I always let my dog Sasha bark by the window every time friends come to visit us, or the postman rings the bell or delivers the letters, or somebody just knocks at the door...
And I take part in my dog’s excitement by barking along: ‘Wow-Wow-Wowwww ...!’ howling freely and fearless with my dog, getting carried away with her bark, for I know that the mothers in the poor neighbourhoods of Peru, Chile, Argentina or Croatia and Kurdistan let their dogs bark and bark just to renew their hope, the feeling that their sons are coming home after they’ve been taken away many years ago ...
Alfredo Cordal Translated by the author Chilean poet and playwrightAlfredo Cordal lives in London.He was exiled by General Pinochet’s coup that overthrew PresidentAllende 1973.The poem‘Let the Dogs Bark’ is published in bilingual text in LatinAmerican LiteraryAnthology, ed.Jorge Salgado Rocha (LatinAmerican Literary Workshop‘Pablo Neruda’,London 2004).