Hordes of Writing

Chus Pato was born in 1955 in Ourense, Galicia (north-west Spain). All of her work is written in Galician, a language which is closely related to both Spanish and Portuguese. She teaches History and Geography at a high school in the interior of Galicia. In her words: "writing metabolizes the world, even that world that cannot be absorbed into writing." And: "I have a predilection for those constructions which investigate the possibility of a language-thinking that refuses to repeat the already-written and lives in contact-lamination with the seams of the unsayable, of what hasn't yet been written into the corporeality of the poem." "To me, the poem is a freedom-machine." "My autobiography? It does not always seem to be mine; sometimes I would rather have other lives. Insofar as all autobiography participates in fiction, I prefer not to be forced to choose, so I opt not to have one." Her work: 'Urania' (Calpurnia, Ourense, 1991), 'Heloísa' (Espiral Maior, A Coruña, 1994), Fascinio ('Toxosoutos', Santiago de Compostela, 1995), 'Nínive', (Xerais, Vigo, 1996), 'A ponte das poldras' (Noitarenga, Santiago de Compostela, 1996), 'm-Talá', (Xerais, Vigo, 2000), 'Charenton' (Xerais, Vigo, 2003), and a selection translated into Spanish by Irís Cochón: 'Un Ganges de palabras' (Puerta del Mar, Málaga, 2003). Politically engaged, Chus Pato is a member of Redes escarlata, a leftist cultural group that supports independence, as well as PEN Galicia.

Erín Mouré is a Canadian poet and translator who lives in Montreal. Since releasing her first book in 1979, she has published several award-winning English poetry collections and translated the poetry of acclaimed Quebec writer Nicole Brossard from French (with Robert Majzels), Chus Pato from Galician, Fernando Pessoa from Portuguese, and Andrés Ajens from Spanish. Mouré has published poetry and translations in over 150 journals and anthologies in several countries, and her poems have been translated into eight languages.In 2008, Mouré was awarded an honorary doctorate (D.Lit.) from Brandon University in recognition of her contributions to poetry. Her most recent collections are O Cadoiro (2007) and Little Theatres (2005). Her translation of Chus Pato's famed m-Talá was released simultaneously in Canada and the UK in spring 2009, and a book of collaborations with poet Oana Avasilichioaei, Expeditions of a Chimæra, was published in the fall of 2009. Mouré's next solo book of poetry, O Resplandor, will be released in April 2010.