Ana Lucía De Bastos: “La poesía es, en el fondo, forma” / Daniel Fermín

Ana Lucía De Bastos: “Poetry is, at its core, form”

                  [Photo: Nicola Rocco]

Ana Lucía De Bastos (Caracas, 1983) was given an illustrated version of Margarita, the poem by Rubén Darío, when she was just five years old. She liked the book so much she began to recite it by memory wherever she might be (at school, at the homes of family members). It was the first experience with poetry for the writer who yesterday presented her book Y ahora, extiéndeme al sol (Bid&Co, 2014) at the bookstore El Buscón in Caracas.

The first poetry collection by the Caracas author is a compilation of her old texts. De Bastos gathered poems that she had in folders, notebooks and e-mails. Until she realized there was a familiarity among them. The body, the skin, the spirit, the word, the verb, love. De Bastos explores these topics in his first publication.

Y ahora, extiéndeme al sol has fictional intentions. There are poems in which the author tells of certain situations. De Bastos believes poetry can always make use of other literary genres. “I use the anecdote as a vehicle that leads to the feeling, the emotion I might want to transmit through the text. Poems are, at their core, form,” said the graduate of the Central University of Venezuela, where she studied Literature.

De Bastos’s collection mentions other authors. Eugenio Montejo, Roberto Calasso, Hanni Ossott, Herberto Helder, among others (“we all have mothers and fathers in literature,” she said). There are also texts that make references to voices, to saying it all in writing. “Some people write because reality isn’t enough for them. I do it because reality overwhelms me, I do it as a means of facing it,” added De Bastos, who received a Master’s in Editing at the University of Barcelona in Spain.

De Basto’s passion for books goes beyond writing and/or reading. The poet is also in charge of an artisanal project (Alhilo Editorial), that for the moment has only published one title in its catalog (Días raros, by Sara Fratini). “I do it as an anchor to Venezuela, so I might have something to come back to,” concluded the author, who currently lives in Spain. Over there, meanwhile, she’s working on her first novel.




{ Daniel Fermín, El Universal, 15 August 2014 }

Mi cuerpo desabrochándose me sosiega / Ana Lucía De Bastos

My Body Coming Undone Brings Me Calm

There are strong voices and texts (fabrics, continuities of words and meanings) that stun me: faced with language I’m a trembling leaf, devoted. Words reach me through my natural inclination towards their truth. In a certain space of my body
—why should I say superfluous, if I don’t know where they hide— they have an impact and bend my speech, which is another way of saying my skin.

Within the madding crowd, you’ll find true speech, language turned outward, silent entrails that are Meaning and allow the world, with all its weight, to keep spinning in emptiness.

I live to read those words. To write one of them, I give my eyes, my ears and my voice.




{ Ana Lucía De Bastos, Y ahora extiéndeme al sol, Caracas: Bid & Co. Editor, 2014 }

Tríptico / Ana Lucía De Bastos

Triptych

I

Today my soul is:
A knot of veins.


II

Hoje a minha alma é:
A pit of liquids my mnemonic artery
spills.


III

Dear ghost:
I flee because I know you’re made of corner and edge
of shirt and skin.




{ Ana Lucía De Bastos, Y ahora extiéndeme al sol, Caracas: Bid & Co. Editor, 2014 }

A Luis Miguel Navas lo cortaron en pedacitos / Ana Lucía De Bastos

They Cut Luis Miguel Navas into Little Pieces

When we got home there were some men on the roof of the building. Não é teto, é telhado, my uncle said correcting me. This is how the word becomes a border, the face is not a stamp, because it has another name. The parasol, on the other hand, is a parasol from below and from above, just like the carpet: the side that grazes the floor and the other that grazes my feet. The roof and the ceiling are inseparable but different, an otherness found at our back. What covers my head é teto, what protects us from the sun and rain, é telhado.

And what do we call the reverse side of the skin? I stick my finger in my mouth, where it’s no longer cheek but teto: all such living flesh. I bite the inside of my cheek, which is neither gums nor lips. It’s damp and contains my breath, a tunnel with an entrance for light before it becomes throat, which isn’t neck, and we sink into the covered darkness of the dorso, the one that supports blood, viscera and bones.




Translator’s note: The original Spanish version of this poem, along with a recording of the author reading it, can be found at La maja desnuda.




{ Ana Lucía De Bastos, Y ahora extiéndeme al sol, Caracas: Bid & Co. Editor, 2014 }