No, I haven’t been spending my lunch hour at work creating poems about staplers and post-it notes, although that does sound like it could be a fun challenge. Anyway, I’ve recently discovered poet, Mario Benedetti through Only In the Meantime & Office Poems.

According to the introduction in the collection, Benedetti is one of Latin America’s most well-known poets. Unfortunately for me, I had not heard of him but I was very happy to discover this collection which was written from 1948 t0 1956. The Uruguayan poet is well-known for his poems addressing everything from love, political struggles and even the struggles of the middle class office workers.

What I especially liked about this book is that it has the poems in Spanish and English side-by-side. I usually read the Spanish first and then see how the English compares. I’ve gone back to read a couple of the poems already because I have found a sentence or thought that really stayed with me. Here’s one poem I really liked:

Christmas Bonus
I’ve already added up my bills
and I’m not paying
anyone.

Not the tailor who made these lapels for me
like cock pigeon wings
or the poor grocer
who doesn’t sell me sugar
or the bank that hangs me
or the bookseller who complains
or destiny that surely doesn’t collect
the tender prayers
that I pay cash on delivery.

I’ve already added up my bills
and I’m not paying
anyone.

I’ll collect the Christmas bonus in one dollar bills
and I’ll go walking along Dieciocho
whistling a bitter tango
like another careless person.

You can read the Spanish version here – it’s Aguinaldo. Isn’t that great? How about you, have you discovered any new poems/poets lately?

We had a very nice weekend that of course flew by. It’s time to go to sleep and face work tomorrow? Really? Ah well, that’s the way it goes but let me tell you about some of what I got up to this weekend.

First on Saturday we went to a classical guitar concert to hear Pepe Romero play for one of the Austin Classical Guitar society concerts. It was an evening filled with beautiful music. If I closed my eyes while listening I could feel like I was traveling in Sevilla or Cordoba. It made me think of my trip to Spain many years ago and made me want to go again. We’ve decided that we are going to be paying attention to what concerts are coming up and hopefully we can go listen to more beautiful music soon.

I also met up with some crafty ladies this weekend for an Austin Craft Riot meet up and lucky for me we were meeting at a library. I got there a bit early and thought well I’m here I might as well as look at some books and of course I couldn’t walk away without checking out The Big Book of Ghost Stories. It is a big book and has some cool vintage illustrations. I think this is a book I may have to own actually. Oh and the best part, I already read one story which I’ll tell you more about soon.

Finally today a big chunk of my day was spent buying new glasses. I wear contacts most of the time but do need to give my eyes a break and I finally went to update my glasses which I’ve had for at least eight years. Oh and not only that but I had to finally break down and say okay to bifocals. Ugh. It’s okay that I still call myself Bookgirl right?

So that’s pretty much the weekend. Unfortunately aside from the one ghost story I’ve read from the big book my reading has been practically non-existent this weekend. I guess that means I should head to bed and try to get in a few more pages. Hope everyone has a great start of the week!