Not far from the dilapidated foggy coastal towns
stood his ancestral hills
partially landscaped by his manly hand
full of detail, etched with imprecise lines
rivulets, bayous, overgrown with moss
We could vaguely make out the beaches
from the slope of the dunes
We heard the muffled roar of the waves
There was the patio, humid, paved with stones
where he used to sit in the morning
in the midst of the fog
It was not important to define the boundaries
the lay of the land he measured with his hand and eye
to determine the location of the cabins and the forests
the outline of the architecture
What mattered was walking hand in hand with him
That was important
From the center of town to his fields in the heights
From its four corners to his greenhouses,
extensive and humid
I could see his great beasts frolicking at the edge of the pond
in the twilight
And all this, repeated time and time again
leaving traces of superimposed images
the substance of ancient dreams
All these landmarks eroded in concentric waves
by the time of roads and factories
Though in memory he remains obstinate
against the horizon
ebbing and flowing in memory
in the nights of dawns
populated with crickets and remote cold suns
expectant but calm
seen from the broken columns of dreams
in which he still holds sway over his land.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
On poetry and exile
Jorge Etcheverry
(Fisrt published in La cita trunca)
Trying to determine the connection between poetry and exile, I asked myself what it is that makes poetry the artistic form most cultivated in a situation of exile and, at the same time, the most productive literary means for expressing the social and political problems of the day. Perhaps it is poetry’s connection with the “human heart,” which is also what connects poetry with what people care about most, not only in personal individuals terms, but in general, since human beings cannot be separated from their environments, whether social, political, or otherwise. “I am myself, plus my circumstances,” Ortega y Gasset said. Circumstances, the self and poetry, then, side by side. Poetry is, among other things, the most immediate form of artistic expression through language, second only to the lyrics of songs, which in turn can be another form of poetry.
Poetry is also a form of representation, however, and as such, is a form of knowledge, apart from its links to the spoken word, its alliterations, syntax and rhythm. Being an expression of feelings, poetry is also tied to physical, bodily expression.
If we accept that poetry is a form of representation, a form of knowledge, then, poetry is a depiction of the objective world, out there in front of us, like so many other mediated instances of human knowledge.
But poetry is the most immediate and committed form of literary representation since it requires the presence of knowledge in the very act of poetic creation or performance. Even after the most radical attempts to de-signify poetry through the random play of words and phrases, meaning will not allow itself to be excluded; even through this apparently haphazard blend of sounds it reasserts itself. Consequently, we can affirm that poets are always close to the heart of the matter, inasmuch as they are close to their own hearts, not because poetry is essentially lyrical expression but because poetry inevitably encompasses the world in its manifestation. Poetry, like its parents — myth and religion — developed amid “the works and the days,” recording the highlights of daily and historical life, now in the exalted words of prophets and priests, now in the low language of the street, or both together, while expressing the views of the speaker or community.
In a world of nomads and expatriates, of migrations and transhumance, the figure of the exile is unexceptional.
The all-embracing filigree of the novel would seem well suited for creating a pattern from these many odysseys — absorbing, digesting, sorting, and expressing them. Yet it is poetry, not the novel, that can best represent all that and at the same time convey the options available to the exile community. Poetry is immediate; it gathers its audience around. The presence of the speaker is essential, the recitation (even the subjective recital by the reader of a book of poetry). Hence the exile communities often include poetry in their political events, along with the songs that retell the fight of the exiled and their lost ties to home. Poetry may play a varied role in the exile community but it is always there. It enables the poet to share, preserve and publicize the causes and problems of the exile community in its original language. In a community of compatriots within the host country the poet testifies to the permanence of this community in exile and to their links with the original country and their history. It is not necessary that the poems address specific subjects. The poetry of exile can be, indeed it usually is, thematically determined — political commitment or personal nostalgia — but it doesn’t have to be so. In my own experience with the Chilean exile community in Canada, specifically from the late 70s and early 80s, I have found that in any solidarity event the audience enjoyed listening to politically committed poems, the songs of Victor Jara, the music of well-known Chilean groups, the rather cryptic prose poems of the School of Santiago (an avant-garde or experimental group of exiled Chilean poets), and fragments of Gonzalo Millán’s La ciudad, which later would become an emblematic work of Chilean exile and Chilean poetry. The linguistic resonance and the content of these texts touched the audience as they recognized experiences that they had known or lived, thus creating an empathy in a collective sense of togetherness.
Poetry as a cultural and political element of exile is a vital fact and has a long tradition. Not so long ago members of the Salvadorian Community gathered in a café in Ottawa to follow the results of the election being held in their country, and nobody was surprised to find exiled Latin American poets reading their poems. Currently, there is a rather informal wide world network of poets who use the new ICT technologies to communicate and publicize almost immediately the kinds of facts that the ruling powers formerly could keep hidden from the general public.
This poets’ network is part of an informal worldwide nexus of solidarity. It comprises lists of sites that people can use for chatting, sharing texts or opinions, protesting against specific actions or situations, disseminating information or signing petitions. Poetas del Mundo is a successful example of such networks. Poetas del Mundo is a well-organized global group of poets governed by their self-imposed mandate to foster and fight for peace and equity. Over 5000 poets, writing in many languages in many countries, are members of this network. The events and festivals organized by Taller Cultural Sur is a further example of the amalgam of poetry and solidarity in the Americas, and, of course, Poetas Antiimperialistas de América is yet another. The members of this last network, based in Montreal, are progressive and revolutionary poets of the Americas.
It is almost a given that any group in exile will have its quota of poets, sometimes well-known writers, usually cultural promoters, often critics or essayists, as well as activists engaged in political or solidarity work.
History, especially in the Americas, is replete with these polymorph exiled poets. Pablo Neruda in exile produced his Canto general, which some consider the best work of Latin American poetry. It was the new perspective from outside his accustomed environment and the situation of exile that enabled Neruda, without losing his own expression or momentum, to write this poem from the dual perspective of participant and observer.
Nowadays, exile is a reality that can encompass communities who often remain unintegrated in the host country. Some of these groups in exile do not want to become assimilated because their worldview and their political and social views, will never be accepted in the mainstream culture of the host country; they may even be perceived as anathema.
Globalization is imposing homogeneity. Business interests pick and choose whatever they can package for sale. It may be dress or food or entertainment, even the religion of a migrant/exile population, but it cannot be an ideology based in an alternative social and economic system. In this decentralized environment, political thinking, whether produced locally or imported by newcomers, may be unwelcome. Developed societies tend to be one-dimensional. They end up by isolating people in different tribes by creating alienated, lonely individuals.
In this context, poetry becomes a compendium of cultural signs that cannot otherwise be expressed. It has a cathartic effect. And after a gathering where poetry has been read, the audience goes home somewhat relieved.
For exile communities, or communities born in exile, poetry is still the principal way of maintaining a link with the original identity and of continuing to build a new identity without losing the old.
I have already mentioned some networks of poets with strong links between Canada and the world outside. I am sure there are others and their very presence in this event of poets who share exile, in whatever form, in common is proof positive of the enduring presence of poetry in the various ways that exile is understood.
(Fisrt published in La cita trunca)
Trying to determine the connection between poetry and exile, I asked myself what it is that makes poetry the artistic form most cultivated in a situation of exile and, at the same time, the most productive literary means for expressing the social and political problems of the day. Perhaps it is poetry’s connection with the “human heart,” which is also what connects poetry with what people care about most, not only in personal individuals terms, but in general, since human beings cannot be separated from their environments, whether social, political, or otherwise. “I am myself, plus my circumstances,” Ortega y Gasset said. Circumstances, the self and poetry, then, side by side. Poetry is, among other things, the most immediate form of artistic expression through language, second only to the lyrics of songs, which in turn can be another form of poetry.
Poetry is also a form of representation, however, and as such, is a form of knowledge, apart from its links to the spoken word, its alliterations, syntax and rhythm. Being an expression of feelings, poetry is also tied to physical, bodily expression.
If we accept that poetry is a form of representation, a form of knowledge, then, poetry is a depiction of the objective world, out there in front of us, like so many other mediated instances of human knowledge.
But poetry is the most immediate and committed form of literary representation since it requires the presence of knowledge in the very act of poetic creation or performance. Even after the most radical attempts to de-signify poetry through the random play of words and phrases, meaning will not allow itself to be excluded; even through this apparently haphazard blend of sounds it reasserts itself. Consequently, we can affirm that poets are always close to the heart of the matter, inasmuch as they are close to their own hearts, not because poetry is essentially lyrical expression but because poetry inevitably encompasses the world in its manifestation. Poetry, like its parents — myth and religion — developed amid “the works and the days,” recording the highlights of daily and historical life, now in the exalted words of prophets and priests, now in the low language of the street, or both together, while expressing the views of the speaker or community.
In a world of nomads and expatriates, of migrations and transhumance, the figure of the exile is unexceptional.
The all-embracing filigree of the novel would seem well suited for creating a pattern from these many odysseys — absorbing, digesting, sorting, and expressing them. Yet it is poetry, not the novel, that can best represent all that and at the same time convey the options available to the exile community. Poetry is immediate; it gathers its audience around. The presence of the speaker is essential, the recitation (even the subjective recital by the reader of a book of poetry). Hence the exile communities often include poetry in their political events, along with the songs that retell the fight of the exiled and their lost ties to home. Poetry may play a varied role in the exile community but it is always there. It enables the poet to share, preserve and publicize the causes and problems of the exile community in its original language. In a community of compatriots within the host country the poet testifies to the permanence of this community in exile and to their links with the original country and their history. It is not necessary that the poems address specific subjects. The poetry of exile can be, indeed it usually is, thematically determined — political commitment or personal nostalgia — but it doesn’t have to be so. In my own experience with the Chilean exile community in Canada, specifically from the late 70s and early 80s, I have found that in any solidarity event the audience enjoyed listening to politically committed poems, the songs of Victor Jara, the music of well-known Chilean groups, the rather cryptic prose poems of the School of Santiago (an avant-garde or experimental group of exiled Chilean poets), and fragments of Gonzalo Millán’s La ciudad, which later would become an emblematic work of Chilean exile and Chilean poetry. The linguistic resonance and the content of these texts touched the audience as they recognized experiences that they had known or lived, thus creating an empathy in a collective sense of togetherness.
Poetry as a cultural and political element of exile is a vital fact and has a long tradition. Not so long ago members of the Salvadorian Community gathered in a café in Ottawa to follow the results of the election being held in their country, and nobody was surprised to find exiled Latin American poets reading their poems. Currently, there is a rather informal wide world network of poets who use the new ICT technologies to communicate and publicize almost immediately the kinds of facts that the ruling powers formerly could keep hidden from the general public.
This poets’ network is part of an informal worldwide nexus of solidarity. It comprises lists of sites that people can use for chatting, sharing texts or opinions, protesting against specific actions or situations, disseminating information or signing petitions. Poetas del Mundo is a successful example of such networks. Poetas del Mundo is a well-organized global group of poets governed by their self-imposed mandate to foster and fight for peace and equity. Over 5000 poets, writing in many languages in many countries, are members of this network. The events and festivals organized by Taller Cultural Sur is a further example of the amalgam of poetry and solidarity in the Americas, and, of course, Poetas Antiimperialistas de América is yet another. The members of this last network, based in Montreal, are progressive and revolutionary poets of the Americas.
It is almost a given that any group in exile will have its quota of poets, sometimes well-known writers, usually cultural promoters, often critics or essayists, as well as activists engaged in political or solidarity work.
History, especially in the Americas, is replete with these polymorph exiled poets. Pablo Neruda in exile produced his Canto general, which some consider the best work of Latin American poetry. It was the new perspective from outside his accustomed environment and the situation of exile that enabled Neruda, without losing his own expression or momentum, to write this poem from the dual perspective of participant and observer.
Nowadays, exile is a reality that can encompass communities who often remain unintegrated in the host country. Some of these groups in exile do not want to become assimilated because their worldview and their political and social views, will never be accepted in the mainstream culture of the host country; they may even be perceived as anathema.
Globalization is imposing homogeneity. Business interests pick and choose whatever they can package for sale. It may be dress or food or entertainment, even the religion of a migrant/exile population, but it cannot be an ideology based in an alternative social and economic system. In this decentralized environment, political thinking, whether produced locally or imported by newcomers, may be unwelcome. Developed societies tend to be one-dimensional. They end up by isolating people in different tribes by creating alienated, lonely individuals.
In this context, poetry becomes a compendium of cultural signs that cannot otherwise be expressed. It has a cathartic effect. And after a gathering where poetry has been read, the audience goes home somewhat relieved.
For exile communities, or communities born in exile, poetry is still the principal way of maintaining a link with the original identity and of continuing to build a new identity without losing the old.
I have already mentioned some networks of poets with strong links between Canada and the world outside. I am sure there are others and their very presence in this event of poets who share exile, in whatever form, in common is proof positive of the enduring presence of poetry in the various ways that exile is understood.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
The poet in the dream
That’s how the poet appears
in the collective dream
like a giant walking over the earth
whose colour is all colours
whose voice is all voices
walking over deserts, mountains and seas
well-travelled roads
jagged skylines of cities dark against the sun
wrapped in a dry and humid blanket
that is the sum of all climates
followed in his footsteps by hordes
whose rumours reach the heights of his head
made up of cold-blooded beings that slither
or ambulate on many paws
minuscule, moving their seudopodia
or four motley-haired paws
speaking in diverse growls or maybe in songs
That’s how the giant poet appeared in this dream
watching over the sleeping roof top
over the earth
sowing birds
Translated by Jorge Etcheverry and edited by Nika Alia Khan and Sharon Khan
in the collective dream
like a giant walking over the earth
whose colour is all colours
whose voice is all voices
walking over deserts, mountains and seas
well-travelled roads
jagged skylines of cities dark against the sun
wrapped in a dry and humid blanket
that is the sum of all climates
followed in his footsteps by hordes
whose rumours reach the heights of his head
made up of cold-blooded beings that slither
or ambulate on many paws
minuscule, moving their seudopodia
or four motley-haired paws
speaking in diverse growls or maybe in songs
That’s how the giant poet appeared in this dream
watching over the sleeping roof top
over the earth
sowing birds
Translated by Jorge Etcheverry and edited by Nika Alia Khan and Sharon Khan
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Poems by Jorge Etcheverry
Jorge Etcheverry
Analogy
The feathers of birds
the carapaces of insects
absorb and block heat and cold
to protect delicate inner tissues
just as warm dwellings are hidden
in all latitudes on earth
This is a law we can extrapolate
to the history of all empires
flourishing in their Capital Cities
in wanton luxury
surrounded by living walls of flesh
made up of the best men
chosen from the plains and marshes
to defend those cities
The methods have changed
The core remains the same.
Ready & Reddish
I share in the purest essential features
of the redneck lifestyle
I hang around pool halls
Not long ago I had a motorcycle
I still like to go to rock concerts at Barrymore's
or the Gilmour for country music
for a chance to dance with a gorgeous Méti girl
In the welfare line up
or at the boarding house
I've had a talk with a run-down, skid-row prophet.
This kind of life should lead to revolution.
Rednecks of America!
Rednecks of Canada and Québec!
Go red!
Current Affairs
With the help of Megabites & Microbites
(if the latter exist and don't bite)
and Word for Windows and the Web
a Modem and a Scanner
I will wait
for the new Word Perfect
(for my basic text)
Then I’ll be able to write
if there's nothing to watch on TV
or no interesting movie downtown
If the current financial crisis in Europe
lasts long enough
I’ll finish a project
before it becomes obsolete
or "dated" as they say
It happened to me with Timor and Kosovo
with the Gulf War
Meech Lake
the Oka Stand-off
I hope I'll have time to write about
the depletion of the Ozone Layer
before it burns my fingertips
Poets should abandon this tendency
to write about current & catchy issues
I vote for a return to Existentialism
Phenomenology
De-constructivism
or some other philosophy
They last longer
Darwinism III
We are indisputably primates
who combine our lust
and Alpha-male based politics
with quite a sophisticated social life
When I take you out for dinner
you almost always go for the lobster
When thrown into boiling water
the crustacean emits a crying sound
Some say it’s cause it likes it
You say “it’s better
to put it in the pot when the water’s still cold”
I don’t know about that
Later on we might watch
the Discovery Channel on TV:
life in the Serengueti
You cry out each time a lion kills a wildebeest
but I tell you: it’s clean and it’s final
On the other hand we’re like insects
not only in social complexity:
The wasp lays its eggs on the caterpillar
so the larvae will eat and prosper
We boil lobster, force feed turkeys, etc.
We’re among the few living creatures
who torture their food
Youth
And the flower of the race allowed the new generation to fall like light petals on the dark earth and the elders grew hopeful as they lived out their remaining days, silently watching and enjoying the youngsters as they practised the art of living
"The chains that oppress us will in time be broken by our sons or grandsons who are stronger than we. The winds blowing from the East and from the West will fecundate their actions and thoughts like other winds that swell the sails of boats"
But blood covered the cobblestones like moss, like the parasite that afflicts the elm tree, as the most audacious and beautiful of this new flock got ready to take off vertically, like quail
And hope, like a paper flower, burned in the breast and withered beneath the closed lips of those who were beginning to look at things through new eyes
Some of our best offspring had the good luck to die young
This has made us more cautious about the rest
The marshes that surround the city are a breeding ground for disease
Translated by Jorge Etcheverry, edited by Sharon Khan
Analogy
The feathers of birds
the carapaces of insects
absorb and block heat and cold
to protect delicate inner tissues
just as warm dwellings are hidden
in all latitudes on earth
This is a law we can extrapolate
to the history of all empires
flourishing in their Capital Cities
in wanton luxury
surrounded by living walls of flesh
made up of the best men
chosen from the plains and marshes
to defend those cities
The methods have changed
The core remains the same.
Ready & Reddish
I share in the purest essential features
of the redneck lifestyle
I hang around pool halls
Not long ago I had a motorcycle
I still like to go to rock concerts at Barrymore's
or the Gilmour for country music
for a chance to dance with a gorgeous Méti girl
In the welfare line up
or at the boarding house
I've had a talk with a run-down, skid-row prophet.
This kind of life should lead to revolution.
Rednecks of America!
Rednecks of Canada and Québec!
Go red!
Current Affairs
With the help of Megabites & Microbites
(if the latter exist and don't bite)
and Word for Windows and the Web
a Modem and a Scanner
I will wait
for the new Word Perfect
(for my basic text)
Then I’ll be able to write
if there's nothing to watch on TV
or no interesting movie downtown
If the current financial crisis in Europe
lasts long enough
I’ll finish a project
before it becomes obsolete
or "dated" as they say
It happened to me with Timor and Kosovo
with the Gulf War
Meech Lake
the Oka Stand-off
I hope I'll have time to write about
the depletion of the Ozone Layer
before it burns my fingertips
Poets should abandon this tendency
to write about current & catchy issues
I vote for a return to Existentialism
Phenomenology
De-constructivism
or some other philosophy
They last longer
Darwinism III
We are indisputably primates
who combine our lust
and Alpha-male based politics
with quite a sophisticated social life
When I take you out for dinner
you almost always go for the lobster
When thrown into boiling water
the crustacean emits a crying sound
Some say it’s cause it likes it
You say “it’s better
to put it in the pot when the water’s still cold”
I don’t know about that
Later on we might watch
the Discovery Channel on TV:
life in the Serengueti
You cry out each time a lion kills a wildebeest
but I tell you: it’s clean and it’s final
On the other hand we’re like insects
not only in social complexity:
The wasp lays its eggs on the caterpillar
so the larvae will eat and prosper
We boil lobster, force feed turkeys, etc.
We’re among the few living creatures
who torture their food
Youth
And the flower of the race allowed the new generation to fall like light petals on the dark earth and the elders grew hopeful as they lived out their remaining days, silently watching and enjoying the youngsters as they practised the art of living
"The chains that oppress us will in time be broken by our sons or grandsons who are stronger than we. The winds blowing from the East and from the West will fecundate their actions and thoughts like other winds that swell the sails of boats"
But blood covered the cobblestones like moss, like the parasite that afflicts the elm tree, as the most audacious and beautiful of this new flock got ready to take off vertically, like quail
And hope, like a paper flower, burned in the breast and withered beneath the closed lips of those who were beginning to look at things through new eyes
Some of our best offspring had the good luck to die young
This has made us more cautious about the rest
The marshes that surround the city are a breeding ground for disease
Translated by Jorge Etcheverry, edited by Sharon Khan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)