Description

The Womb is a collection of poems which nurtures spaces for feelings to exist and take their time to be. The author creates scenarios where pain, joyfulness, doubt, bravery, love, hate join forces to birth and rebirth each other blossoming into the harmonious chaos of the human experience through a feminine lens.

With a bachelor’s degree in Translation, a master’s degree in Communication, and a degree in International Journalism, Carla Fernandes is an Angolan writer, translator, and cultural producer based in Portugal. Creator of the podcast Rádio Afrolis, awarded by the Google News Initiative 2022, and founder of Afrolis – Cultural Association, two platforms dedicated to the narratives of Black people living in Lisbon. Organiser and co-author of the poetry anthology Djidiu a Herança do Ouvido – Twelve Ways to Talk About the Black Experience in Lisbon (2018). Author of the 10-episode radio drama, It Takes a Village (2018), produced by the German radio station Deutsche Welle. Official translator in Portugal of Amanda Gorman’s works The Hill We Climb, The Song of Change, and What We Carry. Author of the children’s books Uma Visita Inesperada (2022) and E Tudo Mudou (2025). Director of the documentary, Nós Não Viemos do Vazio (2024).

FROM THE BOOK

The Secret to Giving Birth

When you feel the burning pain,

PUSH!

 

The Womb

I am the womb of humanity.

It is from me that, at any given moment,

the endless beauty of all planetary beings emerges,

which, from time to time, like a comet, diverges.

I suffocate in the same breath with which I breathe life into others.

I blossom, preparing the adornment of my last home,

the earth, that birthed me.

I am the womb of humanity.

I combine all humility and insanity,

necessary to ensure our continuity.

I am a woman,

I am the womb of humanity.

 

A Poem for My Mother

I bet she had many longings, desires —

I wish I could have peeped into her soul,

just to check their nature,

just to taste their flavour.

 

Witty and graceful,

a true woman of all times,

the hardships made her sturdily soft.

She was crafted of unbreakable matter.

Her will was her main skill,

no hurries, no worries,

all at its time.

Her faith was her main guide.

 

When in doubt she would turn to her creator,

her tears, her pain, her sins to him;

she would sing

lulling her longings, her desires, her whims.

 

I wish I could have had a peep,

just to know…

Her.