The Miracle Unfolds
Juana Rosa Pita,
​Translated by Erin Goodman


The Miracle Unfolds by Cuban American poet Juana Rosa Pita (Havana, 1939), translated into English by Erin Goodman (Song Bridge Project, October 2021), is an extensive anthology of poems selected by Pita and Goodman from seven different volumes of the former’s work. A miracle is, of course, something that sparks awe and wonder, and Pita’s work is an ekphrastic ode to the Mystery (with a capital M) that she sees from the vastness of the cosmos all the way down to the most infinitesimal of particles. God is exalted among shadows, silences, whispers, and glances; in the world of Pita’s poems, these seemingly unknowable forces in fact invite us to know them, whether through science, human connection, faith, or poetry.

The book is also the result of a nearly eight-year collaboration between Pita and Goodman, and the press, The Song Bridge Project, exclusively publishes en face bilingual editions. In a way, the format honors Pita and Goodman’s relationship, as we might imagine poet and translator sitting across from one another, deep in dialogue. Goodman writes in the Translator’s Note that she was drawn to Pita’s voice, which evokes a place of centeredness and stillness; her poems are a testament to what it means to be sentient. According to Pita’s quantum poetics, when we are tuned into our own interior universe as well as the one we physically inhabit, we can leap like an electron, even if only momentarily, to a higher cosmic energy level, from Homo Sapiens to “Homo Angelus.” Goodman’s translations, then, are yet another leap: spurred on by the energy invested in careful contemplation and interpretation, yet ever orbiting around the same center.
Through poetry, Pita manages to find and articulate the timeless in the fleeting and the infinite in the minimal. Pita and Goodman did well in their selection of the two poems that conclude the collection, “Entender no entendiendo” [” To Know Without Knowing”] and “La clave está en otra parte” [“The Key is Elsewhere”], as they contain concise maxims that reflect Pita’s raison d’écrire as she enters her ninetieth decade. And the reader is part of the equation: "Ser solamente humanos pone límites /  pero un poema a veces nos susurra /  algo que otros van a entender /  con atención leyéndonos más tarde" ["Being simple mortals has its limits / but a poem sometimes whispers to us / something others will understand / later when they read us closely"].
Juana Rosa Pita (b. Havana, 1939) is a poet, writer, editor, and translator. Since 1975, she has published 33 books of poetry, including Viajes de Penélope (1980), Sorbos de luz/Sips of Light (1990), Tela de concierto (1999), Se desata el milagro/Si scatena il miracolo (2016), and Infancy of Our Bread (2020). For her body of work, she received the VIII Premio Internazionale Ultimo Novecento (Pisa, 1985) and the Premio Alghero “Culture for Peace” (1987). Her poems have been featured in number of anthologies and translated into six languages. A comprehensive anthology of her poetic work was published in 2019 by Editorial Verbum in Madrid.

Erin Goodman is a literary translator and editor. She translated the best-selling political memoir by former Chilean minister Sergio Bitar, Prisoner of Pinochet: My Year in a Chilean Concentration Camp (2017). Erin is a frequent translator for the New York Times Opinion section and other publications. She is the co-editor of Reflections of Memory and Democracy (Harvard University Press, 2016) and of Memory, Resistance, and Justice (Universitat de Barcelona, 2020). Her literary translations have been featured in New England Review, Los Angeles Review, Poetry International Rotterdam, spoKe, The Lifted Brow, and by the Rincón de Traductores at the Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University.

The Miracle Unfolds (2021) is a publication by Song Bridge Project. Click here to purchase.
Reviewed by
Emily Hunsberger
​10/24/2021
Emily Hunsberger is a bilingual writer, translator, and podcast producer. She has published original poetry, reporting, criticism, and research in English and Spanish in Bello Collective, Spanglish Voces, and Estudios del Observatorio / Observatorio Studies. She translates fiction, nonfiction, and poetry into English, with work featured in Spanglish Voces, Anfibias Literarias, Orden de Traslado, and Translators Aloud (and translations forthcoming in Latin American Literature Today and The Southern Review). Since 2017, Emily has produced Tertulia, an independent podcast en español about Spanish in the United States.
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