Javier Sologuren
el fuego del tiempo
se consume a sí mismo
esa rosa ya no dura
mas que su perfume
llevo un milenio
resplandeciéndome
en las uñas
el polvo es la ceniza
de una
inmutable mariposa
los extremos del sueño
escapan dando gritos
la luz única
que solamente
solo percibo
huye por los márgenes
de esta página
donde
una vez más
la escritura
se encuentra con la nada
(¿para nada?)
Javier Sologuren, Un trino en la ventana vacía (Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 1998)
2.27.2004
2.26.2004
Escritura / Eugenio Montejo
Writing
One day I will write with rocks,
measuring each of my phrases
by weight, volume, movement.
I am tired of words.
No more pencil: scaffolding, theodolites,
emotion's solar nudity tattooing
its secret music
deep in boulders.
With pebble lines, I will draw
my name, the history of my house
and the memory of that river
always passing and stalling
amid my veins like a learned architect.
I will write my song with live rock
in arches, bridges, dolmens, columns,
facing the horizon's solitude,
as a map opens for the eyes
of travelers that never return.
*
Escritura
Alguna vez escribiré con piedras,
midiendo cada una de mis frases
por su peso, volumen, movimiento.
Estoy cansado de palabras.
No más lápiz: andamios, teodolitos,
la desnudez solar del sentimiento
tatuando en lo profundo de las rocas
su música secreta.
Dibujaré con líneas de guijarros
mi nombre, la historia de mi casa
y la memoria de aquel río
que va pasando siempre y se demora
entre mis venas como sabio arquitecto.
Con piedra viva escribiré mi canto
en arcos, puentes, dólmenes, columnas,
frente a la soledad del horizonte,
como un mapa que se abra ante los ojos
de los viajeros que no regresan nunca.
One day I will write with rocks,
measuring each of my phrases
by weight, volume, movement.
I am tired of words.
No more pencil: scaffolding, theodolites,
emotion's solar nudity tattooing
its secret music
deep in boulders.
With pebble lines, I will draw
my name, the history of my house
and the memory of that river
always passing and stalling
amid my veins like a learned architect.
I will write my song with live rock
in arches, bridges, dolmens, columns,
facing the horizon's solitude,
as a map opens for the eyes
of travelers that never return.
*
Escritura
Alguna vez escribiré con piedras,
midiendo cada una de mis frases
por su peso, volumen, movimiento.
Estoy cansado de palabras.
No más lápiz: andamios, teodolitos,
la desnudez solar del sentimiento
tatuando en lo profundo de las rocas
su música secreta.
Dibujaré con líneas de guijarros
mi nombre, la historia de mi casa
y la memoria de aquel río
que va pasando siempre y se demora
entre mis venas como sabio arquitecto.
Con piedra viva escribiré mi canto
en arcos, puentes, dólmenes, columnas,
frente a la soledad del horizonte,
como un mapa que se abra ante los ojos
de los viajeros que no regresan nunca.
2.24.2004
Deseos indeseables / Francisco Vera Izquierdo
Undesirable Desires
The judgment that we might make in favor of or against certain political opinions does not depend on the actual characteristics of those ideas. Rather, our judgment depends on how much we might concur with those ideas. Personally, I have been writing for the press since 1936 and I have never found myself so congratulated as I do now. And I imagine that, at my age, if there has been a change it has probably been for the worse, because of the intellectual disintegration common to old age.
Throughout these many years I have published against the communists, the Adecos, and the Copeyanos, with whom I nevertheless vehemently sympathized, until they transferred power over to the government of Betancourt.
I imagine that I have also published against others. But now I come to the overall question of the positive feedback I have noticed regarding my work. It is clear that I listen only to people who read and, more specifically, to people that I know. But, when I used to write against the Adecos, for example, there were people I respected who disagreed with me. The same thing happened with my other targets. Today, however, I don't know anyone who can read and who doesn't coincide with my opposition to the current regime. Thus, I only encounter agreement with my articles.
I believe that spiritual well-being, as a result of the respect for the freedom to think and speak, is preferable to the material gains of an economically reasonable regime. This is why I have stated so often that I prefer this disaster to the prosperity of the Pérez Jiménez era. However, the supersticious cult of lies that characterizes this current government is notable. The task assigned to Vice President Rangel is picturesque because it is so completely removed from the political sphere, and because it could be performed by any one of the illiterates in the regime. Among other things, the truth is not in question because truth is not only relative but also personal.
We can see how an event need not actually have taken place in order for it to be real, as is the case, for example, with parabolas. But the lies that are assigned to the Vice President are not made up of only words, but of numbers as well. If the government brings 20,000 people to one of their meetings, the Vice President will speak of 200,000 people, without of course mentioning the hired buses and the per diem used as incitements. If the opposition gathers 100,000 people, the Vice President will speak of 10,000. The truth is, one does not need a university education in order to come up with such a scheme.
Returning to the theme of reality being a personal affair, we could add here that, for a person, what exists is only what he knows. For those that don't know the plains, a dust cloud does not exist. And, applying this principle, we could say that for a Chavista culture does not exist. And with this phenomenon, the association ends up drowning the individual. My education at San Ignacio taught me that not every Jesuit is intelligent; but that the Jesuit Order itself is intelligent. The same thing happens with the Chavistas, among whom there are educated individuals. However, their association with Chavismo mercilessly eradicates that education.
I repeat that I prefer this disaster to the prosperity of the Pérez Jiménez era. But everything seems to indicate that our chubby President's goal is to lead our country into another dictatorship, which would bring all of it's own problems, alongside the ignorance that is central to Chavismo. We should not forget that a militaristic civilian is a common occurrence. A civilized military official, however, is not.
{ Francisco Vera Izquierdo, El Nacional, 23 February 2004 }
The judgment that we might make in favor of or against certain political opinions does not depend on the actual characteristics of those ideas. Rather, our judgment depends on how much we might concur with those ideas. Personally, I have been writing for the press since 1936 and I have never found myself so congratulated as I do now. And I imagine that, at my age, if there has been a change it has probably been for the worse, because of the intellectual disintegration common to old age.
Throughout these many years I have published against the communists, the Adecos, and the Copeyanos, with whom I nevertheless vehemently sympathized, until they transferred power over to the government of Betancourt.
I imagine that I have also published against others. But now I come to the overall question of the positive feedback I have noticed regarding my work. It is clear that I listen only to people who read and, more specifically, to people that I know. But, when I used to write against the Adecos, for example, there were people I respected who disagreed with me. The same thing happened with my other targets. Today, however, I don't know anyone who can read and who doesn't coincide with my opposition to the current regime. Thus, I only encounter agreement with my articles.
I believe that spiritual well-being, as a result of the respect for the freedom to think and speak, is preferable to the material gains of an economically reasonable regime. This is why I have stated so often that I prefer this disaster to the prosperity of the Pérez Jiménez era. However, the supersticious cult of lies that characterizes this current government is notable. The task assigned to Vice President Rangel is picturesque because it is so completely removed from the political sphere, and because it could be performed by any one of the illiterates in the regime. Among other things, the truth is not in question because truth is not only relative but also personal.
We can see how an event need not actually have taken place in order for it to be real, as is the case, for example, with parabolas. But the lies that are assigned to the Vice President are not made up of only words, but of numbers as well. If the government brings 20,000 people to one of their meetings, the Vice President will speak of 200,000 people, without of course mentioning the hired buses and the per diem used as incitements. If the opposition gathers 100,000 people, the Vice President will speak of 10,000. The truth is, one does not need a university education in order to come up with such a scheme.
Returning to the theme of reality being a personal affair, we could add here that, for a person, what exists is only what he knows. For those that don't know the plains, a dust cloud does not exist. And, applying this principle, we could say that for a Chavista culture does not exist. And with this phenomenon, the association ends up drowning the individual. My education at San Ignacio taught me that not every Jesuit is intelligent; but that the Jesuit Order itself is intelligent. The same thing happens with the Chavistas, among whom there are educated individuals. However, their association with Chavismo mercilessly eradicates that education.
I repeat that I prefer this disaster to the prosperity of the Pérez Jiménez era. But everything seems to indicate that our chubby President's goal is to lead our country into another dictatorship, which would bring all of it's own problems, alongside the ignorance that is central to Chavismo. We should not forget that a militaristic civilian is a common occurrence. A civilized military official, however, is not.
{ Francisco Vera Izquierdo, El Nacional, 23 February 2004 }
2.23.2004
The Hogarth Press
Sometime last year I came across this excellent translation of García Lorca's poems:
Selected Poems of Federico García Lorca, translated by Stephen Spender and J.L. Gili (London: The Hogarth Press, 1943).
Spender and Gili's versions, for the most part, hold up quite well. The edition itself is exquisite, with a plain brown dust jacket imprinted with red letters. The catalog on the sleeve lists ten previous books as part of "The New Hogarth Library." I hope to come across #9 in the collection one day: Forty Poems by John Lehmann.
Spender and Gili conclude this brief collection with the following translation:
"The Lament
I have shut my balcony
because I do not want to hear the weeping,
but from behind the grey walls
nothing else is heard but the weeping.
There are very few angels that sing,
there are very few dogs that bark,
a thousand violins fit into the palm of the hand;
but the weeping is an immense angel,
the weeping is an immense violin,
the tears muzzle the wind,
nothing else is heard but the weeping."
Sometime last year I came across this excellent translation of García Lorca's poems:
Selected Poems of Federico García Lorca, translated by Stephen Spender and J.L. Gili (London: The Hogarth Press, 1943).
Spender and Gili's versions, for the most part, hold up quite well. The edition itself is exquisite, with a plain brown dust jacket imprinted with red letters. The catalog on the sleeve lists ten previous books as part of "The New Hogarth Library." I hope to come across #9 in the collection one day: Forty Poems by John Lehmann.
Spender and Gili conclude this brief collection with the following translation:
"The Lament
I have shut my balcony
because I do not want to hear the weeping,
but from behind the grey walls
nothing else is heard but the weeping.
There are very few angels that sing,
there are very few dogs that bark,
a thousand violins fit into the palm of the hand;
but the weeping is an immense angel,
the weeping is an immense violin,
the tears muzzle the wind,
nothing else is heard but the weeping."
2.21.2004
Rosamel del Valle
In 1976 Monte Ávila Editores published an anthology of work by the Chilean poet Rosamel del Valle (1901-1965). The volume was edited by Juan Sánchez Peláez, who maintained a life-long admiration for that poet's work. I was lucky enough to find a copy of this book in the shelves of one of the booksellers in the hallways of the Universidad Central de Venezuela two years ago.
I've read that Sánchez Peláez met Rosamel del Valle once, in New York City during the early 1960s. The Chilean poet's books are nearly impossible to find these days. The poems that Sánchez Peláez includes in Antología offer an excellent view of Rosamel del Valle's magnificent interpretations of surrealism, spanning from the 1920s until the 1960s. So much depends on these secret books.
*
"Quinteto
Ah, sí, a veces sé que existes, que eres
Parte de mí mismo y del relámpago en visita.
Y cuando hay más cabellos y olas a mi alrededor,
Debes saberlo, no te atraigo hacia mí ni te aparto
Sino que te dejo danzar en el vértigo de mis huéspedes.
Si yo fuera Ovidio diría que eres la alegoría del amor,
La visión rodeada de centellas por caminos sin cielo.
Y ya ves, eso es forzar la lengua para nada
Puesto que estás vestida de brillantes jeroglíficos
Y tratando de hablar por los ojos de cada signo.
Nada aparto de mí porque la vida lo ordena
Y porque de todos modos la muerte no lo quiere.
¿Qué sería de mi caminar por las aguas,
De mi entrega al banquete privado de la noche,
Sin nada que hablara de ti en esos secretos?
Devuelve, pues, tu cabeza al mar y mírame desde ahí.
Yo estoy contando horas en la vejez de las colinas:
Horas que han cesado de hablar sin despedirse,
Horas atraídas por el imán que no conozco
Pero que ponen un sol de otro tiempo en mis palabras.
Pienso en el instante en que debo deshacerme
Con la magia del tren que se deshace en un túnel.
Al otro lado estarás, eso lo sé, dormida y con el brazo
Del sol alrededor de tu cuello. Mas ¿estaré
Yo ahí para saber que ese calor es mi calor?
Lo digo, como podría decir que las nubes son párpados errantes
Pero sin desear una respuesta a mi ansiedad
Puesto que estaré sentado debajo de tus ojos
Aun con esa cadena ardiente inventada por mí mismo.
Tú y yo, no más que la humedad y la piedra.
Tú y yo, no más que el corazón de la noche en un vaso."
{Rosamel del Valle, La visión comunicable, 1956}
In 1976 Monte Ávila Editores published an anthology of work by the Chilean poet Rosamel del Valle (1901-1965). The volume was edited by Juan Sánchez Peláez, who maintained a life-long admiration for that poet's work. I was lucky enough to find a copy of this book in the shelves of one of the booksellers in the hallways of the Universidad Central de Venezuela two years ago.
I've read that Sánchez Peláez met Rosamel del Valle once, in New York City during the early 1960s. The Chilean poet's books are nearly impossible to find these days. The poems that Sánchez Peláez includes in Antología offer an excellent view of Rosamel del Valle's magnificent interpretations of surrealism, spanning from the 1920s until the 1960s. So much depends on these secret books.
*
"Quinteto
Ah, sí, a veces sé que existes, que eres
Parte de mí mismo y del relámpago en visita.
Y cuando hay más cabellos y olas a mi alrededor,
Debes saberlo, no te atraigo hacia mí ni te aparto
Sino que te dejo danzar en el vértigo de mis huéspedes.
Si yo fuera Ovidio diría que eres la alegoría del amor,
La visión rodeada de centellas por caminos sin cielo.
Y ya ves, eso es forzar la lengua para nada
Puesto que estás vestida de brillantes jeroglíficos
Y tratando de hablar por los ojos de cada signo.
Nada aparto de mí porque la vida lo ordena
Y porque de todos modos la muerte no lo quiere.
¿Qué sería de mi caminar por las aguas,
De mi entrega al banquete privado de la noche,
Sin nada que hablara de ti en esos secretos?
Devuelve, pues, tu cabeza al mar y mírame desde ahí.
Yo estoy contando horas en la vejez de las colinas:
Horas que han cesado de hablar sin despedirse,
Horas atraídas por el imán que no conozco
Pero que ponen un sol de otro tiempo en mis palabras.
Pienso en el instante en que debo deshacerme
Con la magia del tren que se deshace en un túnel.
Al otro lado estarás, eso lo sé, dormida y con el brazo
Del sol alrededor de tu cuello. Mas ¿estaré
Yo ahí para saber que ese calor es mi calor?
Lo digo, como podría decir que las nubes son párpados errantes
Pero sin desear una respuesta a mi ansiedad
Puesto que estaré sentado debajo de tus ojos
Aun con esa cadena ardiente inventada por mí mismo.
Tú y yo, no más que la humedad y la piedra.
Tú y yo, no más que el corazón de la noche en un vaso."
{Rosamel del Valle, La visión comunicable, 1956}
"There was nowhere to turn..."
Today's cassette is Sonic Youth Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (1994), which includes an epigraph by Jack Brewer in the liner notes: "Once the music leaves your head it's already compromised."
*
Reading Tabla sin asidero and Humphrey Bloggart today, I find out that two young Mexican writers/bloggers have been arrested in Mexico City and charged with stealing the rearview mirrors from a parked car.
Gerardo Sifuentes Marín and Epigmenio León Martínez were arrested on February 12 and are now in jail, facing charges of aggravated robbery. I don't think I need to emphasize that the Mexico City police (like the police in most Latin American cities) are extremely corrupt. The charges against these two writers are ridiculous, especially considering that the only witnesses to the alleged crime are the two arresting officers.
I hope their problems can be resolved soon.
*
Along with Teresa de la Parra's Las memorias de Mama Blanca, I have begun reading Cristina Rivera Garza's novel Nadie me verá llorar (Barcelona, España: Editorial Tusquets, 2003 / orig. 1999).
*
The Rafael Cadenas translations are going very slowly. As I transfer them into English, I find that I lose much of the beauty of his early poems. While translating, I get stuck on single words or phrases that seem impossible to evoke accurately in English. As a translator, I always go back to Walter Benjamin's notion of a pure, or transcendental, language that emerges beyond the two languages. In Cadenas' poetry, that moment of purity is always mixed in with sadness and silence.
*
Opening the mailbox today, I'm happy to find three poems by John Ashbery in the London Review of Books:
"The Situation Upstairs
Like a forest fire in a jungle
with no one to watch it, this sea breeze
releases me to the cloud of knowing.
There are beaters in the woods,
nourishing it, and you're it,
reciting it. The long scramble upstairs
landed us here. There is no method
in the alphabet; the urchin came unseated.
You have to learn to 'bounce'
with the ages, just to keep up with time.
By then it will have been censored,
bleached from an autumn of folly.
In time we were twins, grew apart,
felt the centennial dawning.
There was nowhere to turn
and nobody to turn to.
To have 'landed' requires skills
we knew nothing of in our era,
yet their musicianly acts accompany us,
push us out of doors, into late summer's clamour.
Now our pleated longetivity mimics us.
We should have been nicer, talked to children
and their pets. To draw the tapestry aside
at this late date is to shuffle with fools
and clergymen, though there is one more thankless
task to claim and be influenced by:
the credible flight of football plays and calls.
These not any more for our adornment:
talking to new rulers and insight gained,
sunflowers over and out,
ashes on the clapboard credenza."
{John Ashbery, London Review of Books 19 February 2004}
Today's cassette is Sonic Youth Experimental Jet Set, Trash and No Star (1994), which includes an epigraph by Jack Brewer in the liner notes: "Once the music leaves your head it's already compromised."
*
Reading Tabla sin asidero and Humphrey Bloggart today, I find out that two young Mexican writers/bloggers have been arrested in Mexico City and charged with stealing the rearview mirrors from a parked car.
Gerardo Sifuentes Marín and Epigmenio León Martínez were arrested on February 12 and are now in jail, facing charges of aggravated robbery. I don't think I need to emphasize that the Mexico City police (like the police in most Latin American cities) are extremely corrupt. The charges against these two writers are ridiculous, especially considering that the only witnesses to the alleged crime are the two arresting officers.
I hope their problems can be resolved soon.
*
Along with Teresa de la Parra's Las memorias de Mama Blanca, I have begun reading Cristina Rivera Garza's novel Nadie me verá llorar (Barcelona, España: Editorial Tusquets, 2003 / orig. 1999).
*
The Rafael Cadenas translations are going very slowly. As I transfer them into English, I find that I lose much of the beauty of his early poems. While translating, I get stuck on single words or phrases that seem impossible to evoke accurately in English. As a translator, I always go back to Walter Benjamin's notion of a pure, or transcendental, language that emerges beyond the two languages. In Cadenas' poetry, that moment of purity is always mixed in with sadness and silence.
*
Opening the mailbox today, I'm happy to find three poems by John Ashbery in the London Review of Books:
"The Situation Upstairs
Like a forest fire in a jungle
with no one to watch it, this sea breeze
releases me to the cloud of knowing.
There are beaters in the woods,
nourishing it, and you're it,
reciting it. The long scramble upstairs
landed us here. There is no method
in the alphabet; the urchin came unseated.
You have to learn to 'bounce'
with the ages, just to keep up with time.
By then it will have been censored,
bleached from an autumn of folly.
In time we were twins, grew apart,
felt the centennial dawning.
There was nowhere to turn
and nobody to turn to.
To have 'landed' requires skills
we knew nothing of in our era,
yet their musicianly acts accompany us,
push us out of doors, into late summer's clamour.
Now our pleated longetivity mimics us.
We should have been nicer, talked to children
and their pets. To draw the tapestry aside
at this late date is to shuffle with fools
and clergymen, though there is one more thankless
task to claim and be influenced by:
the credible flight of football plays and calls.
These not any more for our adornment:
talking to new rulers and insight gained,
sunflowers over and out,
ashes on the clapboard credenza."
{John Ashbery, London Review of Books 19 February 2004}
2.19.2004
Maintenance
2.
"Por cual causa o nostalgia"
It was so we could speak longer verses
The lector would have his seat somewhere
above the workers but within hearing range
to lead them through novel chapters, newspaper
columns, poem cantos, short stories and essays
So we could speak in volumes unaccustomed
Though we know even less than they do
About building or rebuilding a city
3.
Excerpt from María Ramírez Ribes's interview with Rafael Cadenas, Conversaciones con Rafael Cadenas (Caracas: Editorial Pequeña Venecia, 1997).
"--Why does man need the city and its smoke?
--He needs the city, not the smoke. But the city has been developed using (how would I say it?) motives that are far from human. Even though it could be a completely different place. There has been a disconnection from Nature, you see? We have lost our reverence toward Nature and, of course, the cities are made by the man who has lost that connection. But if man were different the cities would be different. They would be gardens. Man today doesn't see nature within himself. Because that connection to Nature is not only found outside of man. Nor is there respect for words. They are used by demagogues, with no depth."
2.17.2004
The Exile Notebooks
Beyond that first book by Cadenas, his poems in recent years often seem to focus on individual lines of plain speech. Paying less attention to the poem as narrative and focusing instead on particular moments of thought and vision. A mysticism maintained within the fractured urban landscapes of Caracas. The selected poems of Antología (Madrid: Colección Visor, 1999), with a helpful introduction by Ana Nuño, is the best place to start.
Beyond that first book by Cadenas, his poems in recent years often seem to focus on individual lines of plain speech. Paying less attention to the poem as narrative and focusing instead on particular moments of thought and vision. A mysticism maintained within the fractured urban landscapes of Caracas. The selected poems of Antología (Madrid: Colección Visor, 1999), with a helpful introduction by Ana Nuño, is the best place to start.
2.16.2004
The Exile Notebooks
Rafael Cadenas wrote his book Los Cuadernos del destierro while he was living in Trinidad in the 1950s, as an exile from the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez.
His collected poems and prose were recently published in Mexico as Obra entera: Poesía y prosa (1958-1995) (México D.F. : Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000). I'd like to post translations of several poems from Los cuadernos del destierro later this week.
Cadenas' prose poems in this book evoke Rimbaud's Une saison en enfer, to a degree. Cadenas always remains lucid, however, in this crystalline collection. After a prolific period in the 1960s, Cadenas refrained from publishing for several years and emerged with a pared down style, which he continues to develop today. While he has recently been disparaged by members of the current administration for his vocal opposition to the Venezuelan government, Cadenas is one of our living masters. His poetry requires an extended silence, and in return it grants us wider vision.
I also intend to post translations of excerpts from an interview with Rafael Cadenas: María Ramírez Ribes, Conversaciones con Rafael Cadenas (Caracas: Editorial Pequeña Venecia, 1997).
Rafael Cadenas wrote his book Los Cuadernos del destierro while he was living in Trinidad in the 1950s, as an exile from the dictatorship of Marcos Pérez Jiménez.
His collected poems and prose were recently published in Mexico as Obra entera: Poesía y prosa (1958-1995) (México D.F. : Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2000). I'd like to post translations of several poems from Los cuadernos del destierro later this week.
Cadenas' prose poems in this book evoke Rimbaud's Une saison en enfer, to a degree. Cadenas always remains lucid, however, in this crystalline collection. After a prolific period in the 1960s, Cadenas refrained from publishing for several years and emerged with a pared down style, which he continues to develop today. While he has recently been disparaged by members of the current administration for his vocal opposition to the Venezuelan government, Cadenas is one of our living masters. His poetry requires an extended silence, and in return it grants us wider vision.
I also intend to post translations of excerpts from an interview with Rafael Cadenas: María Ramírez Ribes, Conversaciones con Rafael Cadenas (Caracas: Editorial Pequeña Venecia, 1997).
2.15.2004
Los cuadernos del destierro
"[...] Ciudades con el rostro lavado como el mostrador de los cafetines. Ciudades oleosas, arrancadas a los anatemas de los profetas, empantanadas como valles genésicos, sembradas en la negrura náutica de la noche como sirenas de cemento que despiden sus víctimas con máscaras. Ciudades felinas devorando los torrentes del esfuerzo. Sutiles, multitudinarias, roedoras. Cansado de ver naufragar mis expediciones sagradas en vacíos, mi refugio era su muchedumbre enraizada en pequeños apartamentos sin soledad.
Luminosas, deidades de otro mar.
Mi historia, despedirse.
Lleno de cruel sapiencia."
Rafael Cadenas, Los cuadernos del destierro (Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2001 / orig. 1960)
"[...] Ciudades con el rostro lavado como el mostrador de los cafetines. Ciudades oleosas, arrancadas a los anatemas de los profetas, empantanadas como valles genésicos, sembradas en la negrura náutica de la noche como sirenas de cemento que despiden sus víctimas con máscaras. Ciudades felinas devorando los torrentes del esfuerzo. Sutiles, multitudinarias, roedoras. Cansado de ver naufragar mis expediciones sagradas en vacíos, mi refugio era su muchedumbre enraizada en pequeños apartamentos sin soledad.
Luminosas, deidades de otro mar.
Mi historia, despedirse.
Lleno de cruel sapiencia."
Rafael Cadenas, Los cuadernos del destierro (Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2001 / orig. 1960)
Lecturas
jeringa apocalipstick:
"Esa que soy aquí ya no quiere marcharse"
*
Cristina Rivera Garza:
" LAS IDENTIDADES INTERMITENTES
Fronteriza. Lectora. New Latino. Mexicana. Norteña. Tamaulipeca. Hija. Tijuanense. Chilanga. Lectora. Pocha. Mexico-Americana. Chicana. Mujer. No-mujer. Lo-que-está-más-allá-de-Mujer. Hispana. Primera-Generación. Middle-Age. Lectora. Chamaca. Académica. Third-Wave. Imprudente. Bloguista. Traductora. Clase Media. Diaspórica. Ex-smoker. Madre. Socióloga. Feminista. Historiadora. Bilingüe. Mestiza. Borderlined. Enamorada. Tenured. Lectora. Colored. Amiga. Californiana. Ex-esposa. Profe. Doctora. Spanish-speaker. Mexicanista. Speaker. Contestona. Endorfinómana. Más-joven-que. Viajera. Electrónica. Silenciosa. Accented. Morena. Bípeda. Hyphonated. Estudiante. Invisible. Terrestre. A-veces-muda. Lectora. Ahora-en-Madrid.
Etceteramente.
Todo esto (y más) alrededor de la palabra escritora."
*
Dolores Dorantes:
"No queda
en este territorio antes del muro
en este mundo solo antes del agua
más que alguna parálisis:
el último
permanente sol de cielo
no queda
respiración alguna"
*
Heriberto Yépez:
"—Tu nombre no apareció.
—Sí, lo sé.
—¿Cómo te llamas?
—Tharsis.
—¡Qué bonito!, ¿qué significa?
—La que hace trizas."
jeringa apocalipstick:
"Esa que soy aquí ya no quiere marcharse"
*
Cristina Rivera Garza:
" LAS IDENTIDADES INTERMITENTES
Fronteriza. Lectora. New Latino. Mexicana. Norteña. Tamaulipeca. Hija. Tijuanense. Chilanga. Lectora. Pocha. Mexico-Americana. Chicana. Mujer. No-mujer. Lo-que-está-más-allá-de-Mujer. Hispana. Primera-Generación. Middle-Age. Lectora. Chamaca. Académica. Third-Wave. Imprudente. Bloguista. Traductora. Clase Media. Diaspórica. Ex-smoker. Madre. Socióloga. Feminista. Historiadora. Bilingüe. Mestiza. Borderlined. Enamorada. Tenured. Lectora. Colored. Amiga. Californiana. Ex-esposa. Profe. Doctora. Spanish-speaker. Mexicanista. Speaker. Contestona. Endorfinómana. Más-joven-que. Viajera. Electrónica. Silenciosa. Accented. Morena. Bípeda. Hyphonated. Estudiante. Invisible. Terrestre. A-veces-muda. Lectora. Ahora-en-Madrid.
Etceteramente.
Todo esto (y más) alrededor de la palabra escritora."
*
Dolores Dorantes:
"No queda
en este territorio antes del muro
en este mundo solo antes del agua
más que alguna parálisis:
el último
permanente sol de cielo
no queda
respiración alguna"
*
Heriberto Yépez:
"—Tu nombre no apareció.
—Sí, lo sé.
—¿Cómo te llamas?
—Tharsis.
—¡Qué bonito!, ¿qué significa?
—La que hace trizas."
Music
Elizabeth Alexander will be speaking in Cambridge on February 19th, regarding her book of essays The Black Interior (Graywolf Press, 2004).
*
In Cambridge there's a building cornerstone with the following inscription etched: "God is in the midst of the city. Psalm 46"
*
The march in Caracas went well. My father and uncle marched from Chuao to the Botanical Gardens at the Universidad Central, as did approximately 264, 000 people, according to today's El Nacional.
*
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs singing forever: "This is not a modern romance."
Elizabeth Alexander will be speaking in Cambridge on February 19th, regarding her book of essays The Black Interior (Graywolf Press, 2004).
*
In Cambridge there's a building cornerstone with the following inscription etched: "God is in the midst of the city. Psalm 46"
*
The march in Caracas went well. My father and uncle marched from Chuao to the Botanical Gardens at the Universidad Central, as did approximately 264, 000 people, according to today's El Nacional.
*
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs singing forever: "This is not a modern romance."
2.14.2004
Los cuadernos del destierro
"[...] Habitaba un lugar indeciso.
Mi historia era un largo recuento de inauditas torpezas, de infértiles averiguaciones, de fabulosas fábricas.
Un dios cobarde usurpaba mis aras.
El había degollado el amor frente a una reluciente laguna, en un bosque de caobos. Huía mugiendo sábanas ensangrentadas. Escapaba del recinto feliz. Las nubes eran símbolos zoológicos de mi destierro.
El amor me conducía con inocencia hacia la destrucción.
El odio, como a mis mayores, me fortalecía.
Pero yo sabia reír.
Como no soportaba la claridad, dispuse entre anaranjados estertores de sol mi regreso hacia el final. Las aguas me condujeron como el sensitivo lleva la pesadilla. Volví insomne al lugar de la ficción."
Rafael Cadenas, Los cuadernos del destierro (Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2001 / orig. 1960)
"[...] Habitaba un lugar indeciso.
Mi historia era un largo recuento de inauditas torpezas, de infértiles averiguaciones, de fabulosas fábricas.
Un dios cobarde usurpaba mis aras.
El había degollado el amor frente a una reluciente laguna, en un bosque de caobos. Huía mugiendo sábanas ensangrentadas. Escapaba del recinto feliz. Las nubes eran símbolos zoológicos de mi destierro.
El amor me conducía con inocencia hacia la destrucción.
El odio, como a mis mayores, me fortalecía.
Pero yo sabia reír.
Como no soportaba la claridad, dispuse entre anaranjados estertores de sol mi regreso hacia el final. Las aguas me condujeron como el sensitivo lleva la pesadilla. Volví insomne al lugar de la ficción."
Rafael Cadenas, Los cuadernos del destierro (Caracas: Monte Ávila Editores, 2001 / orig. 1960)
2.13.2004
Caurimare
I'm very happy to mention that some of my poems will appear in 6x6 #8, which should be out soon.
The poems from the sequence included in 6x6 are dedicated to my aunt and godmother, Maria Lourdes Parra Eichelbaum, who died in Caracas during the weekend of April 11, 2002.
Maritza told me countless stories about Caracas, a city she knew inside-out. She taught me the importance of memory, and of standing firm against seemingly insurmountable odds. Bendición, tía.
I'm very happy to mention that some of my poems will appear in 6x6 #8, which should be out soon.
The poems from the sequence included in 6x6 are dedicated to my aunt and godmother, Maria Lourdes Parra Eichelbaum, who died in Caracas during the weekend of April 11, 2002.
Maritza told me countless stories about Caracas, a city she knew inside-out. She taught me the importance of memory, and of standing firm against seemingly insurmountable odds. Bendición, tía.
2.12.2004
Sin titulo
movements of thought answers the question: "--¿Cómo es su disciplina de blog?" today. My own blog discipline is based on daily entries, at times forcing myself to add a few words, like tonight, rushed at library or work late. Flip through newspapers and other blogs, look in notebooks and fight invisibility with daily presence. Although invisibility is sometimes necessary.
*
I'm not quite convinced by the conclusion of Roberto Bolaño's Los detectives salvajes. The shooting seems forced, as though it were following a tired Tarantino script, in a desert with screams and dust. Maybe the book is meant to fall apart gracelessly in the final chapters. Regardless, it's a brilliant novel.
*
"I climbed through the woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.
Evil air, a frost-making stillness,
Not a leaf, not a bird-
A world cast in frost. I came out above the wood..."
{Ted Hughes, "The Horses," The Hawk in the Rain, 1957}
*
dawn speaker lowered to trickle
noise for us to wear night correctly
*
"(¿quién es más indio, un mixteco de Oaxaca o uno emigrado a Los Ángeles?)"
{Rogelio Villarreal, "El Gran Rechazo,
Underground y contracultura"}
*
All those Indian names around me the whole time, and I never knew.
*
Hello to Isabel and Ramana in Calcutta, and to Juan on tour in Japan.
*
At El Meollo, Roberto Echeto writes a letter from Caracas to the novelist Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez in Spain, regarding the latter's novel, Árbol de luna. The letter begins:
"Dear Juan Carlos,
I hope things are going well for you over there in Spain. Over here we're on guard, surrounded by the daily disgraces. My life is beautiful when I'm in my house. However: as soon as I step onto Francisco de Miranda Avenue my existence unravels and becomes miserable. But, what can we do? I suppose this feeling marks all of us who live in Venezuela. At home we're fine, but on the street we become paranoid when confronted with so much disgrace turned routine. Patience, carajo. There's no other way. [...]"
*
Unfortunately, at this moment the Chavistas are wrapped in their pseudo-revolutionary, apocalyptic mantle. Walcott writes, in "The Gulf":
"age after age, the uninstructing dead."
movements of thought answers the question: "--¿Cómo es su disciplina de blog?" today. My own blog discipline is based on daily entries, at times forcing myself to add a few words, like tonight, rushed at library or work late. Flip through newspapers and other blogs, look in notebooks and fight invisibility with daily presence. Although invisibility is sometimes necessary.
*
I'm not quite convinced by the conclusion of Roberto Bolaño's Los detectives salvajes. The shooting seems forced, as though it were following a tired Tarantino script, in a desert with screams and dust. Maybe the book is meant to fall apart gracelessly in the final chapters. Regardless, it's a brilliant novel.
*
"I climbed through the woods in the hour-before-dawn dark.
Evil air, a frost-making stillness,
Not a leaf, not a bird-
A world cast in frost. I came out above the wood..."
{Ted Hughes, "The Horses," The Hawk in the Rain, 1957}
*
dawn speaker lowered to trickle
noise for us to wear night correctly
*
"(¿quién es más indio, un mixteco de Oaxaca o uno emigrado a Los Ángeles?)"
{Rogelio Villarreal, "El Gran Rechazo,
Underground y contracultura"}
*
All those Indian names around me the whole time, and I never knew.
*
Hello to Isabel and Ramana in Calcutta, and to Juan on tour in Japan.
*
At El Meollo, Roberto Echeto writes a letter from Caracas to the novelist Juan Carlos Méndez Guédez in Spain, regarding the latter's novel, Árbol de luna. The letter begins:
"Dear Juan Carlos,
I hope things are going well for you over there in Spain. Over here we're on guard, surrounded by the daily disgraces. My life is beautiful when I'm in my house. However: as soon as I step onto Francisco de Miranda Avenue my existence unravels and becomes miserable. But, what can we do? I suppose this feeling marks all of us who live in Venezuela. At home we're fine, but on the street we become paranoid when confronted with so much disgrace turned routine. Patience, carajo. There's no other way. [...]"
*
Unfortunately, at this moment the Chavistas are wrapped in their pseudo-revolutionary, apocalyptic mantle. Walcott writes, in "The Gulf":
"age after age, the uninstructing dead."
2.11.2004
Autobiographical
Autobiography has always been the central focus of my writing. In my poems and journals, I almost always end up referring to incidents, places, and people from my past or present. Writing is a way of archiving elements of my life that might otherwise disappear. This is directly related to the nomadic quality of my childhood and adolescence.
One of the earliest autobiographies I remember reading was published by my great grandfather in the 1940s. Strangely enough, it's a book by a Venezuelan American journalist named Thomas Russell Ybarra (1890-1971). My great grandfather published two of Ybarra's books under the imprint that carried his name:
Bolívar, The Passionate Warrior (New York: Ives Washburn, 1929)
Young Man of Caracas (New York: Ives Washburn, 1941)
The copy I have of the 1941 book is a worn hardcover edition, with Ybarra's inscription to my great grandfather signed "Tom." The book is of interest to me because of its account of the author's life in Caracas during the early decades of the 20th century, before oil had transformed the city into the massive metropolis it is today.
This is the only book published by Ives Washburn that I own. He published non-fiction from the 1920s until his death in the 1940s. After his death, the company was bought and it continued to publish under the same name until the mid 1970s.
I know of my great grandfather only through a portrait of him that hangs in my uncle's house here in Boston, and from a few anecdotes that my grandmother has told me. He died, for instance, at a relatively young age when he fell down a flight of stairs one evening, maybe during a cocktail party. She has also mentioned that Ybarra and my great grandfather were friends.
I have moved so often in my life that I am acutely aware of how easily things can be lost: people, places, clothes, books, languages. Books in particular have provided me with a sense of permanence, or home. The copy of Young Man of Caracas was taken from my grandfather's library after his death in 1984. I don't remember if I took it from his bookshelves when I was in New York for his funeral, or if my mother set it aside, knowing the topic would interest me.
When I was in Caracas in 2002, my sister and I went with our cousin to visit her mother's and our grandparents' graves in the Cementerio del Este. As we were leaving, my cousin recalled a conversation she once had with our grandfather. He had mentioned why reading was his life-long passion: "When you die you can't take anything with you. The only things you can take are the ideas and thoughts in your mind."
Autobiography has always been the central focus of my writing. In my poems and journals, I almost always end up referring to incidents, places, and people from my past or present. Writing is a way of archiving elements of my life that might otherwise disappear. This is directly related to the nomadic quality of my childhood and adolescence.
One of the earliest autobiographies I remember reading was published by my great grandfather in the 1940s. Strangely enough, it's a book by a Venezuelan American journalist named Thomas Russell Ybarra (1890-1971). My great grandfather published two of Ybarra's books under the imprint that carried his name:
Bolívar, The Passionate Warrior (New York: Ives Washburn, 1929)
Young Man of Caracas (New York: Ives Washburn, 1941)
The copy I have of the 1941 book is a worn hardcover edition, with Ybarra's inscription to my great grandfather signed "Tom." The book is of interest to me because of its account of the author's life in Caracas during the early decades of the 20th century, before oil had transformed the city into the massive metropolis it is today.
This is the only book published by Ives Washburn that I own. He published non-fiction from the 1920s until his death in the 1940s. After his death, the company was bought and it continued to publish under the same name until the mid 1970s.
I know of my great grandfather only through a portrait of him that hangs in my uncle's house here in Boston, and from a few anecdotes that my grandmother has told me. He died, for instance, at a relatively young age when he fell down a flight of stairs one evening, maybe during a cocktail party. She has also mentioned that Ybarra and my great grandfather were friends.
I have moved so often in my life that I am acutely aware of how easily things can be lost: people, places, clothes, books, languages. Books in particular have provided me with a sense of permanence, or home. The copy of Young Man of Caracas was taken from my grandfather's library after his death in 1984. I don't remember if I took it from his bookshelves when I was in New York for his funeral, or if my mother set it aside, knowing the topic would interest me.
When I was in Caracas in 2002, my sister and I went with our cousin to visit her mother's and our grandparents' graves in the Cementerio del Este. As we were leaving, my cousin recalled a conversation she once had with our grandfather. He had mentioned why reading was his life-long passion: "When you die you can't take anything with you. The only things you can take are the ideas and thoughts in your mind."
2.10.2004
Commerce
"...I now understand why the Greeks were such great Poets, & above all I can account, it seems to me, for the harmony the unity the perfection the uniform excellence of all their works of art. They lived in a perpetual commerce with external nature and nourished themselves upon the spirit of its forms. Their theaters were all open to the mountains & the sky. Their columns, that ideal type of a sacred forest, with its roof of interwoven tracery admitted the light and wind, the odour and the freshness of the country penetrated the cities."
{Percy Shelley, 1818 letter, quoted in Shelley: The Pursuit}
"...I now understand why the Greeks were such great Poets, & above all I can account, it seems to me, for the harmony the unity the perfection the uniform excellence of all their works of art. They lived in a perpetual commerce with external nature and nourished themselves upon the spirit of its forms. Their theaters were all open to the mountains & the sky. Their columns, that ideal type of a sacred forest, with its roof of interwoven tracery admitted the light and wind, the odour and the freshness of the country penetrated the cities."
{Percy Shelley, 1818 letter, quoted in Shelley: The Pursuit}
2.09.2004
Rest
Life fatigue. Walked in New York this weekend, seeing friends and staring at the Hudson from a 16th floor, its changes with the variations in light. Hawks in flight above the ice chunks in the river, trees on the Jersey shore in golden dusk. First time in Queens and the Bronx. I left Sunday afternoon with Old Dirty Bastard, New Order, and Belle & Sebastian on the car speakers for highway hours:
"I fought in a war
I didn't know where it would end
It stretched before me infinitely
I couldn't really think"
Nothing to write. Our suffering is almost always indecipherable. A fiction we dread.
Reading Ted Hughes' The Hawk in the Rain.
Last week I came across this essay in honor of Juan Sánchez Peláez, in the Spanish version of The Miami Herald:
*
El que arrojaba uvas ardientes
Especial/El Nuevo Herald
LORENZO GARCIA VEGA
¿El que arrojaba uvas ardientes en las duras bahías? ¿Quién supo decirlo? Sólo un poeta, por supuesto, sólo mi amigo Juan Sánchez Peláez lo supo. Pero como a mí me resulta doloroso comenzar diciendo que ya él no está, voy a dar un salto que me lleve hacia un cinematógrafo de mi juventud. ¿Cómo es esto?
Algunos poetas, o literatos, o como quiera llamárseles, que irrumpimos en aquel momento de la churumbela hispanoamericana comprendida entre los años 1940 y 1955, veíamos en los cinematógrafos unos patéticos noticieros donde el locutor, con voz ''de circunstancia'', nos señalaba que lo que estábamos viendo: una explosión atómica sobre unas ciudades japonesas, era todo un nuevo Capítulo de la Historia (así mismo, con mayúscula, o con voz de mayúscula, lo decía el locutor) que iba a cambiarlo todo, o a descomponerlo todo. Así que la angustia existencialista estaba a la orden del día. Una angustia existencial que se nos teñía con los buenos fuegos del surrealismo.
Así mismo fue. Entramos bajo una explosión atómica relatada por un locutor, y nos refugiamos, a como pudimos, bajo los últimos tiros del surrealismo. Así que los que éramos jóvenes en aquellos tiempos --unos jóvenes que nos habíamos propuesto refugiarnos bajo el desbarajuste metafórico de la vanguardia--, y vivíamos en el aislamiento de una isla, nos alimentamos a como pudimos con lo que, del mundo exterior, nos llegaba a través de las librerías de La Habana, Y esto, mientras en la tierra firme, o sea, en el continente, un venezolano a quien no conocíamos, Juan Sánchez Peláez, se desplazaba hacia Chile, a recoger el legado de esa surrealista revista Mandrágora, donde, según un crítico: ``Los mandragoristas se abrieron paso a codazos, rompiendo salvajemente con todo; gritos, improperios, insultos al medio sin preocupación por las buenas formas"; y esto para después, en un viaje en velocípedo, según confesó Juan en uno de sus poemas, terminar él en ese París donde conoció a Peret, y donde se asimiló cosas tales como la ``noche profunda y larga de mi edad", señalada por Eluard.
Era una angustia, entonces, que nos llegaba con una explosión atómica que, convertida en sombras fílmicas, se asentaba en el cinematógrafo de barrio habanero donde íbamos. O era un surrealismo con noche de pasmosos arlequines, o con un grito que avisaba: ¡Apollinaire al agua!, pero donde lo único que había era el aislamiento. Un aislamiento donde el automatismo surrealista en que intentábamos zambullirnos acababa convertido en un gesto vacío, en un gesto que sólo lo rodeaba la soledad de una isla donde lo surrealista era visto de reojo por una mirada que, aunque en su mejor expresión, gongorina, alcanzó la calidad de lo Bello con mayúscula, o sea, de lo Bello con un Dios romano, no podía dejar de ser, por su lamentable vinculación con lo ritualista, la manifestación de lo como ensotanado y catedralicio.
Y, ¡qué lástima!, salidos de aquellos cinematógrafos donde estallaba la bomba atómica, los jóvenes, que vivíamos rodeados de agua por todas partes, no pudimos vincularnos, del todo, con las grandes sombras surrealistas, hispanoamericanas, que rondaban por la tierra firme: César Moro, Molina, o Emilio Adolfo Westphalen, o...
En fin, que tuvieron que pasar muchas cosas y, entre ellas, el salir como en estampida de la isla, para poder, después de algunos años, y después de la contracultura, y ya en Nueva York, podernos encontrar con el surrealista, amigo y coetáneo, Juan Sánchez Peláez, conque nos debíamos de habernos encontrado antes, mucho antes. Pero, en fin... Estábamos destinados a encontrarnos, y las Leyes de la Necesidad Cósmica (unas Leyes que pudieron haber sido dictadas por ese Gurdief que estuba leyendo Juan la última vez que lo vi) condujo al poeta Octavio Armand a ponerme en contacto con Juan (y con su compañera Malena, por supuesto), en una noche neoyorquina de la década del 70.
¿Y quién era Juan, poeta venezolano nacido en 1922, en Altagracia de Orituco, estado Guárico, y que murió en Caracas, en noviembre del año pasado? ¿Quién era ese Juan que, con camisa de cuello de tortuga y ojos picassistas, conocí en una noche de Nueva York? Pues bien, mirando por una ventana de este mes de enero, por una ventana que, no se sabe cómo, me pone en contacto directo con el oro viejo --¿alquímico?--, de una luz, esto así, sin más ni más, me enfrenta con el peso de la ausencia de éste, mi amigo el poeta Juan, quien tan bien definirse supo de esta forma: ``Y sé de mis límites/ poseo morada, mi morada es/ la ironía,/ a lechuza viva, no/ embalsamada/ la lechuza que está en el pozo de la/ luna/ a la una muy sola de la/ madrugada''.
O recuerdo una vez, cuando salido de un cuarto que estaba en el alucinante patio de su casa en la Altamira de Caracas, Juan llegó a la terraza donde yo estaba para decirme de sopetón, pero sin estridencia: ''Suenan como animales de oro las palabras'' Y entonces --puedo asegurar que fue así--, me alucinó oír a Juan decir eso, ya que, de una manera que no sabría explicar ahora, yo entendí que lo que estaba diciendo el amigo poeta no era un verso suyo, sino aquello, animales de oro, que él, asomado al fulgor, como si fuera un niño, parecía saber pesar con sus manos.
O Juan, ¿cómo sabría decirlo?, con su sordera, en los lentísimos, lentísimos paseos que hacía, y en los que él, como una figura del Zen a quien le acabaran de haber quitado el bastón que en realidad nunca había tenido. Lentísimos paseos, repito, y sobre todo recuerdo uno, paradigmático, que nos dimos por el Paseo de los Chorros en Caracas, y en donde a mí se me ocurrió decirle a Juan que, en cualquier momento, de brazos con la Emperatriz Carlota, bien se nos podría aparecer ese Ramos Sucre, poeta venezolano tan cercano a nosotros. Se me ocurrió decirle, y el amigo Juan, poeta sin bastón, avanzó unos pasos, como el solía hacer en sus paseos; y retrocedió un paso, como él enseguida volvía a hacer; y me agarró del brazo, como a continuación siempre el solía hacer; y esto para, como siempre, finalizar abriendo los ojos, o tapándose la boca, tal como un genial personaje de película silente que supiera decirlo todo sin tener que utilizar ningún sonido. Pues Juan, a su manera, junto a lo colorinesco de su palabra, fue un personaje de película silente. Aunque eso sí, un personaje silente, que en ciertos momentos, supo cantarnos Júrame, aquella canción, compuesta por María Greber en 1926, y que él tanto quiso (``Estoy seguro --me dijo una vez-- que de haber sido conocida por los viejos surrealistas, hubiera sido una de sus canciones favoritas'').
O Juan, al final, que como nadie supo evocar a ese César Moro, figura con el cual puede identificarse el surrealismo hispanoamericano, y esto con palabras que, también, sirven para despedirlo a él en esta breve reseña:
"César Moro, hermoso y humillado
tocando un arpa en las afueras de Lima
me dijo: entra a mi casa, poeta
pide siempre aire, cielo claro
porque hay que morir algún día, está entendido
hay que nacer, y estás ya muerto
el suelo se quedará aquí, siempre, ancho y mudo
pero morir de la misma familia es haber nacido."
Life fatigue. Walked in New York this weekend, seeing friends and staring at the Hudson from a 16th floor, its changes with the variations in light. Hawks in flight above the ice chunks in the river, trees on the Jersey shore in golden dusk. First time in Queens and the Bronx. I left Sunday afternoon with Old Dirty Bastard, New Order, and Belle & Sebastian on the car speakers for highway hours:
"I fought in a war
I didn't know where it would end
It stretched before me infinitely
I couldn't really think"
Nothing to write. Our suffering is almost always indecipherable. A fiction we dread.
Reading Ted Hughes' The Hawk in the Rain.
Last week I came across this essay in honor of Juan Sánchez Peláez, in the Spanish version of The Miami Herald:
*
El que arrojaba uvas ardientes
Especial/El Nuevo Herald
LORENZO GARCIA VEGA
¿El que arrojaba uvas ardientes en las duras bahías? ¿Quién supo decirlo? Sólo un poeta, por supuesto, sólo mi amigo Juan Sánchez Peláez lo supo. Pero como a mí me resulta doloroso comenzar diciendo que ya él no está, voy a dar un salto que me lleve hacia un cinematógrafo de mi juventud. ¿Cómo es esto?
Algunos poetas, o literatos, o como quiera llamárseles, que irrumpimos en aquel momento de la churumbela hispanoamericana comprendida entre los años 1940 y 1955, veíamos en los cinematógrafos unos patéticos noticieros donde el locutor, con voz ''de circunstancia'', nos señalaba que lo que estábamos viendo: una explosión atómica sobre unas ciudades japonesas, era todo un nuevo Capítulo de la Historia (así mismo, con mayúscula, o con voz de mayúscula, lo decía el locutor) que iba a cambiarlo todo, o a descomponerlo todo. Así que la angustia existencialista estaba a la orden del día. Una angustia existencial que se nos teñía con los buenos fuegos del surrealismo.
Así mismo fue. Entramos bajo una explosión atómica relatada por un locutor, y nos refugiamos, a como pudimos, bajo los últimos tiros del surrealismo. Así que los que éramos jóvenes en aquellos tiempos --unos jóvenes que nos habíamos propuesto refugiarnos bajo el desbarajuste metafórico de la vanguardia--, y vivíamos en el aislamiento de una isla, nos alimentamos a como pudimos con lo que, del mundo exterior, nos llegaba a través de las librerías de La Habana, Y esto, mientras en la tierra firme, o sea, en el continente, un venezolano a quien no conocíamos, Juan Sánchez Peláez, se desplazaba hacia Chile, a recoger el legado de esa surrealista revista Mandrágora, donde, según un crítico: ``Los mandragoristas se abrieron paso a codazos, rompiendo salvajemente con todo; gritos, improperios, insultos al medio sin preocupación por las buenas formas"; y esto para después, en un viaje en velocípedo, según confesó Juan en uno de sus poemas, terminar él en ese París donde conoció a Peret, y donde se asimiló cosas tales como la ``noche profunda y larga de mi edad", señalada por Eluard.
Era una angustia, entonces, que nos llegaba con una explosión atómica que, convertida en sombras fílmicas, se asentaba en el cinematógrafo de barrio habanero donde íbamos. O era un surrealismo con noche de pasmosos arlequines, o con un grito que avisaba: ¡Apollinaire al agua!, pero donde lo único que había era el aislamiento. Un aislamiento donde el automatismo surrealista en que intentábamos zambullirnos acababa convertido en un gesto vacío, en un gesto que sólo lo rodeaba la soledad de una isla donde lo surrealista era visto de reojo por una mirada que, aunque en su mejor expresión, gongorina, alcanzó la calidad de lo Bello con mayúscula, o sea, de lo Bello con un Dios romano, no podía dejar de ser, por su lamentable vinculación con lo ritualista, la manifestación de lo como ensotanado y catedralicio.
Y, ¡qué lástima!, salidos de aquellos cinematógrafos donde estallaba la bomba atómica, los jóvenes, que vivíamos rodeados de agua por todas partes, no pudimos vincularnos, del todo, con las grandes sombras surrealistas, hispanoamericanas, que rondaban por la tierra firme: César Moro, Molina, o Emilio Adolfo Westphalen, o...
En fin, que tuvieron que pasar muchas cosas y, entre ellas, el salir como en estampida de la isla, para poder, después de algunos años, y después de la contracultura, y ya en Nueva York, podernos encontrar con el surrealista, amigo y coetáneo, Juan Sánchez Peláez, conque nos debíamos de habernos encontrado antes, mucho antes. Pero, en fin... Estábamos destinados a encontrarnos, y las Leyes de la Necesidad Cósmica (unas Leyes que pudieron haber sido dictadas por ese Gurdief que estuba leyendo Juan la última vez que lo vi) condujo al poeta Octavio Armand a ponerme en contacto con Juan (y con su compañera Malena, por supuesto), en una noche neoyorquina de la década del 70.
¿Y quién era Juan, poeta venezolano nacido en 1922, en Altagracia de Orituco, estado Guárico, y que murió en Caracas, en noviembre del año pasado? ¿Quién era ese Juan que, con camisa de cuello de tortuga y ojos picassistas, conocí en una noche de Nueva York? Pues bien, mirando por una ventana de este mes de enero, por una ventana que, no se sabe cómo, me pone en contacto directo con el oro viejo --¿alquímico?--, de una luz, esto así, sin más ni más, me enfrenta con el peso de la ausencia de éste, mi amigo el poeta Juan, quien tan bien definirse supo de esta forma: ``Y sé de mis límites/ poseo morada, mi morada es/ la ironía,/ a lechuza viva, no/ embalsamada/ la lechuza que está en el pozo de la/ luna/ a la una muy sola de la/ madrugada''.
O recuerdo una vez, cuando salido de un cuarto que estaba en el alucinante patio de su casa en la Altamira de Caracas, Juan llegó a la terraza donde yo estaba para decirme de sopetón, pero sin estridencia: ''Suenan como animales de oro las palabras'' Y entonces --puedo asegurar que fue así--, me alucinó oír a Juan decir eso, ya que, de una manera que no sabría explicar ahora, yo entendí que lo que estaba diciendo el amigo poeta no era un verso suyo, sino aquello, animales de oro, que él, asomado al fulgor, como si fuera un niño, parecía saber pesar con sus manos.
O Juan, ¿cómo sabría decirlo?, con su sordera, en los lentísimos, lentísimos paseos que hacía, y en los que él, como una figura del Zen a quien le acabaran de haber quitado el bastón que en realidad nunca había tenido. Lentísimos paseos, repito, y sobre todo recuerdo uno, paradigmático, que nos dimos por el Paseo de los Chorros en Caracas, y en donde a mí se me ocurrió decirle a Juan que, en cualquier momento, de brazos con la Emperatriz Carlota, bien se nos podría aparecer ese Ramos Sucre, poeta venezolano tan cercano a nosotros. Se me ocurrió decirle, y el amigo Juan, poeta sin bastón, avanzó unos pasos, como el solía hacer en sus paseos; y retrocedió un paso, como él enseguida volvía a hacer; y me agarró del brazo, como a continuación siempre el solía hacer; y esto para, como siempre, finalizar abriendo los ojos, o tapándose la boca, tal como un genial personaje de película silente que supiera decirlo todo sin tener que utilizar ningún sonido. Pues Juan, a su manera, junto a lo colorinesco de su palabra, fue un personaje de película silente. Aunque eso sí, un personaje silente, que en ciertos momentos, supo cantarnos Júrame, aquella canción, compuesta por María Greber en 1926, y que él tanto quiso (``Estoy seguro --me dijo una vez-- que de haber sido conocida por los viejos surrealistas, hubiera sido una de sus canciones favoritas'').
O Juan, al final, que como nadie supo evocar a ese César Moro, figura con el cual puede identificarse el surrealismo hispanoamericano, y esto con palabras que, también, sirven para despedirlo a él en esta breve reseña:
"César Moro, hermoso y humillado
tocando un arpa en las afueras de Lima
me dijo: entra a mi casa, poeta
pide siempre aire, cielo claro
porque hay que morir algún día, está entendido
hay que nacer, y estás ya muerto
el suelo se quedará aquí, siempre, ancho y mudo
pero morir de la misma familia es haber nacido."
2.08.2004
2.06.2004
Teresa de la Parra
"Blanca Nieves, la tercera de las niñitas por orden de edad y de tamaño, tenía entonces cinco años, el cutis muy trigueño, los ojos claros, el pelo muy negro, las piernas quemadísimas de sol, los brazos más quemados aún, y tengo que confesarlo humildemente, sin merecer en absoluto semejante nombre, Blanca Nieves era yo."
{Teresa de la Parra, Las memorias de Mama Blanca, Colección Archivos, 1988}
"Blanca Nieves, la tercera de las niñitas por orden de edad y de tamaño, tenía entonces cinco años, el cutis muy trigueño, los ojos claros, el pelo muy negro, las piernas quemadísimas de sol, los brazos más quemados aún, y tengo que confesarlo humildemente, sin merecer en absoluto semejante nombre, Blanca Nieves era yo."
{Teresa de la Parra, Las memorias de Mama Blanca, Colección Archivos, 1988}
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