Versos en vena
Lilith y Rebeca Linke encarnan en editorial y revista
Texto: Virginia Mesías
Ilustración: Jénifer Barolin Pilón
Siempre me resultó compleja la palabra familia, no es liviana ni pasajera, me suena a mandato social ineludible, por eso me gusta utilizarla en sentido amplio o metafórico, en relación a grupos que establecen lazos de afecto, intereses y reciprocidad sin necesidad de alcanzar la sangre. Pienso en la familia de proyectos impulsados por mujeres que involucran las letras, hoy traigo solo dos —sé de varios más—: una editorial con nombre literario y una revista con título mitológico: Rebeca Linke Editoras y Espacio Lilith; no es azar que ambos personajes se desvían del lugar asignado, se van, viajan y despiertan sus deseos —y los nuestros—.
El grupo responsable de Rebeca Linke Editoras está integrado por Graciela Franco, María del Carmen González y Patricia Núñez, las tres son profesoras de literatura. Las invito una tarde a casa para el té y conversamos, sé que mis preguntas tienen tanta relación con ellas como con Piel Alterna, nunca somos inocentes con nuestras interrogantes. Comienzo por el nombre de la editorial y su elección, por la literatura uruguaya y La mujer desnuda, me explican que tienen recuerdos diversos sobre cómo nació el proyecto: las tres se conocían de un liceo de educación secundaria en Montevideo, pero fue en la Maestría en Literatura Latinoamericana de la Facultad de Humanidades (generación 2001) donde comenzaron el vínculo, allí entraron a otro mundo, me comentan, ingresaron con más fuerza al tema de los feminismos y de la literatura por fuera del canon. «Yo fui feminista desde que nací», aclara Graciela, y en esa línea agregan que no hubo una explicitación para que fuera una editorial de mujeres, pero no se les ocurrió un integrante varón, fue natural y también tenía que ver con la profesión docente en la que un alto porcentaje es femenino. Sí hubo una mayor conciencia del trabajo a realizar a partir de la elección del nombre, dice Patricia, y puntualiza: «Cuánto trabajamos los docentes y cómo ese resultado no queda en un libro». A su vez, la tesis de maestría de Graciela fue justamente sobre Armonía Somers y ella misma plantea que «fue central el concepto de Gradiva para la elección, la que camina, la que anda». Y cuando buscaban el nombre, Graciela dijo «Rebeca Linke» y, como la editorial les «implica otra cabeza, diferente a la que ponemos para las clases, es simbólicamente un cortarse la cabeza para hacer otras cosas», completa la idea Patricia.
«La primera tarea que nos convocó fue la de reunir y publicar la obra de Circe Maia que estaba dispersa», explica Carmen. «Su visibilización fue nuestra tarea fundamental e importantísima de manera que fue reconocida internacionalmente», agrega Graciela; Carmen continúa reflexionando sobre esta decisión tan ambiciosa tomada el mismo año en que la editorial nacía: Obra poética de Circe Maia gana en 2017 el premio de la Cámara del Libro, reconociéndolo como el mejor libro del período 1978-2017 y es muy significativo, me dicen, porque Rebeca Linke no integraba la Cámara. Luego vendrán varias publicaciones de autoras uruguayas, entre ellas: Beatriz Flores Silva, Alicia Migdal, Teresa Porzecanski.
Pregunto por la distribución de las tareas, por el área de diseño y corrección de textos, me explican que al principio buscaron dentro de sus familias los diseñadores tanto de tapa como de interior y así llegaron Erik Schou y Álvaro Rivoir; una de las líneas de trabajo de la editorial es la participación de los autores en el diseño con sus sugerencias y, en cuanto a la corrección de estilo, es una tarea que ellas mismas realizan. También me interesa el tema económico, si la editorial es redituable y Carmen afirma que «el aspecto financiero es el más flojo, una editorial que publica 300 ejemplares no es negocio, […] tenemos un perfil atípico, ya que podemos pasar tiempo sin producir» así destaca el valor del trabajo sostenido dado que han publicado 41 títulos desde 2007 sin tener una dedicación total a la editorial. Sobre el final, voy con la pregunta que siento delicada: si han pensado en dejar el proyecto ya que es esfuerzo y dedicación sin ganancia económica, me responden que sí, que varias veces pensaron en cerrarla, pero, concluye Patricia, «cada vez que Rebeca Linke iba morir aparecía algo, algún nuevo proyecto y la salvaba».
Lilith (Laboratorio Cultural) es una revista digital que se inicia en diciembre del año 2020 dirigida por mujeres interesadas en la difusión cultural y artística de corte feminista. Yisel Espinosa me recibe en su casa y me cuenta que, cuando tuvo la idea, pensó: «Hoy en día no se necesita mucho para crear una revista, es cuestión de empezar» y para armar el equipo pensó en su hermana, Yovana Espinosa, a quien le gusta la literatura y, a su vez, como quería la publicación cargada visualmente, convocó a Agustina Montenegro, amiga de la carrera en Arquitectura, quien se encargaría de las ilustraciones.
Yisel plantea que, durante el liceo y la facultad, no le enseñaron artistas o autoras mujeres y se dijo: «Creemos un espacio, una revista que visibilice, que ponga en el lugar a todas esas mujeres que han sido parte en la historia del arte». Así incluyó en el proyecto arquitectura, filosofía, intereses, gustos: «Una especie de militancia». Los medios para realizarla impresa no estaban y decidieron que fuera digital; comenzaron con la idea, el nombre, los colores, pensaron en diferentes disciplinas: literatura, fotografía, música, arquitectura, pintura y cine, por cada disciplina presentarían en cada número dos artistas, pero vieron que era un trabajo importante y allí incorporaron dos amigas más: Jenifer Barolín, que estudió bellas artes, y Belén Long que es docente en comunicación visual y plástica, quienes también se ocuparían de las ilustraciones; a su vez, Anabella Dominicci participó de las tres primeras ediciones. Como Agustina se encuentra en España, Belén en Canelones y Jenifer en Colonia, se reúnen por Zoom y la mayor parte del intercambio es vía WhatsApp. Yisel y su hermana viven en Montevideo y son quienes escriben la información sobre las artistas, sus biografías desde una perspectiva feminista haciendo hincapié en los detalles particulares de cada una «Y, sí, siempre aparece alguna opinión nuestra, es inevitable», apunta Yisel.
Comenzaron con tres publicaciones al año: abril, agosto y diciembre. Este año serán solo dos: en julio y diciembre. La revista se arma en un PDF y se accede a ella en Linktree, «la página web —me explica Yisel— es un pendiente». La intención es presentar en cada edición alguna artista uruguaya; otra, de ascendencia afro; otra, desde las disidencias sexogenéricas, y otra, vinculada a las diferencias de clases sociales. Se preocupan por buscar la mayor cantidad de fuentes para comparar los datos ya que la información la extraen de internet. En la edición n.° 5 (abril, 2022) incorporaron entrevistas y, a su vez, la revista tiene un canal en YouTube que comenzó en el año 2021 con pódcast «para contar un poco más, está la percepción de que la gente lee cada vez menos y mira videos y se informa por los pódcast». El canal no tiene necesariamente el mismo contenido que la revista, hablan de temas en relación al arte y el feminismo con un programa al mes.
Le pregunto sobre la recepción del público y me responde Yisel que a veces reciben comentarios, pero cómo medir el alcance que tienen «también es un debe como poder interactuar más con la gente». También llego al final con la misma inquietud: para qué seguir adelante si no se recibe ningún pago por el trabajo y me dice segura: «Me da tremenda satisfacción todo lo que estamos aportando a esa construcción de la historia del arte con tantas artistas que han sido negadas o invisibilizadas, ahora que cualquier cosa que subís a la red queda allí, es como un regalo que entregamos, conocí un montón de artistas en estas investigaciones que no puedo creer que no nos hayan contado».
El encuentro con estos proyectos puede darse a través de:
<https://www.instagram.com/rebecalinkeeditoras/>
<https://www.facebook.com/rebecalinke.editoras/?locale=es_LA>
<https://linktr.ee/revistalilithuy>
Verses in vein
Notes on poetic writing
Nancy Bacelo y las fronteras del verso
Texto y fotografía por Virginia Mesías
No me digas / que hay luz / que hay aire / que hay respiración / que hay silencio / adentro de mis huesos. / No me digas / que tengo todavía / agua y sangre / mar tendido / tierra abierta / cuatro besos plantados / que espero / que su fruto me den / y no me muera / y no me caiga en otro surco / y no equivoque el paso / y de la mano / y diga que soy yo / y que lo sea.
«Círculo nocturno»(1959)¹
Cuando preparé la mesa de trabajo para esta nota, reuní todos los libros que tengo de Nancy Bacelo; hay uno que me gusta particularmente: De sortilegios, edición de Siete Poetas Hispanoamericanos. La textura de las hojas, la tipografía, el color, el tamaño, sus textos breves y rotundos, todo es bello en ese libro. No recordaba que en la última página había escrito: «Se terminó de leer un sábado de marzo de 2021. Noche. Se compró otro sábado de fines de enero. ¿Qué fronteras tiene la noche? Esta noche. Hoy. Mi cuerpo es la noche, nada más, más». No sé en qué andaría yo en ese momento. Sí sé cómo me gusta intervenir mis libros, porque, entre otras cosas, me traen mensajes tiempo después, en este caso, el título para esto que escribo ahora.
Una mujer / esta mujer / las miles de mujeres que la habitan / detrás de la mampara ríen / saben lo que es la felicidad / de esta mañana / el ruido a mar al despertar de noche / el tibio desayuno de los sueños.
«Los símbolos precisos» (1986)²
Nancy Bacelo fue poeta, editora y desarrolló un trabajo significativo en el campo cultural y artístico. Nació en 1931 en Batlle y Ordóñez (Lavalleja) y falleció en Montevideo en 2007. Fundó la revista bimensual 7 Poetas Hispanoamericanos (1960-1965), fusión de poesía y artes plásticas que difundió artistas locales. Desde 1960 dirigió la editorial del mismo nombre. Entre 1961 y diciembre de 2007 organizó la Feria Nacional de Libros, Grabados, Dibujos y Artesanías, un espacio para la visibilización y venta de obras de autores nacionales. En 1963 creó Ediciones Popularespara reeditar obras de escritores uruguayos que no estaban circulando en el mercado. También fue periodista en Canal 5, directora de la Galería y Teatro del Notariado, trabajó en los Servicios Culturales de la Intendencia Municipal de Montevideo y, en 1975, fue designada responsable del área de Cultura de la Caja Notarial.³
La borrachera de esta vida / la borrachera de la otra / las largas borracheras de ambas vidas / qué corrientes tendrán con nombre propio / si en el medio tiempo de la historia / hay cegueras por cierto inaccesibles / sobre las mismas sombras / como en la suerte escritas.
«El pan de cada día» (1975)⁴
La poesía de Nancy expresa una intensidad contenida, sobria. No desborda, mantiene un equilibrio que la vuelve elegante. Ese cuidado en el lenguaje que no deja de transmitir emoción se observa también en la ubicación del texto poético en la página, en el gramaje y color del papel, en el formato del libro. Desde Tránsito de fuego (1954), su primer poemario, hasta Poemas a Manu Kamal (2003), la autora publicó un total de trece libros de poesía. Entre ellos, algunos títulos son: Cantares (1960), Razón de la existencia (1964), Las coplas de Nico Pérez (1978), Hay otros mundos pero vivo en este (1993).
La presencia de Nancy en este número de la revista en el que abordamos el trabajo se vincula principalmente con su labor de gestora y divulgadora de las artes con alcance popular. Y en un proyecto como el nuestro, que apunta decidido a la fusión del texto escrito comprometido y poético con la imagen fotográfica —diálogo complejo y delicado—, Nancy Bacelo sería modelo de versos en vena⁵. «El “caldo de cultura” que fue la Feria Nacional de Libros, Grabados, Dibujos y Artesanías no tiene otro registro similar en la historia del país. Tampoco hay que relegar a un segundo plano la actividad que desplegó desde el teatro y la galería del Notariado. Su claridad en que la difusión del libro y el autor nacional eran fundamentales, en gran medida, para saber quiénes somos, y el reconocimiento entre pares decisivo a la hora de la reflexión, también la llevó a ser de las primeras personas en este país en bogar por los derechos de autor como uno de los derechos humanos. La Fundación se constituye con el propósito de salvaguardar, en un país que no se caracteriza por reconocer y valorar a sus artistas, el inmenso patrimonio cultural que Nancy generó durante tantos años de trabajos arduos y felices»⁶, plantea la Fundación Nancy Bacelo en la presentación de su obra reunida.
Borra esa marca, bórrala / es de noche y aunque no se ve / se verá igual cuando enseguida aclare. / Tanta raya en las manos tanta búsqueda / tanto camino incierto y más que cierto. / Porque en el mundo se abren tantos ojos / así como se cierran otros tantos / la multiplicidad de la mirada vuelve/ al abrir y cerrar y eso es lo cierto.
«De sortilegios» (2002)⁷
_____________________
¹ Benavídez, Washington, Courtoisie, Rafael y Lago, Sylvia. Antología plural de la poesía uruguaya del siglo XX. Seix Barral, 1995. ²Bacelo, Nancy. «Los símbolos precisos». Ediciones Siete Poetas Hispanoamericanos, 1986. ³Academia Nacional de Letras. Nancy Bacelo. http://www.academiadeletras.gub.uy/innovaportal/v/126534/46/mecweb/Nancy_Bacelo ⁴Benavídez, Washington, Courtoisie, Rafael y Lago, Sylvia. Antología plural de la poesía uruguaya del siglo XX. Seix Barral, 1995. ⁵ «estar alguien en vena: estar inspirado para componer versos o para llevar a cabo alguna empresa» (recuperado de https://dle.rae.es/vena). ⁶ Fragmento de la Presentación en Bacelo, Nancy, “El velo magistral que esconde todo”, Edición de Silvia Guerra, Fundación Nancy Bacelo, Montevdieo, 2011 ⁷Bacelo, Nancy. De sortilegios, Ediciones Siete Poetas Hispanoamericanos, 2002.
The ages of Lilith
Text and photography by Virginia Mesías
I met Lilith twenty-five years ago during my first teaching practice; I had to prepare a class on the second account of creation in the Genesis of the Old Testament and a name appeared that I had never heard of; then I knew that another woman existed in that uncertain garden and that she was erased without even getting to taste the fruit; apparently the transgression was more original than the sin of knowledge. And yes, first there is the desire, the decision about the body and the need for a place, the clarity of the voice.
The Juan-Eduardo Cirlot dictionary presents it as:
Adam's first wife, according to Hebrew legend. Nocturnal specter, enemy of births and newborns. […] In the Israelite tradition it corresponds to the Lamia of the Greeks and Romans. Her figure may coincide with Brunilda, in the saga of the Nibelungs, as opposed to Crimilda (Eve). […] Lilith can emerge as a desired or previously forgotten lover… She has a certain viriloid aspect, like Hecate “accursed huntress”. The overcoming of this danger is symbolized in the labors of Hercules by the triumph over the Amazons.
It seems that it is always like this: we are ghosts walking in the dark, cursed women, terrible sorceresses until some self-confident superhuman hero eliminates us to save the world from our threat.
So when today I remember Lilith as the first woman, the oldest in our Western tradition, I go to the poetry collections and workshops of Lilián Toledo (Montevideo, 1959), poet and coordinator of creative spaces around the word and the body, published collective and individual works, trained in social psychology, is a member of the Latin American Political Psychology Collective and is a national reference for the Gender and Health Network of the Latin American Association of Social Medicine (alames). The Daughters of Lilith are called her writing and dialogue circles that I had the opportunity to visit on a Saturday in early March. Now, when I reread my notes, I find something that Lilián mentioned: «As long as there are words, there are directions» and «There is no word without a body». So I return to one of the experiences of that March morning: holding a small hand mirror, the participants began to walk looking at ourselves through that reflection and looking at the others through that mirror that, in turn, faced to others where we saw fragments of bodies like ours and thus, not only the word began to move, but also the feeling of strangeness when observing as if on the sly, without knowing when other faces were going to return our sight. Without a body, the word is not born. And without words memories are not built. We summon our words to recreate our bodies and rewrite memories”, says the author on her blog.
This is how Lilián provided me with the first collection of poems on the subject —Lilith and her presence in poetry, in our imaginary today—: Celebration of Lilith (Índigo Editoras, 2018). Then I continued towards later publications: After the beginning: Lilith and Adam (or vice versa) (Dragonas, 2020) and Memorias del Desierto (Astromulo, Camino Sinuoso collection, 2021). Although I recognize that it was the striking and very successful title of Beheaded Princes (Astromulo, Camino Sinuoso, 2020) that led me to meet Lilián Toledo.
In After the beginning… a reinterpretation of the links in that much-discussed origin is developed. In the first book that corresponds to Lilith, as well as the second book of Adam and the third in which Eve appears, the short texts, most of them without titles, follow one another on the pages, and the stanzas could be independent poems that are weave together in the discourse of an external voice that unfolds the mystery of the character, decisions and attitudes of those fragile and ancient creatures:
[…] therefore / in the beginning inventing rituals became a relief […] but that Adam / as immature as she was so disoriented / so fragile was afraid to give in / try / investigate (or he just didn't know what to say)
[…] they were just on the verge of inventing: the north still didn't make sense […] for the first and only time since her woman's voice that pierced the air: she asked for help/requested listening, she waited for a dialogue, only one order came: «get yourselves together you/ me about making love, I know nothing…”
In the introduction to Memorias del Desierto, Lilián states that the collection of poems: «Collects self-criticism, memories, reflections, rhythms and desires of a woman with her years and her learning on top. That's what it's about saying. [...] wants to make maturity visible as a new learning opportunity. Or so it tries." This is how Lilith returns with the passing of her centuries, with her maturity in "the exact measure of desire" (as a verse from the previous book proposes). Also with the burden and consequences of so much past time, as these fragments of poems vi and viii of the first part After exile say:
Hard to decide its color. sometimes it is sea red, other times mountain red. and at the nadir of the sun/ over the sea; the red one, the only one; It's me/ […] alone I continued/ red and lonely shadow in the night/ breeze in the wind and the years made my meager existence just a background on a figure.
When we talked to Lilián for this article, at one point I commented to her: «How terrible to have Lilith as a mother, how much would we pay after we were adults in therapy, better to be a niece, we would have less pressure, or a friend, surely a friend of Lilith would be very interesting, what that we could chat over a drink would be invaluable.” And so comes the intimate confession with which the pages of the desert close:
aged/maybe wise/
surely lonely
I don't even know if I'm still there/hidden
under smooth skins
that provoke me and move my nudity
made of pleats
and this desire/ (still)
old but true
sculpted red
in my memories
_____________________
¹Cirlot, Juan-Eduardo. Dictionary of symbols Colombia: Labor, 1994.
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Melisa Machado and eroticism as a ritual: that "dark fruit of things"
Text and photography by Virginia Mesías
Melisa Machado (Durazno, 1966) lives in Montevideo and is a writer, therapist (trained in Gestalt, astrology, traditional Chinese medicine) and also a visual arts journalist. His collections of poems, in chronological order, are: Ritual de las primicias (Imaginary, 1994); The mud of the lineage (Artefato, 2004); Rituals (Estuario, 2011) that gathers his poetry from the first book; The red song (Sediento, 2013) that is published in Mexico City; and his latest installment is India (Golden God, 2019). This year, Amanada Berenguer wins the editorial call to publish El canto blanco (last unpublished) which will be presented through Estuario-Hum and will bring together all his poetry since 2011: Canto rojo, Canto negro, two unpublished books that are Cantos al fauno and Río de la Plata, in turn, Madre (which won the National Award in 2019 and is still unpublished) and Canto blanco (independent book) plus a story, this is what Melisa explains to me when I try to organize myself in her prolific production.
He has received mentions and awards both in competitions from the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC) and the Municipality of Montevideo, as well as scholarships abroad and editorial funds and for trainers. In turn, he has carried out readings and performances at international festivals. I am all women is the project that he is currently developing in relation to various Uruguayan poets of the 20th century, which was declared of cultural interest by the MEC.
The first collection of poems, Ritual de las primicias, begins after Vicente Huidobro's epigraph, with a brief paragraph of poetic prose, an introductory text or "preamble" —as the author uses in the same text— that develops a rhythm of urgency, almost I drown in a succession of minimal sentences that do not begin with a capital letter and that could be distributed as free verses to inaugurate an erotic sensibility that, with a wise hand, will take us through these pages to the end, even to India. And that overflow of vocabulary —almost baroque— of a carnality that emerges from the paper, reminds me –perhaps because we always seek to identify the new with the already known- the texts also in poetic prose of Homage to Jean Genet by Suleika Ibáñez, another voice visceral and seductive. Then Melissa begins:
If it was toothed. fixed on the sheet. of the modesty of the tongue. of the sphincter. of the absorbed gaze. the imminence of danger. ridiculous fear of the belly. torn smell of lama. from the edge of the fingers. the smeared expectation of the eyes. the caress mild pain. heartbeat violet seduction. miraculous tremor of hoaxes. of the seldom used metal closure of sin. of before. of the preamble.
I could dwell on the first text, «Ardides», and on its two final lines that awaken the sense of hearing, touch, and taste at the same time: «Listen sipping / the impressive trepidation of your loves.» In turn, later on, I could stay with the rhythmic and tremulous brevity of the poem "Desliz" in a perhaps modernist key —because of a brilliant and convoluted vocabulary— where the color and thickness of the verses overflow:
It was quivering fanfare purring extravagance. There were festivals of shellfish, of bretel.
And I could continue with "Submissives" that unfolds secrets, remote covens that release sirens, perhaps charybdis, among whom are hidden deceptions and songs that travel through the dark sea, the deep sky, hushed, guarded, lurking songs: "And if perhaps they looked overboard / the foam drew murderous women». And they continue “Hydra”, “Medea”, “Lilith” to thus reach the homonymous poem of the book: “Like a lady with skinny legs / lost her virginity with the gladioli, / pistils of restless tongues, profaners of Mary the Virgin”. Sinuous and vegetal poetry that cautiously unfolds a strange and true eroticism.
I could go into the firsts, but I'm going towards the end, towards India, which was the first book by Melisa Machado that I read. It appears in the format and texture of Dios Dorado, a publishing house that those of us who frequent independent publishing fairs know so well. The cover image is striking: that hug, those feminine hands that take and caress a fish that looks at us and tries to say something. This is a detail from Love Bestiary by Virginia Patrone. In the plastic artist's blog, on November 22, 2008, several illustrations were published in which I think I recognize the figure of Melisa, they are for Bestiario de amor by Miguel Pacheco. Chanquete is called the one that is used as the cover of India and has a poem by Melisa, a friend of the visual artist since the 90s, as she tells me when I consult her.
The book is dedicated: «To my ancestors». Thus the ritual begins, the roots appear and carry us forward. After two epigraphs that will be taken up in the development of the collection of poems, the first text arrives, brief and firm, which concludes with a series of independent words like the verses themselves, the last one is forceful: dunghill, there I stop, it is the place where garbage is thrown away, it is also that which contaminates or infects materially or morally; I can't imagine a more engaging start. The third text concludes, in turn, with two verses between quotation marks: «I am the crazy one, / the luminous evergreen of fury and brilliance.» Not only is the musicality of the terms that are intertwined in their meaning present, but also the conceptual strength of sending brilliance and brilliance together (in poem xiv "my flashing hands" will open) with anger, dementia and rage.
Poem VIII spontaneously takes me to the first pages of The Naked Woman, a novel by Armonía Somers, published in 1950, another erotic and transgressive voice: «Together with the woman who lived outside her, and from whom Almost everything is always known. That night, before going to bed, as Rebeca Linke was a woman putting up with the other, the one outside, she fulfilled all the obligations of her half-hearted mating. Brushing her hair (the woman who lived outside had long black hair)…” And so I go from verse to prose: when Rebeca Linke begins to detach herself and transform into another, her long hair is an inevitable symbol of path that opens in the forest. And so says Melissa:
Then I let go of my hair so it would fly between things and my body. […] He reveals what I am, what I have been and want to be. It nests among the trees and flowers. […]
This fusion between hair, body, environment, nature and identity continues in the following poem when a return to oneself is manifested, a communion with one's own body in the individual ritual: «I return to my body, always. /To sit alone before his fire.»
There is a particular and significant moment in poem XII in which language manifests itself as a demiurge, with that intensity of poetry that sinks into the skin. The poem becomes presence, there is a fruit that is going to be transformed in the mouth of the one who says it and that fruit generates the line of sounds that marks the text and is confused with the land itself, with the body and the voice to conclude : «The vowel of the earth opens in my mouth.»
These images that represent that fusion of nature with poetic language and the lyrical voice are continued in the verses of poem XIII, when the field flooded by rain is sung and the water that circulates through the earth is drunk with one's own veins. Also this line can be continued in poem XIX:
Then the rain came for me, lightning like a mouth. He came for me and said, "Show yourself, too, with the thorns."
The following text could be a reading guide or perhaps another epigraph for the universe that unfolds in the pages of this book:
Earth my body: stubborn amphora. All purity as center. And the dark fruit of things.
The body and the earth, nature itself, the trees, the flowers, the fruits, the final fruit, the purest center, the soul and the ritual of the ancestors. A universe that is interwoven with a force that comes from within, that comes from before, inherited. A ceremony where the writing is the oracle itself and thus, word by word, through the verses that build a rhythm that emerges from a living, humid and throbbing nature, a body is revealed that in turn is transmuted by the power of the language.
There are several texts that conclude with an enumeration, a series of staggered, feverish, breathless terms that not only mark a rhythm but also display meanings that return us to nature: «Once again the tribe and its ways:/ the mob,/ the swamp,/ the embankment.” Doesn't that rhythm of ritual mantra return with the same intensity of these geographical spaces and these reactions of the sky and nature? And that ruminant, regressive circularity of the song that is reiterated as the title of the author's books (in white, black, red) and that is heard, low but constant, throughout the pages of India, becomes visible in text XXIX with the same enumeration, the same thread of verses that carry powerful terms such as the one that opens the collection of poems and concludes in the dunghill.
Already about the end of the collection of poems, the XXX text reveals secrets, rebirths, an original reality that expresses itself and fosters the ritual. Once again I feel that Armonía's nude woman reappears. And the hidden messages, the songs, the rhythms that have been pursued throughout the book are messages from a past that speak clearly to a woman or to a woman's body today and everything comes from the very land we walk on, our roots are there:
And the woman's head sprouts from the ground. His rush root, his dark circles. The secret of the murdered race.
There is another circularity, other ends that meet again with beginnings that turn to have their end in a new beginning, clearly the life cycle that is renewed: earth, hair, skin, tree, fruit, flowers, rain that falls on the earth. Text XXXII concludes with the verses that we already highlighted from poem III:
His hair fell for the lineage, for the eternal queen of fury and brilliance.
Bibliography
Machado, Melissa. Rituals. Montevideo: Estuary, 2011.
Machado, Melissa. India. Montevideo: Golden God, 2019.
Somers, Harmony. The naked woman. Montevideo: Creature, 2020.
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The female body: territory of metaphors
Text and photography by Virginia Mesías
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It is difficult to reflect on Uruguayan poetry written by women, with the presence of the body or the theme of eroticism sexuality, without beginning with the eternal Delmira Agustini (Montevideo, 1886-1914). Because, in addition to his passionate and unique imprint, the burden that Modernism meant in its literary moment, with sensory images and possible poetic figures in lyrical language to indicate the enjoyment or materiality of feelings, influenced his work of significant way. One of the most interesting poems in this aspect (and, perhaps, not so remembered) from Los cálices empty (1913) is «Visión»:
[…]
And my gaze was a snake
pointed between brambles of eyelashes,
to the reverent swan of your body.
And it was my wish a snake
Gliding between the crags of the shadow
to the statue of lilies of your body!
[…]
Resulta interesante que el deseo del yo femenino se manifiesta en la mirada, not from the body, but in the intention, in the woman's will, and there are brambles, there are thorns, erotic attraction is intertwined with pain —a very Western attitude, of course—, but perhaps it is not generated in the observer, but it is addressed to the other, to the addressee. In turn, it does not go unnoticed that the male body is drawn as a swan or a statue made of flowers, particularly lilies , which bring the symbolism of pure and virginal love. Here is a clue, an interesting thread to follow about a conception of female pleasure, not only voluptuous, but dominant, aggressive perhaps, and a masculine self that is graceful and beautiful. Of course, and without stopping at a detailed analysis of the text, it stands out that the you to whom this voice is addressed appears from the depths of the darkness, it is sinister, it has wings and it disappears almost immediately within it. night from which he arrived: "... that you drew back and wrapped yourself / in I don't know what immense fold of shadow!...". This darkness that surrounds desire reappears in another text of El rosario de Eros (1924), a posthumously published book that, according to the poet, would be called Los stars del abyss —the difference is not minor—. Thus, in "Shadow Accounts" it will say:
[…]
If like this in a bed like a flower of death,
we give crying, like a strong fruit
ripe with passion, in flesh and soul,
[…]
It is striking how the sexuality of a woman's voice appears centered in shadows and disturbing environments, for, at the same time, , describe the object of their desire with almost immaterial symbols or vaporous images; it is a kind of ideal or angelic being who cannot be seized or even touched, as is expressed in "The Gold Supplier" also from The Empty Chalices:
[…]
The ideal lover, the sculpted
in wonders of souls and bodies;
must be alive by dint of dreaming,
that blood and soul leaves me in dreams;
must be born to dazzle life,
and it must be a new god!
The blue snakes of his veins
they are miraculously nourished in my brain
[…]
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El amante deseado física, carnalmente: ¿es una invención? Is this poetry a rhetorical pose? It would seem not, according to the life and the end of the poet —because, for some artists, life and work are not far apart—. Or is it simply the possible way of expressing desire without effectively verbalizing it because of her position as a bourgeois woman in a morally provincial Montevideo? And let's not forget —to leave more questions— to “Fiera de amor”, the poem that continues in the book: “Fiera de amor, I suffer hunger for hearts./ For pigeons, vultures, Corsicans or lions”.
_cc781905-5cde-3194 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_Then, from the Generation of 900 I am heading towards the Generation of 45 without stopping to look, in this note, for the body in Juana de Ibarbourou, Esther de Cáceres, Selva Márquez, Sara de Ibáñez or Susana Soca, among many other writers that marked a course in the first half of the 20th century, to arrive directly at Clara Silva (Montevideo, 1905-1976).
En su primer libro de 1945, La cabellera oscura , ya en el The poem at the beginning entitled "El canto de la sangre" will say: "There begin the men of my blood/ and the women with their vast bellies,/ pillars of my shadow./ A Latin sea/ embraces my dark root./ Hills of olive groves they are remembered / in the tight curve of my body.” The woman and her body continue in a metaphorical and, in general, passive, aesthetic link (clearly inherited from the masculine vision that dominated the history of Western literature) with nature and the earth, although in these verses a force begins to awaken that It precisely comes from a very personal, physical interior, from the very blood of the title.
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Más adelante, en « A child is born in your song", he will express: "Cry of love growing/ in the submissive tearing of the flesh;/ tender and very sweet grape/ pressed to the cluster of your belly,/ the flow of your open veins/ towards him comes singing. » There is an emotional development and an intensity in the expressive voice that reaches a different plane of sensuality that is no longer the abundant load of images that Delmira displayed, but rather approaches a more real recognition of the body, mundane, not frivolous, rather material.
Pero será en su poemario of 1960 entitled Las bodas , a kind of modern and feminine song of songs , in which a determined and deliberate voice, very aware of its character, speaks to a divinity who is not given the possibility of an answer, for example in « I ask you, Lord»:
…
I am what I am
myself
the same
with this daily death
and the sad experience
What do I keep in the drawers?
like letters;
with my hair, my tongue, my roots
and the scandal that I make with your name
to hear me
[…]
_cc781905-5cde-3194 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_Y in another text of the same book, «From the dark»:
[…]
I want to breathe
simply
the air of the world,
forget that confusing account
and without end
guilt, forgiveness, remorse,
or something similar
that corrodes my weakness.
[…]
They are not women's cries
or garden confidences.
It is the blood, the flesh, the bones that you have given me,
these, from the origin;
that I have no place to locate myself,
eyelids, feet and hands
bitter with misery,
of fatigue.
[…]
Y ahora continúo, sin detenerme en Idea Vilariño, Gladys Castelvecchi, Ida Vitale or Amanda Berenguer —who has a very particular poem, “Del cuerpo” (1990) about flies and the house as a body— to give a place to Zuleika Ibáñez (Montevideo, 1929-2013). His first book, Homage to Jean Genet (1989) brings us a text about love:
The love of love kissed your ears, eyes and mouth,
rough love, in mourning, love a nest net weight, of
ingots of oblivion
[…]
Sometimes a blue wolf's mouth, with the diamond on the
death as a piece of laughter.
[…]
Lips of dark silver, eyes of obscene fire would have wounds like schools or dispensaries in the
dark City.
Sex no longer sex, just bread and wine, just a feather
clarity in the center of death,
and a bouquet of lovers from destruction was the
wall of your resurrection.
Esta poeta ya conoce bien la influence of the artistic avant-garde and has also received in her training (literature teacher, daughter of Sara de Ibáñez) Uruguayan and Latin American poetry, of course, of more than half a century. Thus, he begins to find other forms not only in the structure of the text, but in the turns of the language itself, as well as in the strength of the metaphors necessary to point to desire, to the vertiginous and forceful feeling, to the presence of the body with its closest reality. This is a poem-text-prose that achieves a marked and sustained lyrical rhythm while developing the chaos of love and the fluidity of emotion that is released in an almost dreamlike plane. And in Experiences with Angels and Demons (1994) a resounding text of inescapable poetic urgency stands out:
I celebrate the female blood red. Red mouth with rouge
to kill the cautious and be killed by the unwary.
Blood defoliating the stigma of the hymen, ruby red
dark to eat you better, wolf,
to leave lip prints on your bones,
and ruin the life of the religious police.
[…]
I celebrate the female blood red traffic light to cross
defying death.
[…]
The red vice that will never be able to with the arsenal of red
sleep.
El ritmo es perfecto de acuerdo to the meaning and semantic load of what is expressed and to the chosen vocabulary; With a sure hand, he precisely challenges the resistance of the reader against an avalanche of images-bullets that do not stop like the breathing of a corridor whose goal is the explosion of the very conception of the poem. Highly visual and instinctive poetry, which vibrates as that color that envelops the feminine opens, like the taciturn shadows of the angel of Delmira's vision.
Y, quizás, una forma indiscutible de concluir esta nota es entrar, perhaps to stay, in the universe of wonder —but uncertain and disturbing— of the texts also in poetic prose by one of the most original and extravagant writers of our second half of the 20th century: Marosa di Giorgio. In her, in her verses recited in performances, desire and the body merge into nature and miracle, into mythical beasts and returning spirits. From the book Smoke (1955) is this fifth text:
Leave your region among wild beasts and lilies. And come to me tonight oh my darling, syrup freak, tulip groom, sweet leaf killer. Thus, that night I cried out for him, from doorway to doorway, next to the bone-pale wall, all filled with an iridescent fear and a dark love. […] You have made me uselessly imagine your sandalwood pith, your heart of fire. […] That's how I lied, embracing her golden hair, her terrible honey. He spoke an almost intelligible language, but a ravenous dew, a leprosy of flowers finished his face. […] I told him that I was going to keep it, that I was going to kiss it, that I was going to keep his heart among pineapples and liquors and medals. […] I started to kill him. Because don't say my love to anyone to open the petals of his chest, to take out his heart. He leaned on my arm, the syrup on his fingers throbbing madly. He started to die. Near the forest began to die. […] I was crying desperately. I wanted to gather the petals, rebuild the honey, get him out of death, win him forever, that this poem would have no end.
Bibliography
Agustin, Delmira. Poetry. Selection, foreword and notes by Carina Blixen. Montevideo: Blackboard Editions, 2000.
Benavidez, Washington et. to the. Plural anthology of Uruguayan poetry of the 20th century. Montevideo: Seix Barral, 1995.
DiGiorgio, Marosa. Wild Papers. Montevideo: Arca, 2006.
Paternain, Alexander. 36 years of Uruguayan poetry. Montevideo: Editorial Alpha, 1967.
Silva, Clara. The dark hair. Buenos Aires: Editorial Nova, 1945.
Silva, Clara. The weddings. Montevideo: Athena Editions, 1960.
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life signed
Text and photography by Virginia Mesías
Desviaciones (Fish on ice, 2020), the second collection of poems by Diego Presa, was born in December 2020, on December 8, when they were suspended, by the death of Tabaré Vázquez, his concerts at the Solís theater. Poetry book that appears at the end of 2020, the year of the pandemic, quarantine, confinement and fear. The person in charge is an independent publishing house, which takes its books by bicycle to the house of its readers when necessary; although there are already several bookstores that are open to the circuit of the Sancocho collective, which continues to expand spaces in our midst. Why the choice of Fish in the ice to publish their verses? Because it is about that border, that limit between the amateur and the professional that, precisely, is a line that interests him, says the author.
On the cover of the book, the data presented is about his work as a musician and that information is written by himself, but why talk about music? if now the attention is on the writing?: «It is what I have to say», he explains to me. Diego Presa is a member of Buceo Invisible, he has his solo career, and also this year, an album with Julieta Díaz, El setback of the shadow . It is undeniable —he answers me—, that the public of the stages may follow him to the pages of the book. Hence a difference that interests me, between the lyrics of a song and the poem: when does the creator know that the verses are born towards music or towards paper? It makes clear to me that these poems would have ended in songs if they were; for example, the lyrics of a song could work on paper, in the case of holding up without us knowing the music.
Then, I stop at some texts that are closer to prose and that, I feel, do not work with the rhythm of poetry, think about it, open the possibility and comments reflecting that they would have been written or resonated in another way if he thought of them as prose. The cover art is by Sebastián Santana with whom Diego works for his album covers; in fact, he prefers the possibility of not controlling everything, leaving a space where the other, in this case the photographer, can intervene. He was interested, this time, in a photographic image, it is a montage that he feels throbbing, alive.
His first book, From the womb of sadness , was an initiatory work, which sought to settle some childhood accounts and he does not feel that this second collection of poems is a continuity. I ask if he considers himself a poet and he laughs: poetry is a trade, he tells me, the poet has life marked by it, it is a way of being in the world. He adds that his poetic training has to do with song writers, with the images they create, with the very pulse of the song. The poets he chooses are Bukowski and Bolaño, for example. And the name that stands out without a doubt is Daurnachans.
So: what is the detour? It is that of music towards written poetry (let's not forget that Buceo recitals include reading of poetic texts on the same stage as musical instruments). Is the deviation thematic, is it the texts themselves? Because the term implies "the lateral separation of a body from its median position." What is the poetic medium? Where is the body located? Is it the diversion of bodies from the stage to the table where you write? I think. Perhaps —he says— it has to do with other voices, other ways of saying things, with areas of writing, with decisions.
The idea of sections arises from the desire to order or make reading more accessible, more fluid for those who are not used to reading poetry. The first is called "First Light." What would? The one at dawn, the one at dawn? Let's not lose, then, a line from the first poem, Witness , which says: "... through the veins of the end of the night..." and, later, in Seeing the sun rise like a blind man , reference is made to "... the last animal of the night / the fracture of the still dark sky…». Perhaps there is something hidden, perhaps a limit that the reader will or will not find. There are images that are very well achieved on a poetic level and that, in some way, I feel, take us to the universe of music: "... if I could find my hands / to open this rain and reach you ..." from El cielo no ser más más . such a sad place . And the last two verses of Witness express: «... last witness / of the beauty of the world...» and for this: what goes away in the night?, what is lost?, what cannot we rescue?
The second section is called «Investigations» and my questions return: will they be formal, will they be about language, about the expressive content displayed on the page? What does this voice investigate? The appearance of the unexpected, of desire and of the body is interesting, particularly in August :
Unexpected things always happen in this room.
When love looks like summed up water
mute desire arises
the cool rain
the meeting of your body and mine.
[…]
In this same section, the fourth poem bears a date as its title, as happens with all the other texts, (10/8) , displays a significant series of rhetorical questions that are staggered in perfectly rhythmic and poetic verses. Questions that some intentional reader can later find answers in the last text of the book, This house.
Was this house a mistake
stranded in the fury of the river?
would it have been the end
or the only miracle?
[…]
Is this a heartbreak book? The author is surprised and spontaneously answers no. Of course, it gravitates over all lyrics, the intervention, sometimes arbitrary, of the reader who answers only his own questions. But, on the other hand, throughout the collection of poems, it is possible to perceive the relevance of light, for example: "... your body against light is indestructible...", from the seventh poem (14/8) . I ask him about the meaning of light in the collection of poems: that it is related to the passage of time, with that material that is present at the beginning of the things he writes, the search for a meaning to what is perceived, the reflection , creating an atmosphere.
"Fires" is the third part, the most cryptic, the most symbolic, the most poetic: fire that purifies, destroys or simply burns. The first text says: "... the deer flies on the felled mountain...", and what is the deer, what symbol, what image, what reference? The deer II is a short and firm poem, almost sentence: deer, stone, silence, body.
[…]
the deer is a stone in your silence
unique polished
untouched
It's the only thing I hope
of your body.
"New investigations" is the fourth moment of the book. Will they be new compared to the previous ones? Then comes «Rosa deformed», fifth stage: «... like a moon that is born extended / like a cable for the dreams of birds...». There is a rhythm achieved, also anaphoric, in I take each sound , perhaps it is a poem that walks towards the song.
[…]
but the skin waits
the new skin hurts
the touch of your voice
the touch of my three moons
the air of september
[…]
because nothing is lost
nothing is in vain
nor the stones of your name
nor the plastic soles
nor withered numbers
[…]
The penultimate section is called «Deposits», perhaps the fossil remains of what has been said so far, of the discourse itself; This is how "the dark oak door (which) gave way to the sacred" appears. Dream worlds full of suggestive images are also present: «... death disguised/ as a wolf and a girl who ran...» and others, «... there were no jasmines and lips of my blood/ only the same voice/ repeating that I was leaving. everything/ that I was out of everything…». The end of the book comes with the seventh section, «Your body is my only home», and, perhaps, with «the defeat of the shadow» —name of the first text—. There is a poem that inevitably captures attention because of its title, Mystical Deviations , and because it establishes a connection with the beginning, apparent or true circularities:
I breathe again.
again it is given to me
perceive
the beauty of the world.
And so we return to the first poem of the book, which concluded with: "... our fear / the car trotting / through the veins the end of the night / being the last witness / of the beauty of the world." The same verse begins the collection of poems and reappears towards the end, and the last text, This house , is, as we mentioned before, the possibility of answers to the questions of the fourth poem of «Investigations»:
[…]
many years have passed
the wind knocked down a tree
the walls aged
[…]
It's also true
that love was inhabiting us
as concrete as lightning
that right now
cross the room.
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This life of poetry
Text and photography by Virginia Mesías
A woman/ says goodbye table tablecloth wine/ by means/
of what could have been/he knows/that he doesn't feel like it anymore/
of the absurd.
"The precise symbols" by Nancy Bacelo
He doesn't love me, he doesn't love me, he doesn't love me, no and they don't seem to say some stubborn and haughty margaritas lately. But luckily, for adverse circumstances there is writing, there are verses, images and their creative power, or not.
I meet Nancy Ghan very early one Tuesday morning in a Café; arrive punctual, agile and smiling. I bring him a photo-postcard as a gift and I ask him if he knows… (the photographer, I was going to tell him) and he answers spontaneously: “Who should I send it to?! Yes!" Nancy brings her themes with her. I imagine that he comes to answer me about what I advanced: the structure of his book Biology , its sections, why write love poetry today, I ask him about desire, and about its shadows, of course, about contradiction. Because in Literary Theory I, Professor Jorge Medina Vidal told us that in Literature love is given by contradiction and that the best marriage bed for love, in Poetry, is death. But what to do with the other when he's still alive, why not finish him too, or maybe summon him, one of two, or both, who knows.
Nancy has a degree in Biochemistry and in Clinical Laboratory from the Faculty of Sciences and the Faculty of Medicine respectively specialty is molecular diagnosis in human health; He has a postgraduate degree in Biotechnology, Industry and Business; He also specialized in Intellectual Property. She participated in the project "I want to be a scientist", developed by OWSD Uruguay with the support of the United States Embassy for scientific vocations in Uruguayan women between 16 and 18 years old. It also participates in contests that deal with disseminating science through poetry, the last one was in Mexico; they are generally open, carried out by scientific organizations (for example, the Institute of Neuroscience in the Netherlands), or by others especially focused on bringing science to the general public. I take notes and think: What is the place of women today in science? What is the place of women today in poetry? And in love? What is the place of women today? Point.
In one of these poetry and science contests, Nancy focused on our visual process from a lyrical we see what is really there, we contrast it with what we know, with our previous experiences that influence perception”, he tells me. And there he explained to me about the thalamus (poetic and romantic word if there is one), nuclei located in the brain, through which the signals pass that finally become an image. Signs, poetic terms, images, let's then enter Biology (Rumbo, 2021) because already in its Preamble called Elementary Notions the author will say:
I write what I know.
(…)
I write what I understand.
(…)
I write about what I love and what I hate.
(…)
I write what I want to say loudly...
So what does he know, what does he understand, what does this voice love, what does it have to tell us, to shout. Why publish a book of poetry at this time? I ask him: “Because I turned 40, my first collection of poems was from 2019, it has not been published yet”; the decades, the time, the processes of life and creation, our adulthood, I think. And this collection of poems, I imagine, will deal (as defined by the Rae) with living beings, their structure and functioning, their evolution, distribution and relationships; They are not minor issues! And it's interesting how a disclaimer arrives already in the third text, Disclaimer : but who gets rid of the answers he should give? the other? the deliberate voice itself?
if you come looking for me
be careful
…
Tired of misunderstandings
We put an electric gate.
In the second part of the book called Food , I wonder if we actually devour the other (I return to that poetic key of Eros and Thanatos united by opposition) or is it just a reflection, a protective instinct for survival, or is it about assimilating it in a process of nutrition, for example in Blessing of food : I give myself/ to the heretic the pleasure of drinking/ your body . "Animals seek effectiveness in the couple" comments Nancy; So: why not us? There are several questions that add up and perhaps it is better to leave the answers for the end, or not. the table (do we devour it or serve it?) and in this section there are meats, spices, aromas, textures, saliva, howls… perhaps the union goes the other way. In the poem called La orality , enjoyment is expressed, the pleasure that mixes with physical sensations and corporality: The intrusive tongue worked wonders./ …/ While/ my eyes closed/ went inward. Let's not lose sight of the search for oneself, individual pleasure when Chimerisms begins with a finger of fire , strategic, significant that makes one think of one's own taste, of self-satisfaction because it makes its way between my legs but then a you appears: Yours It's the core, mine is the cover. Is there always another? or not always? Pleasure: is it with the other? Where is the feminine desire located? Do we still wish from a you ? From the meeting? And how skillful is that you to desire us?
When we get to “Physiology and pathology”, third section, we find an epigraph by Lina Meruane (Santiago de Chile, 1970) that can make us think precisely of the solitary desire, of pleasure without the other (when that longed-for you is presented as absence ), or simply in jouissance without a necessary love story: Inflammatio. inflame. On fire. Ardor without romance. In a Moebius fragment, an apprenticeship appears, the experience that leads the poetic voice to transform, harden perhaps, and locate itself in another place:
I learned and became an expert
in sophisticated art
not to expect anything.
…
Because the first heat on the skin
heralds a leaden gray winter
I became a master of the barks
and waterproof skins.
But if everything happens again and in the same way, why then do we reoffend? Why then do we write for those who don't read us? "Because we write for ourselves but then we have the decision to find the other ahead of us," the poet explains to me. In "Physiology" we trust in instinct to conclude that "no one reaches anything alone / much less love." So it turns to the relevance of the encounter even though, in some cases, it is adverse, fatal, painful. 22 poems says:
And it rains.
and I wrote to him
twenty two
fucking
poems
that you didn't read
that you won't read
Natural selection and other evolutionary theories is the fourth and last part in which the author takes risks in Nemesis : I want to be one of those who pass by/stop for a brief moment/remain untouched. And he dares with the unspeakable in Our when he sets cribs on fire: I'm going to give birth/ although it's dark outside , a poem that reminds us of a verse, mother's lust , from the beginning of the book. And, in turn, it becomes invincible in biological adaptations : I break/ and rearm/ in the blink of an eye. And speaking of female power, at the end of our conversation, she tells me about a new poetic project, a poem focused on female breasts and their link with the world: “in them are the most exposed receptors linked to sexual pleasure that we have, sensitive and powerful, and in the life of a woman they suddenly appear, they burst in”; maybe there is the beginning of a new book, who knows. For this reason, to know, what better than to close with a "Manifesto":
I'm going out dressed crazy
courtesan, abortionist
witch, in love
of everything you fear.
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This life of poetry
By: Virginia Messiah
Dice el autor en alguna página de Parte del relámpago , última obra publicada de Jairo Rojas Rojas, Venezuelan poet (Mérida, 1980) with several years of poetic life in Montevideo. History of Art (Universidad de los Andes), Dios Dorado (independent publisher), La casa immaterial (action of music and poetry) and a vast knowledge of Latin American Literature, are some stations of Jairo's intellectual and artistic work. The Sinuous Path Collection (by Astromulo , a publishing house that is part of the Sancocho collective) brings together with its name, perhaps without knowing it, an intuitive thread that weaves together the moments of this unique and extended poem in rhythms and images, moments of a journey through mountains and rivers, relatives and ghosts, memories and presents, absences and prayers that summon the intimate space of silence and music, of the search for oneself and for the other who is never a stranger:
I write because I ask myself again:
who I am? what I do here?
my life was beautiful because it was contradictory
and because I lost everything
to see me alone in front
to the impact of the waves
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Jairo Rojas Rojas / Photo: Virginia Mesías
Así, en abril de este año, llega un libro difícil de abarcar o contain in a few lines of critical prose. Because “I am haunted by mirrors everywhere” says Rafael José Muñoz in one of the epigraphs that open the march of Parte del relámpago . A sharp and lucid march, which we could feel began already in Lunatic Walk and its three sections of verses that we hear sound from a barely drawn geography but recognizable as ours, close. Lunatic march that dialogues until today with so many inhabitants of this world and the other, of our crushed continent that does not shut up and finds in poetry a valid and deep commitment:
_cc781905-5cde-3194 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905 -5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5cde-3194- bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ There is a wind that writes/ too
Sobre las ruinas de una ciudad andina, _cc781905-5cde-3194- bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ facing the wounded river,
or behind, or above, it will not be known. And his voice makes circles upon circles
on the oldest and lonely roads
para que alguien se detenga like an astro
that looks at the eyes of the walker and his lunatic walk,
_cc781905-5cde-3194 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905 -5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5cde-3194- bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905- 5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b- 136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5cde- 3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5cde-3194 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905 -5cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ _cc781905-5 cde-3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ what of this world is not?
It is the wind that writes
on the bodies
accompanied
of silence
(excerpt from Lunatic Walk, third section of the homonymous book)
Photo: Virginia Messiah
Los cuerpos son inevitables como los ríos que nos llevan, como la cordillera invisible or lost, like the earth that hides us and then sprouts from the silence of a thunderous nature. Because this life of poetry summons and continues to cry softly and sustained now from this new impossible title, very vivid and instantaneous, fire or radiance made into a book in parts that is traversed by a voice that travels and, of course, searches. Perhaps look for that part of light, of presence that is missing (a difficult task to interpret from an area outside this time of memory).
of my past with which he hit me in the forehead?
Of my destiny that involves digging up the sneaky yesterday?
but now i'm everywhere
my footprints first marked the sky
all the suns inside of me
the empty world is filled inside the dark chamber of my heart
so I wrote to leave the land that burns
And this pilgrim lightning, from its own intensity, perhaps builds the newly discovered and necessary bridge to a newly discovered homeland created and personal that unfolds in a poetic discourse that integrates us into a shared past, into a homeland that is also a symbolic territory, beyond political boundaries, beyond languages and habits, it is verse and song, portrait and body, map , way and agreement. How else could it be?
everything goes to the first parents
Thank you
this time you won't say goodbye
this time you won't throw my body into the afternoon sun
with rage
because we join our skulls without fear
and I felt peace in today's sunset
I found myself there to find you
.jpg)
Photo: Virginia Messiah