there to see beauty, but also to lick her wounds and with the remains of her saliva as well as many others’, to be able to transform the pain, the damage, into something so beautiful. Paper and ink, pain and time, raw material that each one of us accumulates in our lifetimes and that only those who truly bare themselves in front of the mirror are capable of transforming into something that is really worth prevailing in time. Our people go away. Lúa knows this, does she fucking know it. I can’t even imagine how it must sting to hear the sound of the last key when one hits it saying goodbye, see you soon, until the next poem, to who should still be so close, who is still so deep inside. I also admire her for this, for her ability to revive her mother on a blank sheet, that which us writers so fear, especially when we starkly face the passing of time. And I imagine her mother, without having ever met her, not even having a real idea of who she was, but I imagine her at a window, barefoot, welcoming an everlasting summer and smiling cigarette-in-hand, while on the other hand she elegantly, but unpretentiously so, holds the sheet her daughter has turned into a fucking poem. Yes, a fucking poem when poetry is supposed to be dead, but she has done it, thus restoring life, the vitality of youth and a whole eternity ahead… Her, who should supposedly be dead too, but to whom the talent and stubbornness of a young poet from Miño has returned to life for an instant. And what I imagine, which I suppose you know perfectly, Lúa, ends with a puff of smoke in the air and the image of a mother who is fiercely proud of her daughter’s strength, determination, and talent. The talent of a true poet.

I thank Lúa for baring herself for us in this book, I thank her for showing me the beauty in shitting with the door open and I hope she will keep being strange and a bird, in spite of the jerks. This book will stir something inside you, this I assure you. I am not a literary critic, nor do I need to be, I am not going to talk about metrics, allegories and shit like that which although important, have here of which I am speaking the same importance as sex education classes or porn when, in fact, in your eyes and in theirs sex takes on a new meaning, different from everything else. What I am talking about cannot be trained and no advice can be given, one must simply buy this book, find a spot, and devour it. Devour it as I have, unable to follow Lúa’s advice and had I had it open on the first page in the bathroom, I am sure my legs would have gone numb and sooner or later somebody would have knocked on the door to see if everything was OK in there. I’m sorry Lúa, but I wasn’t able to put it down once I opened the book. I promise it will be there to go back time and again to its pages when life gets angry with me, but also when I want to see the beauty in a hungover afternoon or think about those photos your parents would take of you to make you understand that anger, sadness, and life itself is so fleeting that it’s not worth it to waste time on anything, or anyone. At least not on those who don’t understand the need a poet has to spread their wings.

By Daniel Seixo

Translation by Aira da Gama

More about the poet

Poetry

PLAY / XOGADE

She came home one day
with a box full of Barbies.
Some had a stained mouth
as if they had come from eating meat with their hands.
Some others had had their hair cut and they seemed
not to be very content.
Together they made an uncertain and deformed mass
when she lay down the box on the floor.

Our faces were lit up like oil lamps,
illuminating the room
and the light
went and came back
towards her face
satisfied.

For you.
Play.

Just when we thought we would die of loneliness
in that cold and damp flat,
the biggest treasure in the world
came from her hands.

It was later when I undressed one of the dolls
and observed its thin body
its total lack of hips
of sex
of velvet
of old age
or of pain.
I ascertained in detail
that none of them were wearing
my mother’s body.

I discovered a tattoo
on the blonde Barbie’s nape.
It was a yoke of possession.
A birthmark.
It said Nagore
with questionable handwriting in Bic pen.
It was the Basque neighbour from next door.

They had brought us a box of Barbies
that was at the foot of the wheelie bin
for rubbish
next to
the front door.
And then they said to us

Play

and I learnt
what colour is the fox that hides
behind a happiness
simple,
that is waiting
to attack
when night falls.
Chegou un día á casa
cunha caixa chea de barbis.
Algunhas tiñan o bico manchado
como se volveran de comer churrasco coas mans.
A outras cortáranlles o pelo e semellaban
non estar moi conformes.
Formaban todas unha masa incerta e deforme
cando ela pousou a caixa no chan.

As nosas caras estaban acesas coma candiles,
alumaban o cuarto
e a luz
ía e viña de volta
cara a súa face
satisfeita.

Para vós.
Xogade.

Xusto cando criamos morrer de soidades
naquel piso frío e húmido,
o tesouro máis grande do mundo
chegou das súas mans.

Foi despois cando desvestín a unha das bonecas
e observei o seu corpo miúdo
a súa falta total de cadeiras
de sexo
de veludo
de vellez
ou de dor.
Comprobei pormenorizadamente
que ningunha levaba posto
o corpo de miña nai.

Descubrín unha tatuaxe
no colo da barbi loira.
Era un xugo de posesión.
Unha marca de nacemento.
Poñía Nagore
cunha dubidosa caligrafía de boli bic.
Era a veciña vasca da casa do lado.

Trouxérannos unha caixa de barbis
que estaba aos pés do contedor
de lixo
ao lado
do portal.
E logo dixeron

Xogade

e souben
de que cor é o raposo que se agocha
detrás dunha felicidade
sinxela,
que está agardando
para atacar
cando cae a noite.
GRANDMOTHER / AVOA

I told my grandmother
You have to go to the dentist
to have a new tooth put in.

She said

At this point

What difference does it make.

And the world became dirty
and I saw how she carried
death always
hanging
from the pocket of her apron.
Díxenlle á miña avoa
Tes que ir ao dentista
a poñer un dente novo.

Ela dixo

Agora xa

que máis da.

E o mundo volveuse lixoso
e vin como levaba
sempre a morte
pendurada
do peto do mandil.
GLUG, GLUG, GLUG / GLO, GLO, GLO

The day I stained with blood
the chair
in the classroom
in the school
in the town
where I grew up,
someone,
I don’t know who,
burst out laughing.
His mouth looked like
the tap at a wash tub
and his laughter the water
that is falling.
Glug, glug, glug.
His chest was a flat stone
where I wanted to wash
my stained
knickers.
I wanted to get on top of him
and pound the lycra from the street market
until the red stigmas
disappeared.

But.

I got up and left.
Leaving behind the stain
on the chair.

The drops fell
step by step.
Glug, glug, glug.
Like at a murder scene,
of a fair vengeance,
where one
drags the body
to destroy it.

I looked back
and said

That way
the path
is marked
to return

tomorrow.
O día que manchei de sangue
a cadeira
da clase
do colexio
da vila
onde me criei
alguén,
non sei quen,
riu ás gargalladas.
Semellaba a súa boca
o cano dun lavadoiro
e a risa a auga
que vai caendo.
Glo, glo, glo.
Era o seu peito unha pedra plana
onde eu quería lavar
as miñas bragas
manchadas.
Quería poñerme por riba del
e golpear a lycra de feirón
até que os estigmas vermellos
desapareceran.

Pero.

Erguinme e marchei.
Deixando a mancha
na cadeira.

Foron
ao meu paso
caendo as gotas.
Glo, glo, glo.

Coma nun asasinato,
nunha vinganza xusta,
onde un
arrastra o corpo
para destruilo.

Ollei atrás
e dixen

Así xa queda
marcado
o camiño
para volver

mañá.
WHEN YOU DANCE / CANDO BAILAS

I dreamt I danced without a break
in the sitting room of a house in which I no longer live.
The music was
so loud
that I didn’t hear that the door was opened.
It was my mother who
enthralled
possessed by a raging youth
letting herself go
like sheets let themselves go
to the wind
hanging
from the clothesline
she started

to dance with me.

I moved my arms
and my hips
without thinking much about things,
because there are moments when life
eases
a little,
for example

when you dance.

But it never lets go of the rope.

And when we were already halfway through the song,
on any given verse
for example
I want to be the only one to bite your mouth
I became aware.

Like when you become aware
of a betrayal
of an annoyance
of an allergy.

I knew that that was a dream.

That it was the sitting room of a house in which I no longer lived.

That my mother had died
that I hadn’t seen her
for at least
sixteen years.
So I just want to cry
and tell her
do you know you already have grandchildren
that there was a pandemic
that they opened an eroski next to the house.
I want to show her how to use whatsapp
and tell her that life

went on
forward
but that it never
let go of the rope.

But I keep quiet.
Because I am very afraid
that she will also become aware
of the dream
of life
of the rope.

And
even if only for an instant
I think she looks at me
realising

the incongruence

the impossibility

she bursts out laughing

and keeps

dancing.
Soñei que bailaba sen descanso
no salón dunha casa na que xa non vivo.
A música estaba
tan alta
que non escoitei abrir a porta.
Era miña nai que
entusiasmada
posuída dunha atroz xuventude
deixándose levar
coma se deixan
levar
as mazarocas polo vento
colgadas
da varanda
púxose

a bailar comigo.

Eu movía os brazos
e as cadeiras
sen pensar moito nas cousas,
porque hai intres nos que a vida
afrouxa
un pouco,
por exemplo

cando bailas.

Mais nunca solta a corda.

E cando xa estabamos a metade de canción,
nun verso calquera
por exemplo
quiero ser el único que te muerda la boca
dinme de conta.

Coma cando te decatas
dunha traizón
dun disgusto
dunha alerxia.

Souben que aquilo era soño.

Que era o salón dunha casa na que xa non vivía.

Que miña nai morrera
que non a vía
dende había
polo menos
dezaseis anos.
Así que só quero
chorar
e dicirlle
sabes que xa tes netos
que houbo unha pandemia
que abriron un eroski ao lado da casa.
Quero ensinarlle como se usa guasap
e dicirlle que a vida
seguiu
adiante
mais que nunca
soltou a corda.

Pero calo.
Porque teño moito medo
de que ela tamén se dea conta
do soño
da vida
da corda.

E
aínda que por un intre
coido que mira para min
decatándose

da incongruencia

da imposibilidade

bótase a rir

e segue

bailando.

Lúa Mosquetera

- Spain -

Poetry

PLAY / XOGADE

GRANDMOTHER / AVOA

GLUG, GLUG, GLUG / GLO, GLO, GLO

WHEN YOU DANCE / CANDO BAILAS