Poetic Encounters Across Borders

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A woman in profile with long dark hair gazes up toward the light

Contributors to this exhibit include: Ann Fisher-Wirth (poems); Wilfried Raussert (photographs); Sarli Mercado, Sally Perret, Lori DiPrete Brown, Juan F. Egea, Silvia Goldman, Olmanda Hernández Guerrero, Vicente M. López Abad, Beatriz L. Botero, José Bañuelos Montes, Ana Varela Tafur, and Ulises Bonifacio Zarazúa: of the Women in Translation Circle (4W-WIT) at UW-Madison (translations)

In December of 2022, Wilfried Raussert, an accomplished photographer and scholar and friend of mine, asked if I’d like to write some poems responding to photographs he had been taking of street art in Guadalajara. These photographs are part of Willie’s record of more than a dozen photo exhibitions of street art from the Americas (including Mexico, Germany, Portugal, and the United States). I was intrigued, and we began sending work back and forth. Upon hearing about our project, one of Willie’s colleagues introduced us to Living Poetry: Women in Translation (4W-WIT), an initiative directed by Sarli Mercado and Sally Perret at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Together, we prepared twenty poems and translations responding to Willie’s photographs.

It has been a great pleasure for all of us to collaborate on Into the Chalice of Your Thoughts (Guadalajara University Press, 2023), a limited-edition book of our photographs, poems, and translations. This project, which we have since expanded and plan to publish in the United States, is, as Sarli referred to it, a “zone of cultural contact.” Here, poetry and photography meet, and poets and translators from several different countries (Mexico, Spain, Nicaragua, Uruguay, Venezuela, and the United States) have responded to German photographer Raussert’s photographs of Mexico in a novel “gathering of voices.” As divisiveness intensifies in the U.S. and around the world, may this project bear witness to the beauty and power of artistic collaboration.

When electricity comes | Cuando la electricidad llega

Street art painting of a profile woman of African decent looking off to the left. A tree bearing green fruit is in the foreground
“Afro Collage Goddess and Tree.” Photo by Wilfried Raussert, 2023.


Into the chalice of your thoughts | De tus pensamientos, el cáliz

A greenish colored broken statue of a man's profile and shoulders, from the nose and ears down. A blurry tree is in the distance.
“Into the chalice.” Photo by Wilfried Raussert, 2023.


Ocean need not seek water | El océan no pide agua

An elderly women sits in front of two younger women. The background features an image of a painted exterior wall with bright purple roses against a firey orange backdrop.
“Ocean does not seek water.” Photo by Wilfried Raussert, 2018



For we came away into a great hunger | Puesto que hemos creado una gran hambre

A black and white image of a dilapidated building from the colonial era. A large plant with fronds grows in the middle of the courtyard along with another type of plant. In the foreground, an iron gate is silhouetted.
“Eden in Ruins.” Photo by Wilfried Raussert, 2023.

She is vanishing | Elle se desvanece

Street art of a giant image of an elderly woman's face. She is squinting and this accentuates the wrinkles around her eyes. her face is framed by black paint with white graffiti. In the foreground, a plant's branches extend upwards. Its leaves are green.
“She is vanishing.” Photo by Wilfried Raussert, 2023.




She says holiness is everywhere | Ella dice que lo sagrado está en todas partes

Street art of a woman's profile on an exterior of a building with a rose colored theme. A surreal kind of image with white flowers around her face. An open window shows a selection of pastries on display. A man is walking by, holding a black garbage bag over his head and down his back. It is full of boxy looking objects.
“She says holiness.” Photo by Wilfried Raussert, 2022


Featured Image: Dreaming of a Better World. Photo by Wilfried Raussert, May 2016

Wilfried Raussert is a multidisciplinary artist and scholar at Bielefeld University, Germany. He is co-founder of the Center for InterAmerican Studies and director of the Maria Sibylla Merian Center for Advanced Latin American Studies (CALAS). His award-winning art includes photography, film-making, music, and life writing. His transdisciplinary scholarship spans the medical humanities, African American cultures, music, and art in public space. Website. Contact.

Ann Fisher-Wirth is Mississippi’s Poet Laureate 2025-2029 and a senior fellow of the Black Earth Institute. She is the recipient of the 2023 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Poetry from the Mississippi Arts Commission. Into the Chalice of Your Thoughts (Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, 2023) is her eighth book. Most recently, Ann coedited Attached to the Living World: A New Ecopoetry Anthology (Trinity University Press, 2025) with Laura-gray Street. Website. Contact.

Women In Translation (4W-WIT) is part of the Women and Wellbeing in Wisconsin and the World Initiative (4W Initiative) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, led by Lori DiPrete Brown. The team of 4W-WIT translators includes: Sarli Mercado, Sally Perret, Lori DiPrete Brown, Juan F. Egea, Silvia Goldman, Olmanda Hernández Guerrero, Vicente M. López Abad, Beatriz L. Botero, José Bañuelos Montes, Ana Varela Tafur, and Ulises Bonifacio Zarazúa.

Sarli E. Mercado is a translator, poet, and teaching professor of Spanish and Portuguese at UW-Madison, where she also founded and co-directs the Women in Translation Circle. Sarli is the author of Cartografías del Destierro, en torno a Juan Gelman and Luisa Futoransky (Corregidor, 2008) and the editor of Montañas and Three or Four Ríos (Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, 2022) and De tus pensamientos, el cáliz / Into the Chalice of Your Thoughts (Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, 2023). Contact.

Sally Perret is an Associate Professor of Spanish at Salisbury University. She has published in academic journals like the Hispanic Research Journal, the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies, and Ínsula.  Sally is also co-translator with José Bañuelos-Montes of two anthologies: Voces de la Resistencia/Voices of Resistance: A Bilingual Anthology of AfroColombian Women Poets (Editorial Ultramarina, 2021) and Poetryfighters (Editorial Ultramarina, 2022). She has been a participant of 4W-WIT since 2021. Contact.

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