When We Have No Name
Names are shipwrecked,
the foam is a mouth that forgets,
bodies are dragged
to the center
where light
does not reach.
We are stripped
of everything,
the only question remaining:
what are we when nothing names us?
There is no Answer
In the ocean I contemplate
the promise
of what we will be:
a handful of salt,
a question
thrown against nothingness,
one
that will have
no answer.
Contemplation
I knew how far
the catastrophe would reach
when I became aware
of my hollowness
and my emptiness
became voracious.
All that’s left to me
is appeasement—
endless desire
observed,
like gazing at the sea.
These poems were originally published in Spanish under the title Pacto de otro Mar by LP5 Editora in Fox Island, WA, United States (2025). English Translation by Don Cellini.
Mariela Cordero (Venezuela) is a lawyer, poet, writer, translator, and visual artist whose poetry has been featured in various international anthologies and translated into Hindi, Czech, Estonian, Serbian, Shona, Uzbek, Romanian, Macedonian, Korean, Hebrew, Bengali, English, Arabic, Chinese, Russian, and Polish. She has received multiple distinctions, including the Pjetër Bogdani International Prize (Belgium-Kosovo, 2026); the M’ILLUMINO/D’IMMENSO International Italian-to-Spanish Poetry Translation Prize (Italy, 2025); the Naji Naaman Literary Prize (Lebanon, 2025); the Sahitto International Award for Literary Excellence (2023); finalist for the Aco Karamanow International Poetry Prize (Macedonia, 2022); First Place in the #AniversarioPoetasHispanos International Poetry Contest, Literary Quality Mention (Spain, 2016); Second Poetry Prize at the Tracceperlameta Edizioni International Bilingual Literary Contest (Italy, 2015); the Micropoemas en Español Prize at the 3rd TRANSPalabr@RTE Contest (2015); First Prize at the 2nd Euler Granda Ibero-American Poetry Contest (Ecuador, 2015); and the Alejandra Pizarnik Third Poetry Prize (Argentina, 2014). Her published poetry collections include El cuerpo de la duda (Editorial Publicarte, Caracas, Venezuela, 2013), Transfigurar es un país que amas (Editorial Dos Islas, Miami, USA, 2020), La larga noche de las jaurías (Editorial Nautilus, Spain, 2023), Pacto de otro Mar (LP5 Editora, Fox Island, WA, USA, 2025), the French edition La longue nuit des meutes (Senegal Njaay Editions, Senegal, 2025), and the bilingual English-Chinese edition Fragile as the Absolute 玛丽埃拉·科尔德罗 (The Herald Publisher, Australia, 2026). She has participated in numerous international literary gatherings and festivals, such as The Princeton Festival (USA), the Parque Chas International Poetry Festival (Argentina), the Bitola Literary Memory International Festival, the Xochimilco International Poetry Festival (Mexico), the 10th Ibero-American Festival of Fusagasugá (Colombia, 2023), and the Kaohsiung World Poetry Festival (Taiwan). Currently, she serves as an editorial advisor for the South Korean Journal of Symbolism and coordinates the #PoesíaVenezolana and #PoesíaMundial sections for the poetry magazine Poémame (Spain).
