Poetry Planet No 2 - World Poetry Movement

Transcription

POETRY
PLANET
WPM-PoetryFlash-2_Layout 1 20/2/2015 4:35 µµ Page 1
Spring 2015 - #02
Ayyapa Paniker
Basir Ashang, Joy Harjo, Dinah Roma
KING NEZAHUALCÓYOTL
Roque Dalton
Fernando Rendon
Roque Dalton
Alejandro Murguía
Ataol Behramoglu
Juan Manuel Roca
A World Poetry Movement Edition
ALEJANDRO MURGUIA
JOY HARJO
KING NEZAHUALCÓYOTL
ROQUE DALTON
FERNANDO RENDóN
JUAN MANUEL ROCA
Satellite composition of the whole Earth's surface. - NASA
Poetry Planet #02
Spring 2015
E-edition of World Poetry Movement
www.wpm2011.org
Editor: Dinos Siotis, Athens, Greece - [email protected]
Designed by Nektarios Lambropoulos, Patras, Greece - [email protected]
ATAOL BEHRAMOGLU
BASIR ASHANG
Ayyappa Paniker
L
Dinah Roma
EDITO
ooking at this map of the world,
we see a combination of earth,
water, ice, desert and space. Some
of us try to find the place we live, others
just have glimpses of countries they ’ve
visited. At World Poetry Movement, we
can see something beyond that: people
from all over the world writing and reading poetry in many languages. With words
and images. Some practice poetry. With
voices and movements. With spirit in
place. This map isn’t another geography
tool but a guide for the reader and poetry
lover. Every place asks for a poet’s name.
Poetry Planet will give some names in
every issue. Reading is always a voyage to
different places and time zones. Let us
travel together in poetry. Poetically. And
in every other way. Because, as Gabriela
Mistral put it, “what the soul is for the
body, is the poet for his people”. And because we want to be ahead of the news.
INDIA
Ayyappa Paniker,
Malayalam Poets
(1930-2006)
by K Satchidanandan
A
s a poet Paniker was the very
embodiment of the spirit of
Modernism in Malayalam.
His‘Kurukshetram(1960) was the scream
of a mind torn by the contradictions of
our time. Arjuna here is not the character
in Mahabharata who is assuaged and
guided into battle by the eloquence of Krishna, but the lonely, inconsolable human
being who inherits the central dilemmas
of his age- of hubris and of the hatred, violence, poverty, estrangement from nature and the war that it breeds. He does
not trust the truths of religion or ideology
any more as both have led to senseless
bloodshed. He finds that the bodhi and
the cross are redundant if only we will just
become human and rise on our own
navels. ‘Kurukshetram’ was a breakthrough in terms of form and structure
too. The poet mixed meters, took freedoms with them , coined new expressions
and created fresh, often sur-real, images
like the ripe corpses waiting to wake up in
cradles. The poem had also a sprinkling
of black humour and irony like when the
poet asks, do the world banks hold the
key to truth ,or,who will cook and serve
the new Veda, does it need to be fried
with mustard? Kurukshetram’ fascinated
the readres of my generation who were
waiting for something new, free from the
cliches of romantic poetry while it angered the champions of the status quo
who rejected it as unpoetic gibberish.The
poet-editor of the famous Mathrubhumi
Weekly returned the manuscript to the
naughty youngster and it was then picked
up by C. N. Sreekantan Nair, a modern
playwright who at that time used to edit
the weekly Desabandhu. ‘Kurukshetram’
was followed by many others , each differ-
ent from the other. ‘Mrityupooja’(The
Hymn to Death), ‘Kudumbapuranam’
(The Family Saga), ‘Pakalukal, Rathrikal’
(‘Days,Nights)‘Passage to America’,
‘Gopikadandakam’ , Ivide Jeevitam
(Here, life) and ‘Gotrayanam’ are perhaps
his most outstanding works. In the long
poem ‘Gotrayanam’ Paniker returns to
his racial roots and recreates history in
the form of a journey while ‘Days, Nights’
and ‘The Passage to America’ are sequence poems that deal with the many
contradictions of life in the U. S. where ,
at Indiana, Paniker had spent some years
pursuing his postdoctoral research.
‘Kudumbapuranam’ deals, with his characteristic irony ,with the history of his own
family in Kuttanad in Kerala. ‘Ivide Jeevitam’(Here, Life) is a gathering of his experiences during his tour to Russia and
East Europe in a sequence of poems, one
of his favourite forms, used in all his
travel poems.His dark satires during the
years of the Emergency in India revealed
the conscientious objector in Paniker
while his sarcastic poems on power and
corrruption as well as his series of ‘Cartoon Poems’ and ‘The Tales of the Maharajah’ used irony as a weapon to fight
evil and as a new tool to comprehend the
tragi-comic human condition.He went on
renewing himself all through his poetic
career that resulted in the astounding formal variety of his poetry. He tried Sanskrit metres, the metre of the kathakali
verse and of the tullal verse, various Dravidian metres, free verse patterns and
prose of different kinds and tones. The
range of his verbal resources and cultural
registers was equally astounding. He liberated the art of poetry from its orthodox
confines giving the posterity a range of
INDIA
formal possibilities and plenty of experimental space.
While editing Kerala Kavita Paniker
also kept writing and translating and editing many serieof books.The four volumes
of Medieval Indian Literature he edited
for the Sahitya Akademi is an exemplary
collection while he also edited the Complete Works of Shakespeare and a series
of 1 20 world classics in Malayalam translation. He was nominating editor for
Katha, Delhi and consulting editor for
The Journal of South Asian Literature,
Michigan (of which two issues were entirely devoted to Malayalm writing )besides many other literary publications.
Paniker also edited a series of monographs in English on the English Writers
of Kerala.His books on Thakazhi
Sivasankarapillai , V. K. Krishna Menon,
Vallathol and Sardar K. M. Paniker, his
short works like A Short History of
Malayalam Literature,Indian Renaissance
and Indian English Literature ,his literary
articlescollected in three volumes, his
books on Indian poetics, especially the
one on the principle of antassannivesam
that Paniker distinguishes from intertextuality- all these are monuments to his stupendous scholarship and profound grasp
of the different traditions of literature and
poetics. His collections of poetry in English translation, The Poems of Ayyappa
paniker, Days, Nights and I can’t help
Blossoming that bring together poems selected from his four volumes in Malayalam besides the last published collection,
Pathumanippookkal, are a good introduction to his poetry for the non- Malayali
readers.His students remember him as a
committed teacher and a wonderful communicator, always abreast of the developments in world literature and literary
theory. His translations of the poems of
Mayakovsky , poems from Cuba, Raja
Rao’s Cat and Shakespeare and Jean
Toomer’s Sugar cane are great examples
of translation of poetry and prose.
Ayyappa Paniker was also an excellent
speaker, clear-headed, cogent in his arguments, lyrical in his expressiveness and always witty and original in his insights into
authors, texts and issues.He was also interested in theatre, both classical and
modern and was an inspiration behind
Margi, an organisation to promote
kathakali and classical arts. He also encouraged New Drama in Malayalam , especially its pioneers like G. Sankara Pillai
and Kavalam Narayana Paniker and was a
chief force behind the Nataka Kalari- a
modern theatre workshop- established by
C. N. Sreekantan Nair, another major
playwright.He wrote articles not only
about poetry, but on fiction, theatre, cinema , acting and aesthetics too, many of
which are yet to be collected.This is also
true about his essays in English still lying
scattered in various journals across the
world. Paniker never went after awards
and recognitions, yet he won most of the
major Indian awards for literature, including the Sahitya Akademi Award, Bhilwara
Award from the Bharatiya Bhasha
parishad, Gangadhar Meher Award,
Kabir Samman and Saraswati Samman,
not to speak of the many poetry awards
he won in Kerala.He accepted them with
humility, the sole exception being the
Vayalar Award, the most popular award
INDIA
for literature in Kerala which he refused,
probably as it came to him too late.He
was never tempted by power of any kind
and politely refused an invitation to be
the Vice Chancellor of a University in
Kerala.His works have been translated
into all the major languges of India besides several forein languages like French
and Spanish.
Ayyappa Paniker was one of India’s
best cultural ambassadors to the world
outside as he knew not only the new, but
the classical as well. He was all for the
modern, but had deep appreciation for
the tradition, especially its elements that
would inspire new invention in art and literature.With his loss, India has lost a
unique genius, an integrated human being
equally at home and equally creative in
diverse fields of art and knowledge.
PANIKER ON POETRY
All creation carries a seed of mystery.
The creation of poetry is also a mysterious process. Even the poet may not know
its secret. What happens in each poem is
a divine birth where human and superhuman powers come together unexpectedly
yet inevitably as if predetermined in some
unknown fashion. By the time the poet's
energy or vitality gets transformed into the
poem, the same radiating energy kills a
part of the poet. The birth of a poem is a
memorial to that destruction, that partial
death. It is doubtful whether this creative
power can ever be analyzed and understood by the destructive acts of simple
reason. Those who have known that
power do not need analysis; those who
have not known its force have no use for
it. The best method is to know creation
through creation. All good poems are the
result of a divine union so that each poem
is obscure, yet each will have a dim halo
around it To reveal the sources of the inspiration of poetry is even more difficult
than writing a poem; what the poet can do
is only to speak about his state of mind or
the circumstances of his life when he
wrote a poem.....
....Whatever claims a poet may make,
no poet can do beyond the limits of his
genius. Even trying to do the best within
one's ability is no child's play. It is also
wrong to assume that poetry for a poet is
circumscribed or defined by a single
poem. It goes on bubbling, surging and
overflowing into the next poem. There is
an often invisible relationship between
one poem and another. Only the poet
will be anxious about the poems not yet
written, the reader is ignorant of it. Can
we say that each poem is but one incarnation of poetic creativity? If so how many
incarnations does poetry have!
Kurukshetram (Part three and part
five)
Tell me, Sanjaya, what my sons and
the sons of Pandu did,
when they gathered on the sacred field
of Kurukshetra
eager for battle
The Bhagavad Gita
There
where the horizon dips,
hurled out of the bowels of the steam-
ing Void,
awake 0 star trembling in the cerulean
blue!
Quicken the flow of blood and the
beat of the pulse.
0 star in love with life,
cast your gaze on the earth beneath,
sweep your glance on this stage
where we ply our mortal lot!
Do you not hear the mute voice of our
grief?
Let drops of light fall from your eyes
like tears!
See us
caught in the labyrinth of our daily
grind:
this crowded market
where we plunge and push and outsmart
to gain each our end
this is the world as we style it.
And here they come,
come to buy and come to sell;
themselves they buy end themselves
they sell,
in human souls they deal!
The eyes suck and sip
the tears that spurt;
the nerves drink up the coursing
blood;
and it is the bones that
eat the marrow here,
while the skin preys on the bones.
The roots turn carnivore
as they prey on the flowers
while the earth in bloom
clutches and tears at the roots.
Look, look at this earthly sphere
where we walk our wonted ways.
On the patterned floor
sanctified by ritualistic lore,
down the cool gleams of vestal lamps
trickles the voice of human grief:
Give us our happiness, oh Lord!
Give us our happiness,
These acute geometrical spike-like
spires
of church and mosque and temple
that rise against the sky
toss and tear in glee
the heart of the mortals that throng
this earth.
And the hordes of the devout
deftly tear the eyes out of their sockets
and fix in their stead the lenses of
faith.
Across the figure of the cross
gleams the keen and angry look
of the blind fanatic, chanting the
gospel.
The order of faith
issues in a sterile flood, boiling hot,
in these centres of the devout.
In the theatre that is cleansed
Life like a surgeon works.
Here the priestly order
like aproned doctors move;
end these nuns and sisters,
these youthful nurses,
trail the doctors true.
As though all wakeful sins
would be wiped off soon
at the foot of the cross,
the course of mortal life
inches along in agony:
Hail, Mary!
Full of grace...
Blessed art thou among women!
INDIA
When the sun at break of day
sheds his gentle golden rays
on the world beneath,
with their double braid of lovely hair
and smiling faces framed in shawls,
the little girls run fast.
Before the hour of darkness
comes evening
like a drowsy river:
even so,
the girls glide along,
clad in their flowing skirts.
And here are the mothers going by
who in the strength and purity
of their passion of maternity
bring to the brooding soul
the fervour and warmth of the sun at
noon.
Here like sombre clouds of darkness
that spread over the earth at midnight
hobble and stagger grey and withered
crones.
Here where the passionate souls
pulsate in their bodies
end lusty youth tear past
and even death steps aside
before this onrush of the mortal
stream,
why is the quiet voice of grief
continually swelling by?
Inside the church of faith,
inside the fortified wall,
in their black robes
the priestly order stand;
And like souls in torment
tremble, dwindle, and wast
V
In the uncertain course of this world
where we together rise and set,
these tents and these tombs
bed us a little while
in this fugitive sphere.
The time we spent in
friendly camaraderie
is the sum of happiness
gained; this much I know;
this, after all, is all that life means.
Dearest,
although you be a star,
I greet in you the very seat
that holds the warmth and fervour
of my affection and love.
To me you have bequeathed
strange and visionary dreams never
thought of,
made me speak a language I never
learned,
granted me an heir by a grace I barely
touched.
O star, you burn in the high heavens,
so my blood drip and the world
awaken to life!
We throb and pulse
with the rhythm of life,
and driven to each other’s arms,
by the force of desire and love
we create anew this joy.
At the twilight time of my life
that is full like the sounding sea,
when that rhythm and that joy
make themselves felt
and the flames of a burning rapture
leap across all Time and Space,
when that hour is come,
will these varied spheres
hearken to the harmony
we have together evoked?
When I sow my thought in you,
putting the holy seed within,
the living light shall grow and ripen
to a smile through you
in the fullness of time
when we are gone.
Children of goodwill
shall once again walk this earth
and cherish visions of sweetness;
bright and new-fledged stars
shall light the heavens above,
when we and the world for us are annulled
and beneath this then different sky,
the curtain drawn on the stage of time,
the adventure of human endeavour
shall bring delights still undreamt of.
Today we know each other,
today we converge.
Under the vast, expanding skies,
out of smouldering bowels of time
in the intense heat of the earth’s interior,
the roots break their shells,
and sprout into suckling birds,
the message of my eyes
and the compassion of your rays unite,
and your love buds into blossom into
fruit into seed.
At the time
when this spectral world,
all through the seven spheres,
was lost in slumber
and riven by nightmares
and lay insensate,
when, shouldering the load of human
pain,
I waged the battle of the spirit at
Wardha,
When, on my mission of peace, I trod
the
streets of Noakhali,
what had you to say
on good and evil?
When the subtle dialectics of the intellect
lay quiescent,
breathed there a mortal
who could cook this vedic lore?
And do we have to fry it with mustard?
All that philosophy
with its varied schools of thought
could do
is, I think,
to arrest a splintered gleam
of the primal cause, that
sustains whatever we feel and perceive.
Schools of speculation dazzle the eye;
they cannot trap the bird in the air.
The forced mating of cause and effect
which all the lessons of philosophy
flaunt
is the Discord that stifles
the voice of the spirit,
the vile cacophony
that tears the air
and breaks the music.
While yet we know this in our veins
in the prolonged stillness around,
who, pray, hies to the sacred Bodhi
tree
for the torch that will cast the needed
light?
If the soul is illumined
who has to speak
of the Mount of Calvery?
If indeed for a rare moment
we could all just human be...
If only we could redeem
the visions that hurtle
through our dreaming soul...
COLOMBIA
Fernando Rendón
Fernando Rendón was born in Medellín, Antioquia (Colombia), in 1951. His
debut work “Contrahistoria” (1986), “a visionary idea of the future in complete opposition to the realities of apocalyptic excess in his country”, was published in the 1980s.
He has publishedanotherpoetrybooks: “Bajo otros soles” (1989), “Canción en los
Campos de Marte” (1992), “Los motivos del salmón” (1998), “La cuestión radiante”
(2005, Colombia; 2008, Venezuela; 2009, Costa Rica; 2010, El Cairo), “La Rama Roja
(2010, Havana, Cuba), and “En flotación” (2010, Colombia; 2012, Venezuela; 2014,
China). Actually he is general coordinator of World Poetry Movement (WPM).In
1982, he founded the poetry magazine Prometeo, the Latin American poetry journal
has issued 100 numbers to date. In 1991 he founded the annual International Poetry
Festival of Medellin. It regularly attracts crowds of over 160,000 and has become the
biggest event of its kind in the world. So far around 1.200 poets from 162 countries all
five continents have participated. The Foundation Right Livelihood Award with its
headquarters in Stockholm has officially announced at September 28, 2006, that a jury
formed by ten international personalities has decided to grant the 2006 Alternative
Nobel Prize to the International Poetry Festival of Medellín, “in recognition of its
courage and hope in times of despair”, among 73 candidates of 40 nations, activists for
truth, peace and social justice. Fernando Rendón received the international poetry
prize Poets Against War (Casa de PoesíaMorada al Sur, 2010, Los Angeles, USA); the
Arabian Bahrahill Foundation Prize, Egypt (2010) “by a high cultural achievement”;
Rafael Alberti Poetry Prize in La Havanna, Cuba (2010); MihaiEminescu in Bucarest,
Romania (2011); and 2013 Mkiva Humanitarian Award As The Foremost Cultural
Icon, South Africa (2013).
POEMS BY FERNANDO RENDON
A poem is not a game of chance, where a cardsharp heart places its stakes on a
senseless bet. Neither does the poem stake its existence at a greyhound race. Poetry is
the spirit’s number, the vestige of a superhuman metamorphosis.
Centuries ago, love was chained to a sinister poem. In a realistic poem, the working
classes still struggle; Indian peoples mobilize from the south.
Men and forests are cut down by the same electric saw, while the world’s youth
vainly waits for the spring, which will sprout like red gold, from inside out.
The fire destined to unchain us hides in the imagination of struggling freedom, in
the shining heart of the stone, in the sibylline plants and in the books which the Inquisition banned under penalty of imprisonment, in the songs and myths that nourished
the infancy of the peoples who climb up from the substance of earth, settled in an incandescent cognition.
The poem solves the riddle. Which is the hasty river, the bright, always-changing
truth it always denies us, expressed through an indescribable mutation, whose course
can only be altered by sleep?
In poetry, in the critical writing of the poem, we all played bluntly this deadly history.
Un poema no es un juego de azar donde un corazón tahúr se juega una apuesta sin
sentido. Tampoco se juega su existencia el poema en una carrera de lebreles. La
poesía es la cifra del espíritu, el vestigio de una metamorfosis sobrehumana.
En un poema siniestro fue encadenado el amor hace siglos. En un poema realista
la clase obrera lucha todavía, mientras los pueblos indios se movilizan desde el sur.
Hombres y bosques son abatidos por una misma sierra eléctrica, en tanto la juventud del mundo espera en vano la primavera, que germinará como el oro rojo desde
adentro.
El fuego destinado a desencadenarnos se oculta en la imaginación de la libertad
que pugna, en el corazón resplandecido de la piedra, en las sibilinas plantas y en los libros que la inquisición prohibió bajo pena de confinamiento, en los cantos y mitos
que nutrieron la infancia de los pueblos que escalan la substancia de la tierra, afincados en una incandescente cognición.
El poema resuelve el acertijo. ¿Cuál es el río presuroso, la risueña verdad siempre
cambiante que nos niega, expresada a lo largo de una mutación inenarrable, cuyo
cauce sólo puede ser alterado por el sueño?
En la poesía, en la crucial escritura del poema, todos nos jugamos sin ambages esta
historia mortal.
COLOMBIA
MADIBA
You protected humankind’s cradle with your body and your dream.
You healed the wound at the root of every culture
Which the West had for centuries tried to root out
With its greedy intent of endless war looting.
You washed the little roots with the tender herbs of your love
You freed all the generations of enslaved peoples
You danced with the ‡Khomani San, the Khwe and the Khoekhoe,
You led the sacred rhythm with the Griqua and the Cape Khoekhoe.
Then freedom raised its voice in Swahili, Oromo, Hausa, Amharic,
Mandé, Ewe, Yoruba, Igbo, Lingala, Shona, Setswana, Xhosa, Malagasy…
For the emancipation of all forms of fire
You spoke to the gods in the language of poetry
You sang to the peoples of Africa in the tongue of the future
You extended the voices of the original continent’s drums
Towards the different cardinal points of Earth
You fought, you danced, you sang, you freed
The roots and the trunk, the branches and the flowers, the fruits
Of humankind, imprisoned by white terror.
You now enjoy your work among the Singing Invisibles.
You come and go among them. The first Homo Sapiens embraces you
The ancestors with deep voices celebrate your feat
You returned Life to the Ancient Fathers of Humankind
You protected humankind’s cradle with your body and your dream
You healed the wound at the root of every civilization
You nursed Earth’s Active Principle back to health.
MADIBA
Tú protegiste con tu cuerpo y tu sueño la cuna de la humanidad.
Tú sanaste la herida de la raíz de todas las culturas
Que Occidente había querido por siglos extirpar
En su vocación codiciosa de saqueo, en su guerra infinita
Tú lavaste las raicillas con las tiernas hierbas de tu amor
Tú liberaste a todas las generaciones de pueblos esclavizados
Tú danzaste con los khomani san, los khwe y los khoekhoe,
Tú llevaste el ritmo sagrado, con los griqua y los cape khoekhoe.
Entonces la libertad elevó su voz en suahili, oromo, el hausa, amhárico,
mandé, ewe, yoruba, igbo, lingala, shona, setsuana, xhosa, malgache…
Por la emancipación de todas las formas del fuego
Tú hablaste a los dioses en el lenguaje de la poesía
Tú cantaste a los pueblos de África en la lengua del porvenir
Tú extendiste las voces de los tambores del continente originario
Hacia los diversos puntos cardinales de la Tierra
Tú luchaste, tú danzaste, tú cantaste, tú liberaste
Las raíces y el tronco, las ramas y las flores, los frutos
De la humanidad, aprisionados por el terror blanco.
Tú disfrutas tu obra ahora entre los Invisibles que Cantan.
Tú vas y vienes entre ellos. El primer Homo Sapiens te abraza
Los Antepasados celebran con voces profundas tu proeza
COLOMBIA
Tú volviste a la Vida a los Antiguos Padres de la Humanidad
Tú protegiste con tu cuerpo y tu sueño la cuna de los humanos
Tú sanaste la herida de la raíz de todas las civilizaciones.
Tú curaste el Principio Activo de la Tierra.
HALF-SLEEP
As I died,
I went up in smoke.
I dream that I’m dreaming
you’re in my dream with your eyes full of love
you’re awake watching me in your dream
we dream each other in a dream in which we cannot touch
a persistent, dense dream that envelops all
now it’s clear that we can kiss
this dream is like the sea
I dream that we embrace in the sea and say absurd things
this dream has strange properties
it can stretch and shrink and cannot end
the lives of the many who don’t dream depend on the dreamers
one may only wake up and love in an open day without ceasing to dream
live against death and struggle in half-sleep
attracting the time to come like a magnet
because only that which doesn’t exist may not die
in my dream the serene non-existence is more real
I know this dream must be strengthened
it is necessary for us to stay awake many nights in dream
better a shoreless dream in which the world frees itself
each second a wave of dream brings down your reality and brings down death
and you see yourself living for the first time
DUERMEVELA
A medida que moría,
me hacía humo.
Sueño que estoy soñando
tú estás en mi sueño con tus ojos llenos de amor
estás despierta contemplándome en tu sueño
nos soñamos los dos en un sueño en que no podemos tocarnos
este sueño es persistente y denso y lo envuelve todo
ahora se ve que ya podemos besarnos
este sueño es como el mar
sueño que estamos abrazados en el mar y que decimos
disparates
este sueño tiene raras propiedades
puede estirarse y encogerse y no puede terminar
de quienes sueñan depende la vida de los muchos que no
sueñan
sólo puede uno despertar y amar en un día abierto sin dejar de
soñar
vivir contra la muerte y luchar en duermevela
atrayendo como un imán al tiempo que vendrá
porque solo lo que no existe no puede morir
en mi sueño la serena no existencia es más real
sé que hay que fortalecer este sueño
es preciso que nos desvelemos muchas noches soñando
mejor un sueño sin orillas en que el mundo se libera
cada segundo una oleada de sueño derriba tu realidad y
derriba a la muerte
y te ves a ti mismo viviendo por primera vez
USA
Mission District Poets:
Poetry and Solidarity
Alejandro Murguía
The San Francisco Bay Area has historically been associated with Central
America going back to the 1849 when gold-hungry New Englanders discovered that
instead of sailing around the Magellan Straits, they could navigate the San Juan
River to Lake Nicaragua, then cross the Isthmus by land, effectively trimming their
voyage to California by half the time and distance.
For this essay, I will limit my comments to Central American writers of the
latter half of the 1900s, all of whom I've had the privilege of knowing and following
their development.
For the sake of convenience and organization, I've organized the essay into
particular decades, from the 1970s to the 1990s. But there is a deeper connection
between these writers than mere time. I have identified some broad thematic
points and linguistic techniques that unite these contemporary Central American
writers in the San Francisco Bay Area:
1) They lived here—anywhere from several years to several decades; and
they wrote about the area—San Francisco, in particular, is a common theme in their
work;
2) The majority of the work is poetry, with only occasional incursions in
USA
prose;
3) They use a combination of Spanish and English in their writings to describe their experiences;
4) The San Francisco Bay Area supported their work, and offered them
their first opportunity at publication.
Although the above points are not inclusive, some poets, for example used
no English, while others used no Spanish, for the most part these writers shared a
common experience and used similar approaches in capturing that experience.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE 1970S
The most influential, both artistically and politically, of this wave of Central
American poets, is the Nicaraguan born (1941), Roberto Vargas, who migrated to
San Francisco in 1946. He grew up among the new generation of Nicaraguans
coming to the Bay Area during and after WW II. As a young man, he traveled to
the Far East as a merchant seaman, worked in a mattress factory, then became one
of the few Latinos to participate in both the Beat era North Beach scene and the
Haight-Ashbury scene. With the rise of the Vietnam Anti-War Movement and the
Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, Vargas becomes active in the Chicano Movement and the Third World Liberation Movement. This activity—the Brown Berets
and Los Siete de la Raza—inspires some of the best poetry of that era, "Canto al
Tercer Marcha de Delano," "They Blamed It On Reds," and "Elegy Pa' Gringolandia." His influence is such that his work appears in all the major Chicano anthologies of that period, including Aztlán:An Anthology on Mexican-American
Literature edited by Luis Valdez and Stan Steiner, 1971, and Festival de Flor y
Canto, edited by Alurista, et al, USC, Chicano Studies, 1974.
His first book of poems, Primeros Cantos, defines his style—rhythmic and
imagistic. The poems are meant to be performed, which the poet often did accompanied by congeros. The images are clear and precise, and flowing, often without
connecting phrases, just the pure image carrying the poem.
Vargas captures the breath of his experience in a prose-poem titled, "Then
There Was..." a jazz like riff recounting the poet's early years in this country, from
his arrival through high school years in the Mission District, his stint in the Marine
Corps, and finally the death of his first wife. The influence of United States music,
rhythm and blues, oldies, mixed with boleros, mixed with nostalgia for his homeland and his emerging political consciousness, mark this prose-poem as one of the
most innovative of his poems. It was first published by Warren Hinckle in City
Magazine, in 1975, and later in Nicaragua, Yo te Canto Besos Balas Y Sueños de
Libertad, in 1980.
A defining moment occurs in the poet's life when an earthquake destroys
Managua, Nicaragua in December 1972. At this critical moment, he devotes all his
energies into raising help for the devastated capital, only to be disillusioned, like so
many other Nicaraguans, when the dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, steals most
of the aid. After this, the poet sets out on an ambitious plan to bring the FSLN
(Sandinista National Liberation Front) and the plight of Nicaragua to the attention
of United States literary and political figures. Besides being a key organizer of the
Gaceta Sandinista, the official organ for the FSLN, he organized poetry readings
throughout the United States in support of the Sandinista cause. Many celebrated
poets, such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsburg were recruited and read
at benefits for Nicaragua, and later, after the Sandinista triumph in 1979, visited the
homeland of Rubén Darío. Vargas is also the prime organizer of Ernesto Cardenal's historic first visit to the San Francisco Bay Area and the United States in 1976.
During this period, his effort were not just political, he also publishes in
Tin-Tan Magazine his first fiction, "Sandino, 1925," his recreation of the
Nicaraguan hero's desire for a free homeland. At the height of the Sandinista insurrection, Vargas joins the Sandinista Front in Costa Rica and participates in the attack at Peñas Blancas in September 1978. He returns to San Francisco and rejoins
the solidarity committee. Out of this experience comes--Nicaragua Yo Te Canto
Besos Balas Y Sueños de Libertad.
Vargas later becomes Cultural Attaché for Nicaragua in Washington DC,
before returning to Managua to live. Since returning to Managua, he has continued
to write—a finished manuscript titled Supersonic Secrets, as yet without a publisher,
as well as other unpublished pieces, including an eulogy to the tragic Tejano music
star, Selena, that the author of this essay has read. Besides his political activism
which was instrumental in bringing attention to Nicaraguan writers, such as Ernesto
Cardenal, José Coronel Urtecho, Gioconda Belli, and others, his own work stands
out for its powerful rhythmic accents and unique images created from a fluid combination of Spanish and English.
The other important Nicaraguan poet of that decade is Pancho Aguila, who
became a cause célèbre for many writers in the Bay Area. Pancho Aguila is the
poet's nom de guerre, adopted when he was first jailed in the early 1970s. Pancho
Aguila spent most of the decade of the 70s and part of the 80s, incarcerated at Folsom Prison, where he was a key organizer of the Folsom Prison Writer's Workshop. In his life and his work, Aguila always considered himself a political prisoner,
and the act for which he was jailed, bank robbery, a political crime. As could be expected, his work exhibits a strong political stance in favor of the oppressed and all
political prisoners. The poems published by Second Coming Press in 1977 under
the title Dark Smoke, are typically angry, but within the anger, there is unmistak-
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able gleams of hope and sincere humanity.
One other Nicaraguan poet published a book during this decade. Although
Denis Corrales Martínez's book (a chapbook titled Pinceladas Nicaraguenses) did
not have the impact or power of the two previously mentioned poets, it is important to note that his book was all in Spanish, whereas the other poets were writing
in English. Corrales Martínez’s work is also characterized by a more symplistic
form—he uses the traditional verso of Hispanic literature--and also by his poetic
concerns. Being a recent newcomer to San Francisco when he published this book
(recent in comparison to Vargas and Aguila, who'd spent decades here), the poems
are more traditionally Nicaraguan than Vargas's or Aguila's. The themes are the
Nicaraguan workers, especially campesinos, and their oppression; the poems also
emphasize the poet's concern for the environment and ecology.
Among other highlights of Central American writing in the Bay Area during
this decade, I will cite two.
Born in Belize of Honduran parents and raised in Hollywood, California,
Walter Alfredo Martínez's poetry and prose is written in classical formal English.
His book, Ascensions, published in 1974 by Heirs Press in San Francisco, has the
most surreal writing of this entire group of poets mentioned in this essay. The
words skip and fly over the page, confronting the real world that the poet survives
with ingenious imagination. The poet's concerns are the spirit and the soul—abstractions to be sure, and yet the poems vibrate, tremble, dance, and engage the
reader.
In 1975, Gilberto Osorio, a young Salvadorean artist-writer, publishes
"Poesía in El Salvador," the first modern survey of Salvadorean poetry to appear in
English. The essay, though written 25 years ago, is still a fine source for an overview
of Salvadorean writers from 1930 to 1974. Osorio is also instrumental in gathering
the news of the death of Roque Dalton in 1975 which Tin-Tan Magazine publishes
in issue number two, October 1975. The magazine is the first to publish the news
of the death of the Salvadorean poet in the United States.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE 1980s
After 1979, the literary influence of Central Americans in the Bay Area becomes predominately Salvadorean, sparked in part by the political polarization of
El Salvador which causes large portions of the population to seek exile in the
United States, and also in part by the Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade, a collective
of Bay Area writers, poets, and translators who take up the task of promoting Central American literature and poetry. Besides organizing poetry readings and cul-
tural events that focus attention on El Salvador, the Roque Dalton Cultural
Brigade also publishes three important books of Central American poetry in translation: Volcán: Poems from Central America; Otto Rene Castillo, Tomorrow Triumphant, and Roque Dalton, Clandestine Poems.
A few comments follow on these works. Volcán: Poems from Central
America, published by City Lights Books, 1983—although this antholgoy doesn't include all the important Central American poets, in fact, several of them are missing
from its pages, for the first time in the United States, Central American poetry is
published by an established publisher, which helps broaden the audience of this literature. But more importantly, the book introduces to the American public the
work of major poets, such as Roque Dalton, Ernesto Cardenal, José Coronel Urtecho, Gioconda Belli, Claribel Alegría, Clementina Suarez, Claudia Lars, and
Roberto Paredes, Roberto Sosa, and many others.
The two other books translated by the Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade—Tomorrow Triumphant and Clandestine Poems reintroduce and enhance the reputation of Otto Rene Castillo and Roque Dalton within the United States.
By 1988, the Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade had ceased to exist, but several of its former members continue translating and contributing to the flowering of
Central American writing during the 1990s.
Technically speaking, the work of translation does not fall within the scope
of this essay—but I've included the work of the above mentioned groups and individuals because during the lull between 1980, when Roberto Vargas publishes his
last book, and 1989, when the first Salvadorean writers are published, the literary
activity around Central America, which was great in the Bay Area focused on the
discovery and translation of Central American writers who were for the most part
unknown in the United States.
It is not till 1989 that the first Salvadorean writers make their presence felt
in the Bay Area. One is a novelist and the other the most prolific poet to emerge
from the Central American diaspora in the Bay Area.
Armando Mauricio Molina, born in El Salvador in 1957, arrived in San
Francisco in 1974. After receiving a degree in electronic engineering, and working
in his field for seven years, Molina abandones this profession to concentrate on
writing. In 1989 he publishes the first Central American novel written in the Bay
Area, El Amanecer de los Tontos. The story follows a young Latino executive, as
he tries without success, to establish meaningful human contact in a modern city
(San Francisco) of the United States.
Around the same time that Molina's novel appears, another Salvadorean
poet makes his presence felt in the Bay Area. Jorge Argueta, besides being an ac-
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tive organizer of poetry and literary events during the late 1980s to the present,
also publishes a body of work that is prolific, personal, and political.
Argueta publishes eighteen different collections of poetry between 1989
and the present, making him the most published of all the Central American writers in the Bay Area. The quality of the poetry is consistent and is characterized by
its lyric quality, its brutal honesty, and its political perspective. The poetry is also
often laced with humor and satire. The themes are abundant: traditional love between a man and a woman; untraditional love of prostitutes and street people; life
in El Salvador; life in San Francisco; drugs and alcohol binges; poems of desperation, anger, and hope; poems for children.
Argueta writes strictly in Spanish, but all his work is available in bilingual
editions. Sometimes the poet translates his own work, such as in the most recent,
Las Frutas del Centro; in his early work, competent translators like Beatrice Hernandez and Barbara Jamison, effectively bring the poets voice across in English.
THE DECADE OF THE 90s
The decade of the 90s saw the first Central American woman writer achieve
prominence in the Bay Area. A former school teacher, Martaivón Galindo arrives
in the Bay Area from her native land after being arrested and tortured by the security forces of El Salvador. She soon establishes herself as a writer and strong feminist voice. She goes on to graduate from the University of Berkeley, and now
teaches at both UC Berkeley and San Francisco State University. Her book, Retasos, combine prose vignettes and poems to recount her life as a child in El Salvador and her present condition as an exile in San Francisco. The writing is witty
and engaging, and often presents the feminist side of love and politics.
Armando Molina also published a new novel in the 1996, Bajo el Cielo del
Istmo, and edited an anthology written in Spanish by Latin American writers in the
United States, Imponiendo Presencias. His novel is similar in tone and theme to
his previous work and deals with alienation among middle-class professionals living
in San Francisco.
In closing my essays, I want to mention that translation of Central American authors also continued during the 1990s. In particular, former members of the
Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade published three volumes of translations—Clamor of
Innocence, an anthology of short fiction from Central America; Angel in the Deluge, by Rosario Murillo, and Riverbed of Memory, by Daisy Zamora, both
Nicaraguan poets. All three volumes are published by City Lights Books in San
Francisco.
A final note: Because of the large presence of Central Americans in the
Bay Area, and because the Bay Area has shown itself to be supportive, not just
of their exile but also of their literature, it seems obvious that Central American literature will continue to find publishers for years to come. What is not so obvious is
what impact these writers will have in their native countries, or within the region.
Another question: how known are these writers outside of the Bay Area? In the
past, writers like Roberto Vargas, who wrote and published primarily in English,
did achieve a certain amount of recognition outside the Bay Area, although, not
enough within Nicaragua. Other writers like Jorge Argueta, whose work is in Spanish with English translations, have not achieved wide recognition, mainly because
their work is published by small presses. Somehow these two bridges need to be
crossed: a wider recognition of these writers as part of the American voice in literature, as well as recognition of their work in their native countries, as legitimate expressions of the Central American Diaspora.
Partial Bibliography
Aguila, Pancho, Dark Smoke, San Francisco, Second Coming Press, 1977
Argueta, Jorge, La Puerta del Diablo, San Francisco, Editores Unidos Salvadorenos, 1990
Argueta, Jorge, Del Ocaso a la Alborada, Berkeley, Co Press, 1989
Argueta, Jorge, Love Street, San Francisco, Editores Unidos Salvadorenos, 1991
Argueta, Jorge, Far From Fire, San Francisco, Editores Unidos Salvadoernos, 1991
Argueta, Jorge, Litany of Love and Hate, San Francisco, Luna's Press, 1996
Argueta, Jorge, Las Frutas del Centro, y otros sabores, Berkeley, Canterbury Press, 1997
Corrales Rodriguez, Denis, Pinceladas Nicaraguenses, San Francisco, S.F. Neighborhood Arts
Program, 1976
Galindo, Martaivon, Retasos, San Francisco, Editorial Solaris, 1996
Martínez, Walter, Ascensions, San Francisco, Heirs Press, 1974
Mirikitani, et al, Time to Greez!, San Francisco, Glide Communications-Third World
Communications, 1975
Molina, Armando, El Amanecer de los Tontos, San Francisco, Editorial Solaris, 1989
Molina, Armando, Bajo el Cielo del Istmo, San Francisco, Editorial Solaris, 1996
Molina, Armando, ed. Imponiendo Presencias, San Francisco, Editorial Solaris, 1995
Murguia, A. & Pashke, B., Volcan, Poems from Central America, San Francisco, City Lights
Books, 1983
Vargas, Roberto, Primeros Cantos, San Francisco, Editorial Pocho-Che, 1972
Vargas, Roberto, Nicaragua, Yo Te Canto Besos, Balas, y Suenos de Libertad, San Francisco,
Editorial Pocho-Che, 1980
Winans, A. D., California Bicentennial Poets Anthology, San Francisco, Second Coming Press,
1976
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Poems by Joy Harjo
Joy Harjo was born in USA in 1951. Her seven books of poetry include How
We Became Human- New and Selected Poems, and She Had Some Horses. Her
awards for poetry include the New Mexico Governor’s Award for Excellence in the
Arts, a Rasmussen US Artists Fellowship and the William Carlos Williams Award
from the Poetry Society of America. She has released four albums of original
music including her most recent, Red Dreams, A Trail Beyond Tears, and won a
NAMMY for Best Female Artist for Winding Through the Milky Way. Wings of
Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light, Harjo’s one-woman show premiered to good
reviews in Los Angeles. She has been commissioned by The Public Theater of
NYC to write the musical We Were There When Jazz Was Invented. Soul Talk,
Song Language, Conversations with Joy Harjo from Wesleyan, and Crazy Brave, a
memoir from W.W. Norton have both just been released in paperback. Forthcoming are a new CD of original music, Wings of Night Sky, Wings of Morning Light
from Wesleyan University Press, a collection of poetry, and the new play. She travels extensively nationally and internationally, solo and with her band Joy Harjo and
the Arrow Dynamics Band. She is a founding board member of Native Arts and
Cultures Foundation and is now on the Leadership Council. She is working on establishing an arts academy for tribal citizens. The curriculum will include the blues.
She is a half-time full professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
and lives in the Mvskoke Nation in Oklahoma.
This Is My Heart
This is my heart. It is a good heart.
Weaves a membrane of mist and fire.
When we speak love in the flower world
My heart is close enough to sing to you
in a language too clumsy,
for human words.
This is my head. It is a good head.
Whirrs inside with a swarm of worries.
What is the source of this mystery?
Why can’t I see it right here, right now
as real as these hands hammering
the world together?
This is my soul. It is a good soul.
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It tells me, “Come here forgetful one.”
And we sit together
We cook a little something to eat,
then a sip of something sweet,
for memory, for memory.
This is my song. It is a good song.
It walked forever the border of fire and water
climbed ribs of desire to sing to you.
Its new wings quiver with vulnerability.
Come lie next to me.
Put your head here.
My heart is close enough to sing.
Este es mi corazón
Este es mi corazón. Es un buen corazón.
Teje una membrana de niebla y fuego.
Cuando hacemos el amor en el mundo de las flores
Está tan cerca de ti que puede cantar
en un lenguaje demasiado torpe,
para las palabras humanas.
Esta es mi cabeza. Es una buena cabeza.
En su interior zumba un enjambre de preocupaciones.
¿Cuál es la fuente de este misterio?
¿Por qué no puedo verla aquí, en este preciso momento
tan real como estas manos que unen el mundo
a golpes de martillo?
Esta es mi alma. Es un alma buena.
Me dice, “Ven aquí olvidadiza.”
Y nos sentamos muy juntas
Cocinamos algo para comer,
luego sorbemos algo dulce,
para la memoria, para la memoria.
Este es mi canto. Es un buen canto.
Camina desde siempre los límites del fuego y el agua
ha trepado las costillas del deseo para dedicarte su canto.
Sus alas recién nacidas tiemblan en su vulnerabilidad.
Ven aquí recuéstate a mi lado.
Pon tu cabeza aquí.
Mi corazón está tan cerca que podrá cantar.
NO
Yes that was me you saw shaking with bravery, with a government issued rifle on
my back. I’m sorry I could not greet you, as you deserved, my relative.
They were not my tears. I have a reservoir inside. They will be cried by my
sons, my daughters if I can’t learn how to turn tears to stone.
Yes, that was me standing in the back door of the house in the alley, with fresh
corn and bread for the neighbors.
I did not foresee the flood of blood. How they would forget our friendship,
would return to kill the babies and me.
Yes, that was me whirling on the dance floor. We made such a racket with all
that joy. I loved the whole world in that silly music.
I did not realize the terrible dance in the staccato of bullets.
Yes. I smelled the burning grease of corpses. And like a fool I expected our
words might rise up and jam the artillery in the hands of dictators.
We had to keep going. We sang our grief to clean the air of turbulent spirits.
Yes, I did see the terrible black clouds as I cooked dinner. And the messages of
the dying spelled there in the ashy sunset. Every one addressed: “mother”.
There was nothing about it in the news. Everything was the same. Unemployment was up. Another queen crowned with flowers. Then there were the sports
scores.
Yes, the distance was great between your country and mine. Yet our children
played in the path between our houses.
No. We had no quarrel with each other.
NO
Sí, fue a mí a quien viste temblando de valor, con un fusil del ejército cruzado
sobre mi espalda. Estoy apenada de no haberte dado la bienvenida que te mereces, pariente mío.
_
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No eran mis lágrimas. Poseo una reserva en mi interior. Ellas serán lloradas
por mis hijos, por mis hijas, si es que no aprendo a transformarlas en piedra.
Sí, esa era yo que estaba parada en la puerta trasera de la casa en el pasadizo,
con frescas espigas de maíz y pan para nuestros vecinos.
No pude prever la inundación de sangre. El modo en que olvidarían nuestra
amistad, para luego regresar a asesinarnos. A los niños y a mí.
Sí, esa era yo girando como un remolino en la pista de baile. Hicimos tanta
bulla con toda esa alegría. En esa música tonta amé al mundo entero.
Nunca imaginé la terrible danza en el entrecortado eco de las balas.
Sí. Olí la grasa incendiada de los cadáveres. Y, como una tonta imaginé que
nuestras palabras podrían elevarse y detener la artillería en las manos de los dictadores.
Teníamos que continuar en movimiento. Cantamos nuestras penas para limpiar
el aire, purificarlo de los espíritus turbulentos.
Sí, en efecto vi las terribles negras nubes mientras preparaba la comida para la
cena. Y los mensajes de los que morían, allí en ese atardecer de cenizas. Todos
dirigidos a la madre.
De todo esto nada salió en las noticias. Todo seguía igual. La tasa de desempleo
había crecido. Otra reina de belleza coronada con flores. Y también se referían en
detalle a los resultados deportivos.
Sí, la distancia entre tu país y el mío es muy grande. Sin embargo, tus niños jugaban en el sendero entre nuestras casas.
No. Entre nosotros no había pleito o pelea.
Equinox
I must keep from breaking into the story by force,
If I do I will find a war club in my hand
And the smoke of grief staggering toward the sun,
Your nation dead beside you.
I keep walking away though it has been an eternity
And from each drop of blood
Springs up sons and daughters, trees
A mountain of sorrows, of songs.
I tell you this from the dusk of a small city in the north
Not far from the birthplace of cars and industry.
Geese are returning to mate and crocuses have
Broken through the frozen earth.
Soon they will come for me and I will make my stand
Before the jury of destiny. Yes, I will answer in the clatter
Of the new world, I have broken my addiction to war
And desire. Yes, I will reply, I have buried the dead
And made songs of the blood, the marrow.
EQUINOCCIO (EQUINOX)
Debo abstenerme de penetrar la historia por la fuerza,
si no lo logro me hallaré con un arma de guerra en la mano
Y el humo del dolor tambaleándose hacia el sol,
Tu pueblo muerto a tu lado.
Continúo alejándome, lentamente, ha sido una eternidad
Y de cada gota de sangre
Saltan hijos e hijas, árboles
una montaña de llanto, de canciones.
Te digo esto desde el atardecer de una pequeña ciudad en el norte
No muy lejos del lugar de nacimiento de los automóviles y la industria.
Los gansos están regresando para aparearse y las flores amarillas
Atraviesan la tierra congelada y estallan en color.
Pronto vendrán por mí y yo resistiré
Ante los jueces del destino. Sí, yo contestaré en el ruido
De un mundo nuevo, he puesto fin a mi adicción a la guerra
Y el deseo. Sí, contestaré, he enterrado a mis muertos
d
Y he construido cantos de la sangre, de la médula
MEXICO
TWO POEMS OF KING
NEZAHUALCÓYOTL
MEMORIES ABOUT
TEZOZOMOCTZIN AND
CUACUAUHTZIN
I
I am sad, I grieve myself,
I, Lord Nezahualcóyotl,
with flowers and songs
I am remembering princes
going away,
to which they went
toTezozomoctzin, to Cuacuauhtzin.
II
They truly live,
beyond where somehow it exists.
I wish I could follow the princes,
bring them our flowers!
If I could make mine the beautiful
Tezozomoctzin’s anthems!
Not once perish thy praiseworthy
name
Oh, my Lord Tezozomoctzin!
Thus, missing your hymns,
I have come to afflict myself,
Only I have come to be sad
I tear myself.
III
I have come to be sad, I upset myself.
You are not here, not anymore,
in the region where it somehow exists,
you left us without provisions in this
Earth,
that’s why I tear myself.
A BOOK OF SONGS
IS YOUR HEART
I
In the home of aquatic moss
He arises to sing,
rehearses his song.
spills flowers:
enjoy this chant.
II
Resounds the chant (Icahuicacuicatl)
clanking bells sound soft:
Our flowery rattles reply.
Spilling flowers:
enjoy this chant.
III
Sings on the flowers (Xochiticpac)
a wonderful pheasant:
it is already displaying his anthem
into the water.
IV
Several red birds rejoin (zan ye con
naquila) the
charming red birds:sing stunning
V
A book of songs is your heart: ,
you have come to hear your song
playing your drum.
Your are singer:
among the spring flowers
you delight people.
VI
Delivering
flowers of alluring fragrance,
treasurable flowers:
you are singer
among the spring blossoms,
delighting people.
VII
You offer flowers,
countless flowers:
with them, you delight men,
Oh prince Nezahualcóyotl:
Ah, my heart relish it:
they bloom and still:
with them you craft your own necklace,
with spring flowers.
VIII
From there, they are all
from the place of duality,
within the sky:
with them you delight men,
Oh, prince Nezahualcóyotl:
Ah, my heart relish it.
they bloom and still:
with them you do a necklace,
with spring flowers
Written by Nezahualcóyotl, The Texcoco’s
Kings Poet, 1402-1472
GAZZE
TURKEY
A POEM by ATAOL
BEHRAMOGLU
Dün ölümü gördüm, ölüm kanatsızdı
Yağmur gibi yağıyordu havada
İşte ölümün divan kurduğu
Gazze’desin
Hava bir bıçakla yırtılıyor sanki
Kör bir çığlık güneş
Camları cam gibi suskun
Ağaçların cesetleri ceset gibi
Minareler gökyüzüne değil hiçliğe
yaslanıyor
Çocuklar çocuklar çocuklar Gazze’nin
çocukları
Çocuklar sokak sokak çocuklar çarşı
çarşı çocuklar ev ev
Gazze düşmanla çarpışan çocuk gölgeleriyle bir dev
Ölümün kucağında şarkı söylüyor
çocuklar
Çocuklar azizler kadar sessiz müminler kadar dindar
Kurşun sesleri dinsin diye bekliyorlar
Bir anda dolduracaklar alanları
Açlıklarını unutup ölülerine
sarılacaklar
Ehramlarına sarınmış yaşlı kadınlar
Evler sokaklar omuz omuza hayatı koruyorlar
Sabırla çizilmiş yüzleri
Çaresiz asabi acılı kindar
Göğe ağan bir çığlık halinde
Göğe ağan yeminler gibi
Göğün bir parçası gibi duruyorlar
İşte Gazze’desiniz
Gazze’de ölüm çocukların oyunu gibi
Sabahları kahvaltıda zeytin ekmek gibi
Sevişmek gibi gençler arasında
Gazze’de ölüm tunçtan bir heykel gibi
Bütün pencerelerin baktığı
Ölüm aklı gibi çalışıyor Gazze’nin
İşte Gazze’desiniz
Ateşler arasında
Ölümün dilini yuttuğu ateşler arasında
Gazze sanki patlamış bir balon
Neylesin Arap ozanlar
Yanık kokar artık Celile’de türküler:
Gazze çöl ortasında bir sarı limon
Bir yandan görünmez eller sıkar
Çelikten bir cendereyle
Bir yandan düşman
Ölümden bir bulut halinde
Ağlamaktan kurumuş gözyaşları
Gazze’nin
Gayrı Gazze’den tanrının cesedi çıkar
GAZA
Yesterday I saw death, it was wingless
It was on the air, raining
Here, you are in Gaza where death encamped
Air seems to be torn by a knife
The sun is a blind scream
Its glasses are silent
Trees are like corpses
Minarets are leaning not on the sky
but on nothingness
The children, children, children, Gaza
s children
Streets, markets, houses full of children
Gaza with its images of children is a
giant which fights with enemy
Children singing on the lap of death
Children are as silent as saints, as religious as Muslims
They are waiting for the ceasefire
They are going to fill all the arenas
and embrace their deaths without
keeping in mind the hunger
Old women covered in togas
Houses, streets, shoulder by shoulder
are guarding life
Their faces are drawn with patience
Helpless, angry, sad, revengeful
Like a scream going up sky
Like promises
They are standing as a piece of sky
Here, you are in Gaza
Death in Gaza is like games of children
It is like eating olives and bread at
breakfast
It is like love-making of the young
Death in Gaza is like a statue made of
bronze
That all windows look at
Death is working like Gaza’ s mind
Here, you are in Gaza
In fire
Where death swallowed its tongue
Gaza is like a balloon blown
What can the Arabian poets do
Songs smell burnt in Galilee
Gaza is like a yellow lemon in the middle of desert
On the one hand, it is shaken by invisible hands
By a steel press
On the other hand, enemies stand
Like a death cloud
The eyes of Gaza dried because of crying
So from Gaza now the corpse of God
goes out
Translated into English by Muesser Yeniay
COLOMBIA
Poems by
Juan Manuel Roca
J
uan Manuel Roca was born in Medellín, Colombia, in 1946. His work has been awarded
the Eduardo Cote Lamus prize by the University of Antioquia (the state of which Medellín
is the capital), while the same university from his native town has also awarded him the
Simón Bolivar Award for Journalism and the University of Antioquia Short Story Award. He
received the Colombian state poetry prize for his collection Las hipótesis de Nadie (The Hypothesis Concerning No One) in 2004. His publications include Memoria del agua (Memory
of Water, 1973); Luna de ciegos (Moon of the Blind, 1975); Los ladronesnocturnos (Thieves
in the Night, 1977); Señal de cuervos (Warning of the Crows, 1979); Fabulario Real (Royal
Book of Fables, 1980); AntologíaPoética (Poetry Anthology, 1983); País secreto (Secret Country, 1987); Ciudadano de la noche (Inhabitant of the Night, 1989); Prosareunida (Collected
Prose, 1993); La farmacia del ángel (The Pharmacy of the Devil, 1995) and the novel
Esamalditacostumbre de morir (The Accursed Habit of Dying, 2003). His short stories appear
in Las plagassecretas y otroscuentos (2001). Roca is one of the most often anthologized
Colombian poets.
POETICS
After writing on paper the word coyote
One must watch that that butcher-like
word
Does not take over the page,
Does not manage to hide
Behind the word jacaranda
To wait for the word hare to pass by
And then tear it apart.
In order to prevent it,
To sound the alert
When the coyote stealthily
Prepares its ambush,
Some old masters
Who know the spells of language
Recommend tracing the word match,
Rubbing it against the word stone
And lighting up the word fire
To scare it away.
There is no coyote or jackal, no hyena
or jaguar,
No puma or wolf that won’t flee
When fire converses with air.
POÉTICA
Tras escribir en el papel la palabra
/coyote
Hay que vigilar que ese vocablo
/carnicero
No se apodere de la página,
Que no logre esconderse
Detrás de la palabra jacaranda
A esperar a que pase la palabra liebre
/y destrozarla.
Para evitarlo,
Para dar voces de alerta
Al momento en que el coyote
Prepara con sigilo su emboscada,
Algunos viejos maestros
Que conocen los conjuros del lenguaje
Aconsejan trazar la palabra cerilla,
Rastrillarla en la palabra piedra
Y prender la palabra hoguera
para alejarlo.
No hay coyote ni chacal, no hay hiena
/ni jaguar,
No hay puma ni lobo que no huyan
Cuando el fuego conversa con el aire.
FOR MAKING A STATUE
Michelangelo discovered
That in all the stones in the world
There is a sleeping statue.
That it is enough to remove the surplus
To find it.
Just as there are horses inside a pencil,
Beautiful girls with sleeping hair,
Hidden turtles or a treasure map,
Stones can keep inside them
The shape of the god of rain,
The statue of a forgotten hero,
The head of a wild bull
Or a wolf looking up towards the
moon.
It’s a matter of intently examining
The stones of the road,
Say the pebble readers
And road therapists.
A matter of searching them to find
Who is hiding,
Who is slumbering,
Who is afraid of the outdoors,
Who whisks away the being that dwells
inside them –
Even if there are mocking masses
Who never deliver their secret,
Slabs, crags, pebbles,
Pieces of basalt, volcano tears,
COLOMBIA
Round stones
That explorers call barren stone.
There is no need for disappointment.
The sculptor shall find the waiting
stone
And may make his chisel or hammer
ready.
Then he will see, arising from it,
A caged bird, an old bison,
An imprisoned man, a reclining
woman,
An iron mask,
A scalded cat and a dragon
Or a little speared deer
Waiting for a voice to wake it.
CONJUROS PARA HACER
UNA ESTATUA
Miguel Ángel descubrió
Que en todas las piedras del mundo
Hay una estatua dormida,
Que basta con quitar lo que sobra
Para encontrarla.
Así como dentro de un lápiz hay caballos,
Hermosas muchachas de cabellos
dormidos,
Tortugas escondidas o el mapa de un
tesoro,
Las piedras pueden guardar en su
adentro
La figura del dios de la lluvia,
La estatua de un héroe olvidado,
La cabeza de un toro cimarrón
O un lobo que mira hacia la luna.
Se trata de examinar con atención
Las piedras del camino,
Dicen los lectores de guijarros,
Los terapeutas de los caminos.
Se trata de esculcarlas para encontrar
Quién se esconde,
Quién dormita,
Quién le teme a la intemperie,
Quién escamotea el ser que habita en
ellas,
Aunque haya masas burlonas
Que no entregan nunca su secreto,
Lajas, peñascos, guijas,
Trozos de basalto, lágrimas de volcán,
Cantos rodados
Que los exploradores llaman piedras
baldías.
No hay por qué desencantarse.
*El escultor encontrará la piedra que
lo espera
Y podrá alistar su cincel o su martillo.
Entonces verá brotar de ella
Un pájaro enjaulado, un bisonte anciano,
Un hombre preso, una mujer reclinada,
Una máscara de hierro,
Un gato escaldado y un dragón
O el pequeño ciervo lanceado
Que espera la voz que lo despierte.
A SEASON OF STATUES
There are seasons closed for statuehunting,
When students and drunks are forbidden
From throwing stones or bottles
At the heroes’ impassive dignity.
In the hunting season
Even beheading is permitted,
So that many statues end up being
Reduced to medal-strewn chests,
Warrior bodies with the face of
Nobody.
Then the experts arrive,
Guides explaining to travelers
The absent features of such classic statuary.
Some of the crippled statues
Lie in hospital convalescing
From the fatigue of bronze, the historian explains:
They will soon be restored to their
pedestals,
Even if they are only missed by birds,
tightrope walkers
And the blind man who, while selling
lottery tickets,
Takes shelter under their shifting map
of shadows.
To Patricia T,
fairer than the Victory of Samothrace.
TEMPORADA DE
ESTATUAS
Hay épocas vedadas para la caza de estatuas
Que prohíben a estudiantes y borrachos
Arrojar piedras o botellas
A la impasible dignidad de los héroes.
En tiempos de caza
Es permitido, inclusive, la decapitación
Así que muchas estatuas
Quedan reducidas a pechos con
medallas,
A cuerpos de guerreros con caras de
Nadie.
Entonces aparecen los peritos,
Los guías que explican a los viajeros
Las facciones ausentes de tan clásica
estatuaria.
Algunas de las estatuas lisiadas
Yacen convalecientes en un hospital
Para la fatiga del bronce, explica el historiador:
Ya serán repuestas a sus pedestales
Aunque sólo las extrañen los pájaros y
los funámbulos
Y el ciego que mientras vende lotería
Se acoge al mapa movedizo de sus
sombras.
Para Patricia T,
PHILIPPINES
DINAH ROMA, Philippines
DESPUÉS DE LAS
ORACIONES
Eres la brasa en la punta de
la varita de incienso,
una calma ante el temblor,
la suave caída de ceniza
que llama la fragancia
el aliento
bajo nuestra oración.
Eres las oraciones vespertinas
de una súplica,
banquetes de cielos del atardecer;
la prisa nítida
yel ascenso de la gracia
más allá de la austeridad
de la cuaresma.
Eres la niebla
velando nuestra vista en la noche,
una bendición
de manos entrelazadas
redentoras como la vigilia
de un momento que se despliega
penitencial como los iconos
que presionan
nuestros corazones.
MAYA, REAVIVADA
Escalando distancia hasta el calor,
Tomaste esta mano
como la niebla nocturna
sobre mi cabello.
Más temprano en el día,
La habría considerado
Ilusión. El suelo
donde te paraste, espacio
iluminado hasta el vacío corazón anunciando otra
sombría brillantez.
En otro lugar ahora,
ella espera
cada día
dulce
incandescencia.
AMAR DESCONOCIDO
Sobre la noche, la nieve se ha asentado en un espesor conocido. La
cafetería contigua yace quieta en su
rapto de neón mientras la azotea gris al
frente titila en la incesante suavidad nocturna. Hoy, la habitación está impregnada con un brillo feroz, igual que
cuando partiste de madrugada y dejaste
tus huellas profundas en la nieve más
allá del porche hace muchos inviernos.
Había algo en tus pasos vacilantes; la
forma en que dejabas caer tu cabeza
hablaba de una pérdida incipiente.
Quería pedirte que volvieras a entrar a
la penumbra confiable de mi
habitación, en esa esquina en la que
siempre te derrumbabas tras un día imposible, para dar la bienvenida a lo luminoso y calmo. Pero te habías ido
antes de que yo lo supiera.
¿Quién hubiera pensado que el invierno engaña de esa forma? ¿Fue el
lenguaje frío extrañamente descongelando nombres? ¿Fueron los muros
atándonos a la luz y al espacio que
ocultaba el descontento? ¿No fuiste tú
quien argumentó, en el día en que la
distancia se convirtió insoportablemente
en invierno, que el hogar es alegría revivida repetidamente? Desde ese momento he buscado la afinidad entre las
corrientes de aire y los océanos, he
rodeado la geografía del corazón, pero
cada que piso la habitación, estoy más
lejos de la presencia.
La nieve cae. Todo afuera se vuelve
humilde.
AQUÍ, LA HISTORIA
Aquí hallarás la historia
mientras los bordes del sol abarcan
tu corazón para ese conocido lla
mado
Dinah Roma is Professor of Literature and Cre-
ative Writing at De La Salle University, Manila where
she is also Chair of its Department of Literature. Author of three books of poetry, her Geographies of Light
won won the country’s Carlos Palanca Award for Poetry
in English in 2007 and was one of the finalists in the
2011 Philippine National Book Award for Poetry. Her
work explores the liminal spaces between place and language, where possibilities of journeys are manifold.
While her first book celebrates her beginnings in the
craft of poetry, her second one pursues bolder wanderings that merge her favourite motifs of travel and its
epiphanies. It draws inspiration from the rich traditions
of Asia to chart the traveller’s passage across landscapes
and terrains, peoples and cultures, through time and
memory. Her third volume begins her on a new track
as she ruminates on the guises of ruins—its internal and
external landscapes—in our encounter with everyday. In
it she reflects on the destruction of climate change in
her devastated country.
a lo inhabitable.
Acurrúcate a mi lado,
yo soy luna,
preciosa carne de luz,
un regalo tendido
sobre la órbita de la profundidad
de tus ojos en mi precipicio.
Siente luto por lo que tu voz
Conoce del filo del amor,
y el corazón, conmovido
antes de su primer pérdida,
vagará profundo
hacia el duro origen - dicha
hiriendo el núcleo.
Antes que el anochecer
desacelere las horas y el aire
agote tus palabras,
cuéntame la historia:
cómo pastaban los cuerpos,
reúne la Tierra.
Traducción de León Blanco con la colaboración de G. Leogena
AFGHANISTAN
BasirAhang, Afganistán
WANDERING EXILE
Wandering exile
Despondent but brave
With a suitcase of war tales and woe
Perhaps the flight from death
The sense of abandonment
Dragged me to exile in this foreign
city
The soles of my shoes are the whole
of my land
Since in a world so wide
I have been given no place to call my
own
I write on the walls of the night “be a
refuge for humanity”
Like a nudge to quieten the city
My only motivation
My bedtime stories on the coloured
walls of the city
That thin the smoke and the disappointment
My language is unknown to all
Even to my nearest neighbour
Who everyday ignores my good
morning with an angry scowl
But I still live in hope
I am exiled
And a hundred miles away my whole
existence and my memories
Are tied to a patch of land
Which now plays crossroads to
blood and terror
But I will still live in hope
Perhaps one day this knot will come
undone
And the next generation in this city
Once they’ve read our stories
Will be guests no longer but hosts in
their own homes
And maybe my fate
Will curse only their fathers
This is my story
I am a wandering exile
And my homeland is no more
Than the soles of my shoes
BOGOTÁ
To the Colombian people who have suffered for
more than half a century
Bogotá!
Live long your rainbow
And ‘Providencia’, the jewel in your
crown
You, the golden, red and blue land
Will echo in the song
‘La Sonora Dinamita’ will play on
With the Cumbia dance
And its steely-chain sound
Bearing on the ankles of slaves
A message of freedom
Smile!
Now is the time to stand again
It’s more than half a century
That beyond these dark clouds
A reckless cobalt sky has breathed
For half a century
‘Providencia’ the paradise
Has waited for your spark
To break at last the broken cycle
And bring hope to its green coast
Gabo will write of no more love in
the time of cholera
And your children of tomorrow
Will take each other’s hands
To dance the Cumbia and the
Vallenato
Stand up!
Bolivar is waiting for ‘Totó la
Momposina’
To begin murmuring a song
Heedless of the tobacco taste still
bitter in his mouth
BOGOTÁ
A los colombianos que han sufrido por más de
medio siglo
¡Bogotá!
Larga vida a tu arco iris
Y “Providencia”, la joya en tu
corona.
Tú, tierra dorada, roja y azul
Harás eco en la canción
“La Sonora Dinamita” seguirá
tocando
A ritmo de cumbia
Y su sonido de cadena acerada
Cargando en los tobillos de los
esclavos
Un mensaje de libertad
¡Sonríe!
Ahora es tiempo de erguirte de
nuevo
Por más de medio siglo
Más allá de estas nubes oscuras
Un osado cielo cobalto ha respirado
Por medio siglo
“Providencia” el paraíso
Ha esperado tu chispa
Para romper al fin el ciclo roto
Y llevar la esperanza a su costa verde
Gabo no escribirá más amor en los
tiempos del cólera
Y tus niños del mañana
Se tomarán de las manos
Para bailar cumbia y vallenato
¡Levántate!
Bolívar espera a “Totó la
Momposina”
Para empezar a murmurar una
canción
Sin preocuparse por el sabor del
tabaco, aún amargo en su boca
This Moment is Mine
This moment is mine
Because of the journey, the discomfort
And all that was but is no more
My footprints trace borders innumerable
From Kabul to Rome,
From Tamerlane to Julius Caesar
Passing through lands stained by
Gobineau
This moment is mine
And I give it to my mother
Who embroidered her life’s desires
AFGHANISTAN
On scraps of cotton
Only so that my father
Could blow his nose
To my sisters isolated from the world
And to my brothers
Who instead of books
Without meaning to
Picked up guns
This moment is mine
And I will give it to the tears and the
screams
Until the reflections, the echos
Wake the deaf, restore sight to the
blind
Of my city
This moment is mine no more
It’s time to go
My turn has come to tell of the wan
dering waters
Of the Mediterranean
So that my footprints would become
uneresable
What life is this?
Perhaps you better get used to it
If they couldn’t bomb you in war
Well then you’d give your body to
the sea
What life is this?
When you leave your land
You’re little more than food for
fishes
If you’re given one chance
Let you heart beat with the bells
Of the church
Until the years pass
And you remain a second class citi
zen
A foreigner who wants to live
With a tongue by now too bitter
Perhaps you better get used to it
Like an orphaned child
Who’s used to being hit
What life is this?
You who love it
Must surrender to it
That Fucking Night
To the survivors of the Yakawlang
genocide by the Taliban
When they had shot the last bullet
It was night
The roads to Bamiyan 1 were closed
That night
Kapisa 2 burned in bedlam’s flame
And the Devil of Kabul
Drunk on the last bottle
Of Jalisciense tequila
Dreamed of bodies
Naked citizens of Sodom
That night Bamiyan was lighted
With blue lanterns
And a barefooted crowd chanted
A chant of peace
For the lost pieces of Shahmama
Bamiyan was lighted
And the edges of the sky above
Ghulgula 3
Were colourless
That night lunacy reigned
And miserable we were exiled
In the magical alleys of Venice
Lightless lanterns in hand
That night fear reigned
And Yakawlang 4 awaited its promised destruction
That night the world choked on the
awful lump in its throat
While miserable we were dancing in
the darkness
Of our thoughts
When the news headlines of the
world
Changed suddenly
And a lightening quick bolt
Vaulted the Venetian sky
At dawn your city
BasirAhang nació en la provincia de Gazni, Afganistán, el 1 de enero de 1984. Es poeta, periodista y activista defensor de los derechos humanos en su país.
Estudió Literatura Persa en la Universidad de Kabul.
Vive en Italia como refugiado político. Pertenece al
pueblo Hazara, de raíces mongoles y turcas, que constituye la cuarta parte de Afganistán. El pueblo Hazara ha
sido fuertemente golpeado por los talibanes y miles de
sus habitantes asesinados. En sus poemas documenta y
denuncia esos crímenes, a la vez que hace un recorrido
por el exilio e invoca la solidaridad mundial por la
preservación de su pueblo. Recientemente publicó el
libro de poemas: Arroyo de ciervo, 2014. Ha participado en numerosas conferencias sobre refugiados de
guerra, los derechos de las mujeres y las minorías, así
como la crisis en Afganistán, siendo reconocido por Aljazeera como un experto en el tema de los refugiados.
BasirAhang was born in 1984 in Ghazni, Afghanistan.
He is a Hazara poet, journalist and human rights activist. He graduated with a degree in Persian Literature
from Kabul University in 2007. After receiving threats
by Taliban for his activities in Afghanistan, BasirAhang
moved to Italy in 2008 where he continued his studies
in International Relations at Padua University. He has
published “SarzamineBadamhayeTalkh” an anthology
of his poems in Persian. In 2014 one of his poems won
the Special Jury Award at the International Poetry Festival of Sassari (Italy). His poems have been translated in
Italian and English. He is also a member of Interna-
Was destroyed
And miserable we
Were still dancing in the darkness of
our thoughts
That fucking night
22/01/2014 Commemoration day for
the massacre at Yakawlang
Traducción de León Blanco con la colaboración
de G. Leogena
tional Federation of Journalists. He wrote many reports
and made a documentary about the refugees and asylum seekers in Europe and particularly in Greece. A
part of this documentary was broadcast on “Rai 1”
Italy’s public television. Ahang has written hundreds of
reports on refugees and their legal rights, women’s
rights, freedom of speech and human rights violation in
Afghanistan. His articles, written in Persian, Italian and
English, are published in different online and print
media such as Kabul Press, BBC Persian, Radio Zamaneh, Deutsche Welle and Hazara People International Network.
EL SALVADOR
ROQUE DALTON
Acta / Act
En nombre de quienes lava ropa
ajena
(y expulsan de la blancura la mugre
ajena)
En nombre de quienes cuidan hijos
ajenos
(y venden su fuerza de trabajo
en forma de amor maternal y
humiliaciones)
En nombre de quienes habitan in
vivienda ajena
(y aun los mastican con sentimiento de
ladron)
En nombre de quienes viven en un pais
ajeno
(las casas y las fabricas y los comercios
y las calles y las ciudades y los pueblos
y los rios y los lagos y los volcanes y los
montes
son siempre de otros
y por eso esta alli la policia y la guardia
cuidandolos contra nosotros)
En nombre de quienes lo unico que
tienen
es hambre explotacion enfermedades
sed de justicia y de agua
persecuciones condenas
soledad abandono opresion muerte
Yo acuso a la propiedad privada
de privarnos de todo.
In the name of tose washing others’
clothes
(and cleaning others’ filth from the
whiteness)
h In the name of thoe caring for
others’ children
(and selling their labor power
in the form of maternal love and
humiliations)
In the name of those living in another’s
house
(which isn’t even a kind belly but a
tomb or a jail)
In the named of those eating other’
crumbs
(and chewing them still with the feeling
of a thief
In the name of those living on others’
land
(the houses and factories and shops
streets cities and towns
rivers lakes volcanoes and mountains
always belong to others
and that’s why the cops and the guards
are there
guarding them against us)
In the name of those who have nothing
but
hunger exploitation disease
a thirst for justice and water
persecutions and condemnations
loneliness abandonment oppression
and death
I accuse private property
of depriving us of everything.
Translated from Spanish by Jack Hirschman
World Poetry Movement edition

Poetry Planet No 2 - World Poetry Movement

Transcription

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