In photographs and poetry, River Coello, MPP’17, reconnects with ancestral tradition.
River Coello, MPP’17, is an Ecuadorean American storyteller, activist, artist, and social researcher. In their photography and poetry collection HAMPI (For the Birds Trapped in Airports, 2024), which means “medicine” in the Andean Quechua language, Coello documents a healing journey from the United States to Ecuador and Peru.
At the start, the moon offers the poet medicine. But, the moon advises, “you must renounce your shield to let it in.” In the lines that follow, written in English, Spanish, and Quechua, the poet reckons with past lessons and external judgments that caused them to close themselves off, and begins “excavating” and “rearranging” the self. Photographs—of expansive, mountainous landscapes; towering monuments; a patch of thistle or a tangle of bougainvillea—emerge in pairs throughout the book, glimpses of the places the poet calls home. The following is excerpted from HAMPI.
the cracking:
i was never meant for small containers,
where i either leaked or evaporated.
i have contorted myself enough.
the claiming:
in my ancestors’ language,
the milky way and i are rivers.
in their imagination,
the stars made me in their image:
an irresistible force, never alone,
holding and fusing multiplicities,
flowing and blazing in infinity.
/
el rompimiento:
yo nunca fui para pequeños envases,
donde solía regarme o evaporarme,
y ya me he contorcido lo suficiente.
la reclamación:
en el idioma de mis antepasados,
la vía láctea y yo somos dos ríos.
en la imaginación de mis precursores,
las estrellas me crearon en su imagen:
una fuerza irresistible, nunca sola,
guardando e integrando multiplicidad,
siempre fluyendo y ardiendo en la infinidad.
/
khullu qirukunapaq amapunin karanichu.
paykunapi qarpakuqkani waksikuqkanitaq,
ichaqa manañan q’iwikusaq.
umaqiykunaq qhiswasiminkupi,
ch’askakunaq sutinkuqa mayun.
ñuqaq sutiyqa mayun.
mayuhina kani:
qhapaq,
amapunin sapallachu,
mana tukuyniyuq,
ch’ukllachakuspa,
k’araspa.
Excerpted from HAMPI (2024) by River Coello. HAMPI is published by For the Birds Trapped in Airports.