It is difficult to trace the origin of the Spanish word
tiburón. It is said to come from the Portuguese tubarão,
but its origin is uncertain. There are many names to
name my equals and among us we do not use any of
them. Our lingua franca is silence. In the depths, we
understand each other through teeth-gnashes, tail
blows. Nature chose for us a communicating void. Do
sharks dream? To dream you need language. For
grinding, jaws and teeth. Do sharks dream?

Dora Prieto is a Mexican-Canadian poet living in Oakland, California, where she’s a 2025–27 Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. Her debut poetry collection is forthcoming with House of Anansi in April 2027—still in search of a title 🙏🏼—and she’s the poetry winner of the 2025 Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. A member of El Mashup Collective, she writes and lives between languages and geographies, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Acentos Review, Maisonneuve, Catapult, The Capilano Review, Room, EVENT, Hazlitt, and more.

Born in a city of eternal Spring (Cuernavaca, Mexico) and raised in el Distrito Federal, Daniela Rodriguez Chevalier currently writes and translates from unceded Coast Salish territories (Vancouver, BC). Her work has appeared in Discorder, PRISM International, carte blanche, and more. She is co-founder of artist collectives mim and El Mashup, and Festival Coordinator, and programmer at the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival. As DJ D-Rod, she co-hosts Vivaporú on CiTR 101.9FM. Recently, she’s been a Citizen Poet in Vancouver's Poet Laureate’s “Here, Hearing” residencies. Dani has two feisty gorgeous dachshunds, Xoco and Rol.

 

Es difícil rastrear el origen de la palabra castellana
tiburón. Se dice que viene del portugués tubarão, pero
su origen es incierto. Hay muchos nombres para
nombrar a mis iguales y entre nosotros no usamos
ninguno. Nuestra lengua franca es el silencio. En las
profundidades uno se entiende a dentelladas,
coletazos. La naturaleza eligió para nosotros un vacío
comunicante. ¿Sueñan los tiburones? Para soñar se
necesita lenguaje. Para el bruxismo, mandíbulas y
dientes. ¿Sueñan los tiburones?

Xitlalitl Rodríguez Mendoza (Guadalajara, Jalisco, 1982) is the author of several books and chapbooks of poetry, including Polvo lugar, Datsun, Poesía morosa. Prositas de amor contra el SAT, and Jaws [Tiburón] (winner of the Ignacio Manuel Altamirano National Poetry Prize). She is also co-author, with Atahualpa Espinosa Magaña, of the essay collection Poesía y desempleo, a new edition of which, Ahora con más poesía y más empleo, will be released soon. She has translated several children's and young adult books from French, most notably Tengo 14 años y no es una buena noticia by Jo Witek. She is currently pursuing an Interinstitutional Doctorate in Art and Culture at the University of Guadalajara.

Read Dora Prieto and Daniela Rodríguez interviewed by Lauren Peat.