Leticia Priebe Rocha
In the song Cálice, infamously censored by the U.S.-backed Brazilian military dictatorship, Chico Buarque and Milton Nascimento express the need to launch an inhuman scream because it is the only way to be heard.
This is, of course, roughly translated. Translated roughly, of course, like human beings across ocean and desert, landing where
searching for life becomes criminal alien
ravaging lives turns into removal proceedings
children in cages shift to minor detainees
concentration camps metamorphose to detention centers,
all blending together, blending with thousands of other translations that maintain this stolen land, blending into our daily lives, blending into your mind, ultimately begging a single question:
Are 11 million screams enough?
*Shut up
Leticia Priebe Rocha received her bachelor’s from Tufts University, where she was awarded the 2020 Academy of American Poets University & College Poetry Prize. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, she immigrated to Miami, FL at the age of 9 and currently resides in the Greater Boston area. Her work has been published in Rattle, The Awakenings Review, Arkana, and elsewhere.
