Poetic Encounters Across Borders
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 Hernรกndez Guerrero, Vicente M. Lรณpez Abad, Beatriz L. Botero, Josรฉ Baรฑuelos Montes, Ana Varela Tafur, and Ulises Bonifacio Zarazรบa: 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 Iโd 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 Willieโs 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 Willieโs 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 โzone of cultural contact.โ 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 Raussertโs photographs of Mexico in a novel โgathering of voices.โ 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


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


Ocean need not seek water | El ocรฉan no pide agua


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


She is vanishing | Elle se desvanece


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


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 Mississippiโs Poet Laureate 2025-2029 and a senior fellow of the Black Earth Institute. She is the recipient of the 2023 Governorโs 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 Hernรกndez Guerrero, Vicente M. Lรณpez Abad, Beatriz L. Botero, Josรฉ Baรฑuelos Montes, Ana Varela Tafur, and Ulises Bonifacio Zarazรบa.
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 Cartografรญas del Destierro, en torno a Juan Gelman and Luisa Futoransky (Corregidor, 2008) and the editor of Montaรฑas and Three or Four Rรญos (Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara, 2022) and De tus pensamientos, el cรกliz / 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 theโฏHispanic Research Journal,โฏtheโฏJournal of Spanish Cultural Studies, andโฏรnsula.โฏ Sally is also co-translator with Josรฉ Baรฑuelos-Montes of two anthologies:โฏVoces de la Resistencia/Voices of Resistance: A Bilingual Anthology of AfroColombian Women Poetsโฏ(Editorial Ultramarina, 2021) andโฏPoetryfighters (Editorial Ultramarina, 2022).โฏShe has been a participant of 4W-WIT since 2021. Contact.






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