I drink the ink, the blood and the tears.

 I drink from that wellspring of passion 

 where I found wounded bodies, 

 forgotten

 thirsty 

 smelly from so much waiting, 

 in those pages 

 where I spill the rage that others trample, arrest,  

 torture or murder.

 I don’t write verses ’cause of these wounds that bind us to the bottom

 And break the cries of our wings.*

Juan Garrido Salgado has lived in Australia since 1990. He has published eight books of poetry in Australia and Chile. His work has been widely translated into several languages. Juan has translated works by Australian and Aboriginal poets into Spanish. In 2019, he read poems from his book When I was Clandestine (Rochford Press) as part of a poetry tour at the Granada International Poetry Festival in Nicaragua, and in Mexico and Cuba. His most recent collection is Hope Blossoming in Their Ink (Puncher & Wattmann 2020). Juan has written a new manuscript, The Dilemma of Writing Poems, which will be published by Puncher & Wattmann in 2023.

I acknowledge I live, work and create on the land of the Kaurna People and pay my respects to their Elders past, present, and emerging.

*Vicente Huidobro, Canto I. Altazor.