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Translated from Spanish to English by Lizzie Fox and Jeannine M. Pitas
In This Climate of Decline
In this climate of decline
the vocation of sad people is:
Seek the sweetness in things
I say “tenderness” to know I exist
I say “tenderness” and my mouth breaks.
En esta atmósfera de caída
En esta atmósfera de caída
la vocación de los tristes es:
Buscar la caricia de las cosas
Digo ternura para saber que existo
Digo ternura y se quiebra mi boca.
Daniela Prado (Cali, 1994) is a Colombian poet and multimedia artist currently living in Cuernavaca, Mexico. She is founding editor of both Mujer Oblicua, a cultural and literary organization dedicated to increasing the visibility of Colombian women poets and artists, and of Tristes Trópicos Editorial, a small press dedicated to publishing poetry by young and emerging Colombian and Latin American writers. She is also a visual and collage artist with the Bad Education Collage project. Her other books of poetry include Mujer Oblicua (Tristes Trópicos, 2019) and Ya no soy esta carne trémula (Proteo Editorial, 2021).
Lizzie Fox is an actor, translator, and writer. Her work has been supported by the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Bread Loaf Translators’ Conference, and the Martha Boschen Porter Fund. Lizzie recently performed in the Off-Broadway premiere of her translation of The Martyrdom, a Medieval Latin play by Hrotsvitha, the first-known female playwright. She is pursuing an MFA at the University of Arkansas.
Jeannine Marie Pitas is a teacher, writer, and Spanish-English literary translator living in Pittsburgh, PA. She teaches at Saint Vincent College and is on staff at Eulalia Books, a small press dedicated to publishing Latin American authors appearing in English for the first time. She is excited to have two books in translation coming out in 2026: Chilean poet Úrsula Starke’s Wisteria, co-translated with Jesse Lee Kercheval and published by Diálogos Books, and Colombian poet Daniela Prado’s Espacios habitables, forthcoming under the title Like fish, our tongues swim, forthcoming in late 2026 from Lugar Común.