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1
Of how Aleks left his homeland to reunite with his brothers
Some men have the same face since they are born, except for a few little details here and there, a moustache, the gray hair, a random scar… the semblance of old souls is imprinted on them. They just die older and their soul keeps migrating from body to body in their search for eternity, for the union with the Cosmic Mind.
Such is the case of Aleks. Take away the thick moustache and the strands of gray hair on the sides of his head and you find the same air of defeat, the same longing for a state of being not achieved, the same anxiousness for searching. They are all present in his first photograph at age five, in 1877 after a labor day in the family farm in the village of Drenova in southeastern Albania, as in this other one dated 1947, a few months before his death in Bucharest, Hungary.
If one characteristic he must be remembered by, it should his curiosity for knowing his roots, his mad love for his country -no, not Albania as the Westerners and Soviets had renamed it, but Shquipëria, as it is called by the nationals in the ancient language of Illyrian. “Shquipëria, Shquipëria”, he repeats with languor like a mantra as if holding to the last vestige of a culture that survived the Greek, Roman, Slavic and Turk invasions.
“How was my mother?” he asked his father at age ten while helping his father toll the field with an oxen. “She was like autumn leaves chased by the wind, like a passing moment that escapes us, or a summer night’s dream that veils its trace”. He never asked again. Not to his father, who grew ill day by day, or his two older brothers who had left to Hungary earlier the same year in search of a better life. “Why did my brothers leave?” he asked candidly his father. “They grew tired of my melancholy and so will you, if I don’t beat you to it”. This last part was more a mumbling than a response, and less a thought than a menace. The sun shone hard on the squalid soil, away from the gentle breezes of the Adriatic. Two shepherds hushed in the distance to a large flock of goats. The ruins of a Roman castle where his brothers used to spook him watched from a nearby hill. Ideas boiled in Alek’s mind.
Later in his room he repeated in the language he had learned in elementary school: “”. Was it then when he decided to be a poet?These very same lines are found in his poem “Forgotten Memories” contained in his third and last book Psallme Murgu (Psalms of a Monk) published in Bucharest in 1930. In one of his diaries he wrote: “Maybe one does not decide to be a poet, one is chosen by the Muses, one is entrapped, incarcerated, and raped by them. They never let go of you. You do not want to leave”.
The day he found his father hanging from the high beam in the living room, he did not blink or cry. He readied himself to attend school like always. He presented and successfully passed his oral exams. He met with the Headmaster and explained he would not be attending high school after all. “I have to leave the country. My brothers need me”. “How about your father?” Mr. Noli inquired. “Not him, he does not need me. He has all he needs and is where he wants to be”. He walked back home at 3:00 PM. On returning to the house he did not look at the corpse. He went to his room, packed a few belongings on a small valise and took his diary under the arm. He went then to the living room and said “You beat me to it”. He then left the house and started his trip to Bucharest, in search of his brothers. He was thirteen years old.
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
The gloved hands
2
The gloved hands
“Truth is what is real to me”, whispered the voice in the penumbra. But wait, look down, a gloved hand is also writing the same phrase on a white piece of paper. We can fairly conclude that the voice and the hand belong to the same body, to the same brain. It is the same mind directing the act of writing, the symbol of language, herein written, not spoken.
The hand is using a fountain pen made of black lacquer. The ink flows rich and dark blue on the rugged surface of a paper that seems to be handmade, with one of those kits you can buy in a neighborhood store like Target or an on-line website like Arnold Grummer’s. We infer this because of its rustic texture and odd mix of several hues of white and fibrous appearance. The rasping of the metal tip on the paper surface resonates in the stillness of this moment. This is a left hand writing so the tip stays away and from the humid letters, not cursive letters but block letters, as to not blotch the phrase. The right hand, also wearing the same black leather glove, holds down the paper to assist in the writing.
Now they fold the paper, it is a note written at the center of an 8 inch by 5 inch piece of paper. They fold it, the hands, that is and now they move away. We catch a glimpse of an old dark oak desk the person was sitting at. We still don’t have enough light or a reflecting surface, like a mirror or a window pane, to make who this person is. We just see the gloves and a long black coat moving through the shadows.
The person stops in front of an open box. It is one of those brown boxes with a lid that you use to place your meager belongings when you quit a job or are fired. But instead of some dear files, personal books, the quasi dead orchid your other half gave you, or the photograph of rigor, this box in particular contains… books? No, not books, journals. Yes, journals like those a teenager or an amateur writer acquires at Barnes & Noble or Borders. Or better yet at Michael’s when they are on sale at 99 cent apiece. These are not the famous Moleskine, nevertheless, the ones that advertise “culture, imagination, memory, travel, personal identity” and claim these are the same used by van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway and Chatwin, as if using them will make you a better writer or a writer at all. The journals in this box look different. They are not black. They display different covers. One has a Doric capital in sepia with the words Kirche zu Constantinopel (nacht Salzen.., another has a series of fountain pens of all types and colors sitting atop postcards with post stamps from different countries, France, Luxembourg, Bettlembourg, Munsing, etc. Another one has a map of the world and the date 1752 at the bottom. This is all we can see when the hands open the flaps of the box and place the note inside.
The person folds the flaps, tapes them and places a glued white 4 inch by 6 inch card on top that reads “HORACIO P. 1234 MOLERA DRIVE, AUSTIN TX 76108”. The person then turns in the shadows and we see another person standing close by. Again, because of the lack of light we only see a gray dress shirt with black buttons. This person moves away along with the one with the gloved hands, and we see a room. It is a bedroom, a bed, undone, in disarray. Someone is in there… dead? Sleeping? We can’t say for sure. We hear a door slam. A lock click. Then, silence. We move closer to the bed, are those blood stains? We can’t tell for sure. We must end this chapter and move on in search of the truth.
The gloved hands
“Truth is what is real to me”, whispered the voice in the penumbra. But wait, look down, a gloved hand is also writing the same phrase on a white piece of paper. We can fairly conclude that the voice and the hand belong to the same body, to the same brain. It is the same mind directing the act of writing, the symbol of language, herein written, not spoken.
The hand is using a fountain pen made of black lacquer. The ink flows rich and dark blue on the rugged surface of a paper that seems to be handmade, with one of those kits you can buy in a neighborhood store like Target or an on-line website like Arnold Grummer’s. We infer this because of its rustic texture and odd mix of several hues of white and fibrous appearance. The rasping of the metal tip on the paper surface resonates in the stillness of this moment. This is a left hand writing so the tip stays away and from the humid letters, not cursive letters but block letters, as to not blotch the phrase. The right hand, also wearing the same black leather glove, holds down the paper to assist in the writing.
Now they fold the paper, it is a note written at the center of an 8 inch by 5 inch piece of paper. They fold it, the hands, that is and now they move away. We catch a glimpse of an old dark oak desk the person was sitting at. We still don’t have enough light or a reflecting surface, like a mirror or a window pane, to make who this person is. We just see the gloves and a long black coat moving through the shadows.
The person stops in front of an open box. It is one of those brown boxes with a lid that you use to place your meager belongings when you quit a job or are fired. But instead of some dear files, personal books, the quasi dead orchid your other half gave you, or the photograph of rigor, this box in particular contains… books? No, not books, journals. Yes, journals like those a teenager or an amateur writer acquires at Barnes & Noble or Borders. Or better yet at Michael’s when they are on sale at 99 cent apiece. These are not the famous Moleskine, nevertheless, the ones that advertise “culture, imagination, memory, travel, personal identity” and claim these are the same used by van Gogh, Picasso, Hemingway and Chatwin, as if using them will make you a better writer or a writer at all. The journals in this box look different. They are not black. They display different covers. One has a Doric capital in sepia with the words Kirche zu Constantinopel (nacht Salzen.., another has a series of fountain pens of all types and colors sitting atop postcards with post stamps from different countries, France, Luxembourg, Bettlembourg, Munsing, etc. Another one has a map of the world and the date 1752 at the bottom. This is all we can see when the hands open the flaps of the box and place the note inside.
The person folds the flaps, tapes them and places a glued white 4 inch by 6 inch card on top that reads “HORACIO P. 1234 MOLERA DRIVE, AUSTIN TX 76108”. The person then turns in the shadows and we see another person standing close by. Again, because of the lack of light we only see a gray dress shirt with black buttons. This person moves away along with the one with the gloved hands, and we see a room. It is a bedroom, a bed, undone, in disarray. Someone is in there… dead? Sleeping? We can’t say for sure. We hear a door slam. A lock click. Then, silence. We move closer to the bed, are those blood stains? We can’t tell for sure. We must end this chapter and move on in search of the truth.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
When Mr. Pirzada came to dine
Jhumpa Lahiri’s “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”: The Process of Setting and Character Arc
In her short story, “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”, Juhmpa Lahiri uses three techniques: i) time linearity, ii) settings contrast, and iii) a reminiscing point of view, to illustrate three changes (arc) in the story’s main character and narrator: i) socio-political awareness, ii) compassion wakefulness, and iii) identity discovery.
Since the beginning the first person narrator situates the reader “In the Autumn of 1971”. The narrator, Lilia, a 10-year-old child at the time, reminisces years later (we don’t know exactly when) on the events and dates and relates her perceptions of Mr. Pirzada’s predicament and her own realization on several subjects. This indicates that her awareness, wakefulness, and discovery was completed only years later. The technique of process is manifested by the constant reminders from the narrator of the dates of when things occurred: March of 1971. Dacca is invaded by West Pakistan and horrible things happen to its population, which awakens Lilia to socio-political themes. She also sees her parents looking for surnames similar to theirs in the university directory to invite the person to dine, in this year, Mr. Pirzada. Autumn of 1971. Pakistan is engaged in civil war. Lilia’s parents complain that in the US at large and Boston in particular, there is no mustard oil in the supermarket, physicians make no house calls, and neighbors make no visits un-announced, as it happens in India.
End of Summer 1971. The death toll mounts to 300,000 and, after several visits, Lilia learns that Mr. Pirzada is a regular at dinner time, asking her mother for a fourth glass for “the Indian man”, who is visiting Boston on a grant. Her father gives Lilia a geo-political lesson on India, Pakistan, and the new republic to come, Bangladhesh, explaining about the Partition by the British and the separation based on religion (Muslim and Hindu). Lilia becomes aware of the contrast between the perils taking place thousands of miles away and the safety she enjoys at home, the ignorance of the ongoing war at her school (“no one in school talked about the war”). She becomes aware of the cultural affinities between her family and Mr. Pirzada (the separation “made no sense” to her), and her nous of compassion flourishes (“I had never prayed for anything before”, “above all I wanted to console Mr. Pirzada”). The visitor becomes the embodiment of the suffering of many families. She probably projects her own image into that of the visitor’s daughters and the image of her father into that of Mr. Pirzada. Lilia also acquires a deeper sense of identity by hearing her parents and the visitor comment –rather sarcastically- on the local customs (“what is this thank you?”, “figure out what made him different”, and “the peculiar eating habits”).
In October Lilia becomes aware of the temporariness of US news media (“more and more rare to see any footage from Dacca”), the structure of international politics (USSR versus the USA), the perils of war versus the safety of home, and continues her own identity definition process, when Mr. Pirzada questions about “large orange vegetables”. Her sense of community is heightened when the sit at the table “for the first time” and her self-definition is expressed, I think, when she compromises a frown or a smile with a non-expression face on the pumpkin. This non expression could also mean that even though this is a time of celebration (within the scare) there should not be much celebration in the face of the war and Mr. Pirzada’s suffering. The 12 days of the war after December 4 are spent in Lilia’s house with no TV, customary candy or large meals with Mr. Pirzada staying in “sharing a single meal, a single body, a single silence, and a single fear”. Finally in January 72 the war is over and Mr. Pirzada goes back to Dacca. Only several months later Lilia and her parent receive a post card from Mr. Pirzada celebrating the Muslim New Year and communicating that his family spent the war safe in the mountains of Shillong. They are reunited.
Lilia’s arc was probably completed only several years later, when the narrator writes the story, but the continued setting contrasts of war in Pakistan versus safety in the USA, the simple geo-political lessons at school versus the live TV news and conversations at home, and the home environment versus the outer relationships, brought Lilia through a coming of age process a=that is well narrated and depicted in a clear timeline in this story.
See Appendix 1 for a depiction of the above analysis in chart form.
APPENDIX 1: CHART FORM ANALYSIS OF THE PROCESS OF SETTING AND CHARACTER ARC
time socio-political compassion identity
March of 1971 Dacca invaded (only flashback) torching, shelling, shooting, rape.
vs
Boston folliage parents looking for Indian surnames in university directory
Autum 1971 Pakistan engaged in civil war no mustard oil, no house calls, no neighbor visits
End of Summer 1971 300,000 deaths Mr. Pirzada family left behind
End of September 1947 Partition by Britain based on religion Hindus and Muslims.
Vs
safe and easy life and opportunity in US. , but no knowledge of world affairs.
US education
vs
no knowledge of world affairs: every year the revolutionary war in a superficial manner
history lessons thru TV, "no one in school talked about the war", doing her own research in the library "hand me a fourth glass" for the visitor, not an Indian man
Perception of time and place: a father with a family in Dacca
Pirzada as the embodiment of the pain seen on TV, "I had never prayed for anything before"
"above all I wanted to console Mr. Pirzada" Separation by religion "made no sense"for they shared the same customs (food and manners)
"What is this thank you?"
"figure out what made him different"
"peculiar eating habits"
October temporariness of US news "more and more rare to see any footage from Dacca",
the safety of Halloween for Lilia and Dora
vs the perils of war
The US-W Pak vs the E Pak-India-USSR "large orange vegetables"
"for the first time we all gathered around the dining table"
"a compromise" smile or frown also for identity? Or pity? Custome and basmati rice box? "never saw an Indian witch"
On December 4 12 days of war: Pakistan army surrendered, No TV, no candy No TV, no candy, no large foods, Mr. Pirzada staying in and "sharing a single meal, a single body, a sngle silence, and a single fear"
In January Reconstruction Mr. Pirzada back to Dacca
Several months later Reunited with his family they were safe in Shillong all the time card from Mr. P celebrating Muslim New year
In her short story, “When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine”, Juhmpa Lahiri uses three techniques: i) time linearity, ii) settings contrast, and iii) a reminiscing point of view, to illustrate three changes (arc) in the story’s main character and narrator: i) socio-political awareness, ii) compassion wakefulness, and iii) identity discovery.
Since the beginning the first person narrator situates the reader “In the Autumn of 1971”. The narrator, Lilia, a 10-year-old child at the time, reminisces years later (we don’t know exactly when) on the events and dates and relates her perceptions of Mr. Pirzada’s predicament and her own realization on several subjects. This indicates that her awareness, wakefulness, and discovery was completed only years later. The technique of process is manifested by the constant reminders from the narrator of the dates of when things occurred: March of 1971. Dacca is invaded by West Pakistan and horrible things happen to its population, which awakens Lilia to socio-political themes. She also sees her parents looking for surnames similar to theirs in the university directory to invite the person to dine, in this year, Mr. Pirzada. Autumn of 1971. Pakistan is engaged in civil war. Lilia’s parents complain that in the US at large and Boston in particular, there is no mustard oil in the supermarket, physicians make no house calls, and neighbors make no visits un-announced, as it happens in India.
End of Summer 1971. The death toll mounts to 300,000 and, after several visits, Lilia learns that Mr. Pirzada is a regular at dinner time, asking her mother for a fourth glass for “the Indian man”, who is visiting Boston on a grant. Her father gives Lilia a geo-political lesson on India, Pakistan, and the new republic to come, Bangladhesh, explaining about the Partition by the British and the separation based on religion (Muslim and Hindu). Lilia becomes aware of the contrast between the perils taking place thousands of miles away and the safety she enjoys at home, the ignorance of the ongoing war at her school (“no one in school talked about the war”). She becomes aware of the cultural affinities between her family and Mr. Pirzada (the separation “made no sense” to her), and her nous of compassion flourishes (“I had never prayed for anything before”, “above all I wanted to console Mr. Pirzada”). The visitor becomes the embodiment of the suffering of many families. She probably projects her own image into that of the visitor’s daughters and the image of her father into that of Mr. Pirzada. Lilia also acquires a deeper sense of identity by hearing her parents and the visitor comment –rather sarcastically- on the local customs (“what is this thank you?”, “figure out what made him different”, and “the peculiar eating habits”).
In October Lilia becomes aware of the temporariness of US news media (“more and more rare to see any footage from Dacca”), the structure of international politics (USSR versus the USA), the perils of war versus the safety of home, and continues her own identity definition process, when Mr. Pirzada questions about “large orange vegetables”. Her sense of community is heightened when the sit at the table “for the first time” and her self-definition is expressed, I think, when she compromises a frown or a smile with a non-expression face on the pumpkin. This non expression could also mean that even though this is a time of celebration (within the scare) there should not be much celebration in the face of the war and Mr. Pirzada’s suffering. The 12 days of the war after December 4 are spent in Lilia’s house with no TV, customary candy or large meals with Mr. Pirzada staying in “sharing a single meal, a single body, a single silence, and a single fear”. Finally in January 72 the war is over and Mr. Pirzada goes back to Dacca. Only several months later Lilia and her parent receive a post card from Mr. Pirzada celebrating the Muslim New Year and communicating that his family spent the war safe in the mountains of Shillong. They are reunited.
Lilia’s arc was probably completed only several years later, when the narrator writes the story, but the continued setting contrasts of war in Pakistan versus safety in the USA, the simple geo-political lessons at school versus the live TV news and conversations at home, and the home environment versus the outer relationships, brought Lilia through a coming of age process a=that is well narrated and depicted in a clear timeline in this story.
See Appendix 1 for a depiction of the above analysis in chart form.
APPENDIX 1: CHART FORM ANALYSIS OF THE PROCESS OF SETTING AND CHARACTER ARC
time socio-political compassion identity
March of 1971 Dacca invaded (only flashback) torching, shelling, shooting, rape.
vs
Boston folliage parents looking for Indian surnames in university directory
Autum 1971 Pakistan engaged in civil war no mustard oil, no house calls, no neighbor visits
End of Summer 1971 300,000 deaths Mr. Pirzada family left behind
End of September 1947 Partition by Britain based on religion Hindus and Muslims.
Vs
safe and easy life and opportunity in US. , but no knowledge of world affairs.
US education
vs
no knowledge of world affairs: every year the revolutionary war in a superficial manner
history lessons thru TV, "no one in school talked about the war", doing her own research in the library "hand me a fourth glass" for the visitor, not an Indian man
Perception of time and place: a father with a family in Dacca
Pirzada as the embodiment of the pain seen on TV, "I had never prayed for anything before"
"above all I wanted to console Mr. Pirzada" Separation by religion "made no sense"for they shared the same customs (food and manners)
"What is this thank you?"
"figure out what made him different"
"peculiar eating habits"
October temporariness of US news "more and more rare to see any footage from Dacca",
the safety of Halloween for Lilia and Dora
vs the perils of war
The US-W Pak vs the E Pak-India-USSR "large orange vegetables"
"for the first time we all gathered around the dining table"
"a compromise" smile or frown also for identity? Or pity? Custome and basmati rice box? "never saw an Indian witch"
On December 4 12 days of war: Pakistan army surrendered, No TV, no candy No TV, no candy, no large foods, Mr. Pirzada staying in and "sharing a single meal, a single body, a sngle silence, and a single fear"
In January Reconstruction Mr. Pirzada back to Dacca
Several months later Reunited with his family they were safe in Shillong all the time card from Mr. P celebrating Muslim New year
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”: Unknown causes that that further and enhance the narrative
In his classic story “The Metamorphosis” Franz Kafka omits important information that would explain the basic premise of the narrative, yet, through two specific writing techniques in plot and character development, he leads the reader away from seeking such information.
Story is a sequence of related events and one of the central elements of storytelling is Plot , which answers the questions “what happened” and suggests “why did it happen” . The story begins abruptly, with a powerful inciting action: Gregor Samsa awakes one day and finds himself transformed into a monstrous vermin. The reader does not know: a) how such transformation occurred; and b) what sort of vermin is has become. Instead on elaborating on the cause of the transformation, Kafka concentrates heavily on the effects of the transformation; he follows the first sentence with a detailed description on Samsa’s new body. Even though the character Samsa asks “What has happened to me?” and verifies with horror that he is not dreaming, he does not dwell in the cause, but analyzes his room, recalls and criticizes his hated job, looks through the window, and worries for being late. This dense description of Samsa’s thoughts, one after the other, distracts the reader from the causes of the transformation and provides the necessary background that makes the character real and the transformation credible. Instead of the how did this happen? Of why did it happen? Kafka focuses on the consequences of the given premise through each of the characters. The hard fact of the transformation becomes the premise that governs the story from then on. The effects of such transformation move the story forward unveiling each character’s thoughts, intentions, and actions. The loving (love? Or calculated interest?) family he has, his sister Grete and his parents are transformed. Young Grete goes from loving, caring little sister (“Today he really liked it”, p. 701) to referring to him as it and plotting to kill him (“we have to try to get rid of it”, p. 716). His mother goes from hope and denial (“when Gregor come back to us”, page 705) to fear (“Oh God! Oh God! And collapsed, page 707). His father goes from anger (“furious and elated”) to sheer intentin of killing him (“begging him…to spare Gregor’s life”, p. 709). In other words, the plot concentrates on the family relationships.
When the cleaning lady finds Gregor dead the family becomes melancholy, even remorseful (“They all looked as if they had been crying”, p. 719) and Mr. Samsa throws out the tenants. He fires the cleaning lady who disposed of Gregor’s corpse and goes from lazy and detached to taking charge and encouraging all to look at the future. As quickly as the family says good bye to Gregor, the reader is dragged by Kafka into the bright future the Samsas are preparing to live.
Concealing the type of vermin provides the reader with whatever her imagination can produce. For one a rat would be repulsive enough, for other, a roach, for still others a beetle. By not given a clear name to the “insect” Kafka gave each reader the dose for her own fear and repulsion. By concentrating the narrative on the effects of the primary cause on the characters, Kakfa creates a moving plot that forces the reader to question his own views and exploring his own reactions to the changes in others.
The Story and its Writer, page 1742
“Plot is the sequence of events in a story and their relationship to one another as they develop and often resolve a conflict” (The Story and its Writer, page 1742)
The Story and its Writer, page 1742
There is much debate about the correct translation that would identify the specific vermin or insect he has become. Kafka himself did not want to address this question.
In his classic story “The Metamorphosis” Franz Kafka omits important information that would explain the basic premise of the narrative, yet, through two specific writing techniques in plot and character development, he leads the reader away from seeking such information.
Story is a sequence of related events and one of the central elements of storytelling is Plot , which answers the questions “what happened” and suggests “why did it happen” . The story begins abruptly, with a powerful inciting action: Gregor Samsa awakes one day and finds himself transformed into a monstrous vermin. The reader does not know: a) how such transformation occurred; and b) what sort of vermin is has become. Instead on elaborating on the cause of the transformation, Kafka concentrates heavily on the effects of the transformation; he follows the first sentence with a detailed description on Samsa’s new body. Even though the character Samsa asks “What has happened to me?” and verifies with horror that he is not dreaming, he does not dwell in the cause, but analyzes his room, recalls and criticizes his hated job, looks through the window, and worries for being late. This dense description of Samsa’s thoughts, one after the other, distracts the reader from the causes of the transformation and provides the necessary background that makes the character real and the transformation credible. Instead of the how did this happen? Of why did it happen? Kafka focuses on the consequences of the given premise through each of the characters. The hard fact of the transformation becomes the premise that governs the story from then on. The effects of such transformation move the story forward unveiling each character’s thoughts, intentions, and actions. The loving (love? Or calculated interest?) family he has, his sister Grete and his parents are transformed. Young Grete goes from loving, caring little sister (“Today he really liked it”, p. 701) to referring to him as it and plotting to kill him (“we have to try to get rid of it”, p. 716). His mother goes from hope and denial (“when Gregor come back to us”, page 705) to fear (“Oh God! Oh God! And collapsed, page 707). His father goes from anger (“furious and elated”) to sheer intentin of killing him (“begging him…to spare Gregor’s life”, p. 709). In other words, the plot concentrates on the family relationships.
When the cleaning lady finds Gregor dead the family becomes melancholy, even remorseful (“They all looked as if they had been crying”, p. 719) and Mr. Samsa throws out the tenants. He fires the cleaning lady who disposed of Gregor’s corpse and goes from lazy and detached to taking charge and encouraging all to look at the future. As quickly as the family says good bye to Gregor, the reader is dragged by Kafka into the bright future the Samsas are preparing to live.
Concealing the type of vermin provides the reader with whatever her imagination can produce. For one a rat would be repulsive enough, for other, a roach, for still others a beetle. By not given a clear name to the “insect” Kafka gave each reader the dose for her own fear and repulsion. By concentrating the narrative on the effects of the primary cause on the characters, Kakfa creates a moving plot that forces the reader to question his own views and exploring his own reactions to the changes in others.
The Story and its Writer, page 1742
“Plot is the sequence of events in a story and their relationship to one another as they develop and often resolve a conflict” (The Story and its Writer, page 1742)
The Story and its Writer, page 1742
There is much debate about the correct translation that would identify the specific vermin or insect he has become. Kafka himself did not want to address this question.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
The God Paper
1
“Había gigantes en la tierra en aquellos días y también después que se llegaron los hijos de Dios a las hijas de los hombres y les engendraron hijos. Estos fueron los valientes que desde la antigüedad fueron varones de renombre”.
Génesis 6, 4
At a forgotten cliff the
Ballerina draws imaginary birds with her
Hands. I am the bird and you
The imaginary
I have been trying to write poetry since age 10 (1963), first in response to love letters from a girl who used to ride the school bus with my elder sister. From her modest collection of books, which included many basics from “The Shoes of the Fisherman” to “Travel to the Moon”, my mom lent me a book by Gustavo Adolfo Bequer, “Rimas”, which I carefully copied, then adapted, and finally modified to please the unknown soul of a mysterious girl. She kept the collection like an apothecary in a bookcase behind which I met my extra-terrestrial friends, who revealed to me my true origins: I had been planted on earth by them as an experiment. The year before I had taken my First Communion (it was the Catholic School of La Salle Christian Brothers) so as a Christmas gift I asked for a book with The Life of Jesus, which my mom again promptly facilitated. That year I had been watching the TV shows “Star Trek”, “The Outer Limits”, and “The Twilight Zone” (all in Spanish in my native Nicaragua). So I asked my father for a book about space. The vague petition made my father produce “The Inventions of the 20th Century”, where travels to the stratosphere by little Laika, and to the depths of the ocean in small submarines, and to the Moon in futuristic space ships, where depicted. Being an electronic engineer my father always found ways to entertain me with magnets, electricity, silver drops of mercury taken out of a thermometer and merged into his golden wedding ring, and the arcane books on calculus carefully aligned inside his dresser.
The priest writes a final
Curse
Unto the encrypted page. Blank
Becomes red with blood and
The drummer dies in a fast beat to spring
Out of existence
My mom was the mystic, the one who taught me to pray and play games on telepathy, drawing and painting. The one who promoted me to play in the space ship under the open stairs to the second floor, fight the pirate aliens inhabiting the mango tree, and rescue the prisoners from the invading fire ants spitting acid and terrifying gamma rays (the same one that had transformed Hulk –in Spanish he was known as La Mole- into the green gentile monster). This mix of God, Woman, and Country (I always dream with the same barrio with dusty streets, had a natural inclination to assist the poor, and got into political troubles with governments of the left and of the right for defending my own views and refusing to be anybody’s puppet), this amalgam of experiences, I believe, placed me in the direction of mysticism intermingled with science fiction, love and politics that peppers my writing.
Inside of us all
Our own big bang
Our own big crunch
Mothers closing the eyes before the
evidence that their children are
the murderers, that the world is not one
that they gave birth to co-existing pairs of
cruelty and goodness
freedom and bondage for the
invariable Law of Change to hold
I didn’t truly start publishing until the 1990s, but it was in both, English and Spanish. The hard oficio of the writer was only really uncovered to me when I entered the MFA Program at UTEP, El Paso in 2007. One class per semester –and not all semesters- has stretched the completion for me for far more than I anticipated. Yet, it has been worth every single second. My first collection, “Antologia de Tarde” (Miami, 1990) contained many of the poems I had written in Nicaragua with themes that could be described as mysticism, lovelore, and the fight for justice. My last two years of high school were heavily marked by mathematics, music, and literature. In mathematics, the subjects of analytic geometry, imaginary numbers, derivatives, and calculus were an eureka experience on the mystery of numbers revealed to me. The history behind calculus was as marvelous a discovery as the mechanics of the techniques themselves. In literature the Pleiades of writers, from Poe’s Eureka to Cardenal’s “Praying for Marilyn Monroe”; from Borges’ “El Aleph” and “El Sur” to Baudelaire “Les Fleurs du Mal” (that was our exam text in French) never ceased to stir all sorts of fires in my imagination, all sorts of sensations in my body. When coming to the United Sates, all is left behind, except what you have read and lived; what you have experienced and created. Other collections followed in Miami: ”Genesis y Otras Fantasias” (1991), “Return to Guatemala” (1992), “Dead Souls” (1997, “God, Woman & Country” (2000), and finally “Dona Nobis Pacem” (2006). But something was lacking. Like most Nicaraguan writers, I was made on the go, a poet that was street smart, self-made, with no technique, no theory, no formal education, and with a lot of information but no formation. That is when I applied to the MFA at El Paso.
In another Universe
Bizarre laws are correct and all we know
Breaks down into seemingly
Incomprehensible illogical paradoxes
To each one his own Law
To each one her own Death
The formation received since 2007 has been enormous. At times, most of the time, to abandon old habits is impossible, to differentiate technique from voice, to separate the lecture-type tone from the natural experiential exposition, is difficult. To engage the reader and co-create with her demands the erasure of the self, the reinvention of the poet, finding the essence and let it be herself through poetry and fiction. This course on Physics and Imagination has gone a long way in nurturing the formation I sorely lack.
Throughout the years, my fascination with science and the fiction behind it (as well as the other way around) has taken me to amass a collection of 1950s SiFi movies, the entire Start Trek motion pictures, and books on the formation of the universe, space, time, a subscription to Scientific American, and three of my journals filled with musings on metaphysics, science, and a combination of the two. This course uncovered, recovered, or discovered for me entire deep mines on the subjects that wait to be written, re-written, or over-written in more ways than one.
I had read “A Brief History of Time” (Bantam 1988) and “The Universe in a Nutshell” (Bantam 2001) as soon as they were published, re-reading them was refreshing: they are not the same when approached with the curiosity of an aficionado than with the magnifying lens of a writer in formation, the challenge off an instructor, and the support and incredible commentary and varied viewpoints of peers walking the same path to creativity in the MFA. BHT stopped being the story of black holes and the beginning of the universe (in my book the portrait of a much younger Stephen Hawking is missing, my daughter cut is out for a report on black holes she did in middle school) to become an everyday language approach to otherwise complicated matters on cosmology and physics for most lay people. The diagrams are not as good as that in The Universe in a Nuthshell, which brims with colors and graphics. Hawking’s explanations of the expanding universe, the Uncertainty Principle, elementary particles, and his ideas on black holes, the origin and fate of the universe, the direction of time (which is referred to in one of Star Trek Next Generation episodes) and the God Paradox, acquired a new meaning with this second reading. Poetry and fiction stopped being the liberation medium, an expression tool, a deliverance tool, an explication of self, and started being an explanation of Reality, a creation of realities, a modus operandi, the essence of self, the inevitable point from which all vectors emanate and all vectors converge, like the continuing pulse of God we call Big Bang-Bing Crunch continually recurring ad infinitum. That is to me the Eternal Return: the infinite coexistence in infinite levels within and without.
1
“Había gigantes en la tierra en aquellos días y también después que se llegaron los hijos de Dios a las hijas de los hombres y les engendraron hijos. Estos fueron los valientes que desde la antigüedad fueron varones de renombre”.
Génesis 6, 4
At a forgotten cliff the
Ballerina draws imaginary birds with her
Hands. I am the bird and you
The imaginary
I have been trying to write poetry since age 10 (1963), first in response to love letters from a girl who used to ride the school bus with my elder sister. From her modest collection of books, which included many basics from “The Shoes of the Fisherman” to “Travel to the Moon”, my mom lent me a book by Gustavo Adolfo Bequer, “Rimas”, which I carefully copied, then adapted, and finally modified to please the unknown soul of a mysterious girl. She kept the collection like an apothecary in a bookcase behind which I met my extra-terrestrial friends, who revealed to me my true origins: I had been planted on earth by them as an experiment. The year before I had taken my First Communion (it was the Catholic School of La Salle Christian Brothers) so as a Christmas gift I asked for a book with The Life of Jesus, which my mom again promptly facilitated. That year I had been watching the TV shows “Star Trek”, “The Outer Limits”, and “The Twilight Zone” (all in Spanish in my native Nicaragua). So I asked my father for a book about space. The vague petition made my father produce “The Inventions of the 20th Century”, where travels to the stratosphere by little Laika, and to the depths of the ocean in small submarines, and to the Moon in futuristic space ships, where depicted. Being an electronic engineer my father always found ways to entertain me with magnets, electricity, silver drops of mercury taken out of a thermometer and merged into his golden wedding ring, and the arcane books on calculus carefully aligned inside his dresser.
The priest writes a final
Curse
Unto the encrypted page. Blank
Becomes red with blood and
The drummer dies in a fast beat to spring
Out of existence
My mom was the mystic, the one who taught me to pray and play games on telepathy, drawing and painting. The one who promoted me to play in the space ship under the open stairs to the second floor, fight the pirate aliens inhabiting the mango tree, and rescue the prisoners from the invading fire ants spitting acid and terrifying gamma rays (the same one that had transformed Hulk –in Spanish he was known as La Mole- into the green gentile monster). This mix of God, Woman, and Country (I always dream with the same barrio with dusty streets, had a natural inclination to assist the poor, and got into political troubles with governments of the left and of the right for defending my own views and refusing to be anybody’s puppet), this amalgam of experiences, I believe, placed me in the direction of mysticism intermingled with science fiction, love and politics that peppers my writing.
Inside of us all
Our own big bang
Our own big crunch
Mothers closing the eyes before the
evidence that their children are
the murderers, that the world is not one
that they gave birth to co-existing pairs of
cruelty and goodness
freedom and bondage for the
invariable Law of Change to hold
I didn’t truly start publishing until the 1990s, but it was in both, English and Spanish. The hard oficio of the writer was only really uncovered to me when I entered the MFA Program at UTEP, El Paso in 2007. One class per semester –and not all semesters- has stretched the completion for me for far more than I anticipated. Yet, it has been worth every single second. My first collection, “Antologia de Tarde” (Miami, 1990) contained many of the poems I had written in Nicaragua with themes that could be described as mysticism, lovelore, and the fight for justice. My last two years of high school were heavily marked by mathematics, music, and literature. In mathematics, the subjects of analytic geometry, imaginary numbers, derivatives, and calculus were an eureka experience on the mystery of numbers revealed to me. The history behind calculus was as marvelous a discovery as the mechanics of the techniques themselves. In literature the Pleiades of writers, from Poe’s Eureka to Cardenal’s “Praying for Marilyn Monroe”; from Borges’ “El Aleph” and “El Sur” to Baudelaire “Les Fleurs du Mal” (that was our exam text in French) never ceased to stir all sorts of fires in my imagination, all sorts of sensations in my body. When coming to the United Sates, all is left behind, except what you have read and lived; what you have experienced and created. Other collections followed in Miami: ”Genesis y Otras Fantasias” (1991), “Return to Guatemala” (1992), “Dead Souls” (1997, “God, Woman & Country” (2000), and finally “Dona Nobis Pacem” (2006). But something was lacking. Like most Nicaraguan writers, I was made on the go, a poet that was street smart, self-made, with no technique, no theory, no formal education, and with a lot of information but no formation. That is when I applied to the MFA at El Paso.
In another Universe
Bizarre laws are correct and all we know
Breaks down into seemingly
Incomprehensible illogical paradoxes
To each one his own Law
To each one her own Death
The formation received since 2007 has been enormous. At times, most of the time, to abandon old habits is impossible, to differentiate technique from voice, to separate the lecture-type tone from the natural experiential exposition, is difficult. To engage the reader and co-create with her demands the erasure of the self, the reinvention of the poet, finding the essence and let it be herself through poetry and fiction. This course on Physics and Imagination has gone a long way in nurturing the formation I sorely lack.
Throughout the years, my fascination with science and the fiction behind it (as well as the other way around) has taken me to amass a collection of 1950s SiFi movies, the entire Start Trek motion pictures, and books on the formation of the universe, space, time, a subscription to Scientific American, and three of my journals filled with musings on metaphysics, science, and a combination of the two. This course uncovered, recovered, or discovered for me entire deep mines on the subjects that wait to be written, re-written, or over-written in more ways than one.
I had read “A Brief History of Time” (Bantam 1988) and “The Universe in a Nutshell” (Bantam 2001) as soon as they were published, re-reading them was refreshing: they are not the same when approached with the curiosity of an aficionado than with the magnifying lens of a writer in formation, the challenge off an instructor, and the support and incredible commentary and varied viewpoints of peers walking the same path to creativity in the MFA. BHT stopped being the story of black holes and the beginning of the universe (in my book the portrait of a much younger Stephen Hawking is missing, my daughter cut is out for a report on black holes she did in middle school) to become an everyday language approach to otherwise complicated matters on cosmology and physics for most lay people. The diagrams are not as good as that in The Universe in a Nuthshell, which brims with colors and graphics. Hawking’s explanations of the expanding universe, the Uncertainty Principle, elementary particles, and his ideas on black holes, the origin and fate of the universe, the direction of time (which is referred to in one of Star Trek Next Generation episodes) and the God Paradox, acquired a new meaning with this second reading. Poetry and fiction stopped being the liberation medium, an expression tool, a deliverance tool, an explication of self, and started being an explanation of Reality, a creation of realities, a modus operandi, the essence of self, the inevitable point from which all vectors emanate and all vectors converge, like the continuing pulse of God we call Big Bang-Bing Crunch continually recurring ad infinitum. That is to me the Eternal Return: the infinite coexistence in infinite levels within and without.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Alien semantics: A self-critical commentary on poetic fruition
“… alla prima ruota
l’Uomo
…alla seconda ruota
l’Azione
…alla terza ruota
lo Strumento”
Giordano Bruno
Two frustrated semesters at universities in Florida and North Carolina [such is the nature of my daytime job] did not deter my pursuit of poetry truncated many years ago when, to satisfy the insistence of my father, I chose architecture over literature. The salvation finally came with the first bilingual on-line MFA program, established by the University of Texas in El Paso. Something good came out my itinerant consulting job, which had taken me from Nicaragua to Mexico, from Portugal to Honduras, from Miami to Detroit, and finally to Texas. All dreams are bound to materialize if we seize the occasion when it arises.
In this Advanced Poetry Workshop we had the opportunity –among many other benefits- to craft and deliver a collection of workshopped poems that are the basis of these introspective musings.
In following the analytical scheme provided by Professor Alcala, I will comment on these questions: 1] Is there a thematic thread that provides unity to the collection submitted? 2] Are there affinities or discrepancies with the ideas, concepts, and approaches studied in the course texts? 3] How was my revision process affected if I had one? 4] What conscious or unconscious techniques have I learned or improved upon? 5] What satisfying discoveries have I made about my own poetry and where do I want to take my craft next?
“Alla prima ruota l’Uomo”
We all go through different stages in our life and experience multiple changes in our body, expressions, thought, and beliefs. Poetic voice goes through the same transformation. We are the same, yet different. As we evolve and acquire a personality of our own certain recurring themes surface again and again in our craft. We may move from theme to theme, but I believe there is a canon that for most poets is difficult to abandon: it constitutes the essence of our being, the core or our craft, the eternal search [or return?] which answer eludes us. We cannot escape these themes or threads for we are them and, unless we suffer of multiple personality disorder, we will keep addressing the same ideas, problems, ideals, subject matters, and intellectual pursuits, as long as we do not fulfill our “cosmic mission”.
For several years now I have found that my poems address one or a combination of three themes: God, woman, and country. By God I mean religion, philosophy, metaphysics, and universal mind. By woman I mean relationships to others, to mother, to goddess, to Gaeia, to self. By country I mean exile, language, universe, politics, and justice. The themes overlap and cross boundaries for in my mind all is one and everything stems from the same source. Of the twelve poems submitted the following threads and central themes can be found:
No. poem Threads, topics theme
1 Bridge Religion, mother, father, love, relationships God
2 Hair Playfulness, woman Woman
3 Hotdogs relationships, inner search, love woman
4 Movie Playfulness, relationships woman
5 Travel Playfulness, travels country
6 Rubrics Exile, travels, language, inner search, justice country
7 Dreamcatchers Relationships, inner search, love woman
8 Deliverance Relationships, inner search, love woman
9 Tasba Pri Political, social unrest, justice, love, language country
10 Kumari Religion, inner search, relationships, love, travel woman
11 Counselor Inner search, relationships woman
12 Particle Travels, relationships country
Regarding tone, poems 2, 4, and 5 above are of a more playful and experimental nature and reality, as we know it outside of a poem, is more fantastic. Poem 1 is the most [maybe the only one] abstract of the collection and draws a lot on symbols and referents. Poems 6, 7, 8, and 12 allude to a more palpable reality still even if drawn from an exercise, like poem 12. Poems 9, 10, and 11 are all based on historical facts. Poem 10 is located in a far away land and is sprinklered with fiction. This poem is especially important to me for I wrote a movie script about it in the Advanced Screenwriting Workshop. Poem 9 was born as an exercise after reading Ana Akhmatova’s Requiem, but took a life of its own. Poem 11 reflects a personal plight I went through a few years ago. Lastly, poem 3, is the most realistic of the collection.
As many writers do, I keep a journal filled with ideas, projects, thoughts, drawings, and other poetic musings and paraphernalia. Poems 1, 3, 6, 7, and 11 were rescued from these journals. The rest were born out of exercises performed during the semester. An earlier version of poem 10 was published in the electronic magazine Artefacto and has a mix of English and Spanish stanzas. The newest version has just been accepted to a new upcoming magazine in Miami, Nagari.
I cannot say that I agree or disagree with the ideas and approaches discussed in the texts. I am of the opinion that all theories suffer the disease of pride: their author[s] thinks their one theory covers all the bases and explains all the things. There is no such thing as a theory of everything, at least not yet. I believe that as humanity advances the evolution of thought takes us to always new roads. Our species just appeared on the planet in the latest fraction of time. Each theory is capable of explaining one aspect of a phenomenon, in this case poetry and its role, techniques, tactics, and strategies, function, structure and form. It is what Ken Wilber et al call holons within holons; evergrowing and appearing spheres of knowledge, one giving birth to the next, spheres within spheres. In the end all holons in the poetic world could be reduced to three: the author’s holon [what intention s/he had in conscious or unconscious mind]; the object of art holon [what the object per se conveys and what the context it is bound to conveys as well]; and the observer holon [what the reader perceives, interprets, or makes of the text]. All three holons are in continual change. The Danilo Lopez of today will not be the same ten years from now. The poems I write today may have a different meaning to anybody twenty years from now. The objective and the archetypical reader of today will be different tomorrow.
“Alla seconda ruota l’Azione
When I first started writing, poems would come hitting me as lightning. My hands would pour an impressive amount of output barely catching up with brainwaves and a pounding heart. Back in those days [oblivious to technique, craft, and conventions] I would hardly or never revise what I wrote. According to me they were an expression of self and that was enough. There was no audience or it was not important to me. The mere act of writing, the outpouring of words and phrases justified all. Their raw state was their final and only possible state of being. The necessity of revision was born when the audience appeared. It was not enough to write for me, a solitary meaningless act I had to go through. I wanted to say something, to communicate intricacies of the mind and the soul that daily assaulted me. I wanted to point and show, to protest and change, to declare and admire, to chant and condemn, to critique and analyze. To learn and grow.
Attending poetry readings, devouring lots of books and magazines, organizing recitals all became part of the learning process, since studying literature was out of the question. Years later came the occasional chats with known poets and the timid sharing of my writings at workshops. Until I jumped in the water and started participating in readings myself and publishing in local newspapers and small magazines. Hearing from peers was not sufficient. I took a couple of adult education poetry workshops at Florida International University with the goal of eventually registering in their MFA program. Time constraints and family responsibilities, not to mention my job, got in the way. When I decided to start again in North Carolina, the same obstacles won over. By then I had read several books on craft and participated in many workshops, heard many critiques and publish a few poems, essays and short stories in both paper magazines and web sites. The on-line MFA at UTEP has been a blessing. I have learned a methodical revision process. I have learned to put ideas at rest in my journals for future development. I have learned to find inspiration in mathematical books, TV shows, daily life, restaurant menus, others poets’ work, news, etc. The whole world is a poetic place waiting to be expressed in those terms.
“Alla terza ruota lo Strumento”
The practice of poetry [Behn & Twitchell] provided a series of exercises that became very handy in producing ideas for poems. Novel ways to look at ideas of poems and the utilization of multiple sources to mine new work were very useful to me. There are still many exercises we did not do but I plan to use in the future. Koch’s Making your own days great contribution for me was how he dissects poetry in relation to language canon and music patterns. The anthology at the end provides a wide selection of poets from [almost] all ages and places. It is not common to delight oneself in such a display of diversity in styles, geography, theme, theory, praxis, and philosophy. This was an incentive for me to refresh my knowledge of other languages to truly appreciate some poets in their original tongues.
Spahr’s main point of interest for me was a new use of language poems. This is a mini-reflection in many ways of Cardenal’s Cosmic Canticle and Neruda’s Canto General regarding the treatment of political and social protest anchored in the universal brotherhood [hermandad would be more apropriate for it denotes no gender preference] of mankind. In Dictee Cha pointed a different approach of what a book is. For some time I have been toying with with the idea of making a different book, mixed with other media. Dona Nobis Pacem [published last year in Miami] and Dead Souls [a DVD currently in the works] are crude approximations to this book-idea of mine. In the meantime I also read other poetry books that contributed to the learning experience, namely Stardust [Bidart], Post Meridien [Ruefle], Averno [Glück] and Uno y el Universo [Sabato].
In studying the course materials, Prof. Alcala’s Notebook entries and the valuable input from fellow students, a device for critiquing and self-critiquing poems was born: twenty five analysis lines that I will use as a scheme of analysis. Not all could be applicable at one time, but when the mind goes blank and the sensations are not ignited by what I read, the following points or questions or topics could be asked to jumpstart the analytical mode. I am sure that many more questions could be asked, but these I’ve compiled in reading my peers and my professor; plus my own experience. Look at it as an instrument of use for analysis:
1 What are the subject, verbs, and object of each sentence in the poem?
2 Paraphrase the poem to see if you understood it, retell the story
3 Who is the speaker?
4 What is the situation?
5 What are the issues, ideas, and mood?
6 What is the tone and the emotions?
7 Is the poet the subject of the poem?
8 What contrasts appear?
9 Does the title relate to the body of the poem?
10 What allusions are present?
11 What is the diction, word choice, and meaning?
12 What denotation and connotation or words?
13 Any wordplay?
14 Any unusual words?
15 What is the level: formal, informal, colloquial, dialectical, slang?
16 Are diction and tone in sync?
17 What imagery is present? Do they appeal to the senses? Which ones? To the emotions? Which ones?
18 Is the language descriptive? Figurative? Metaphors? Analogies?
19 Is progression of time present? How?
20 What is the rhythm? The metric?
21 Are there any sounds? Onomatopeia, alliterartion? Assonance? Consonance? Rhyme?
22 What is the structure? Ideas? Sounds? Free verse? Formal verse?
23 Any symbolism? Realism? The setting? Place, situation, time, social, political, physical?
24 What literary schools would be useful in analyzing the poem?
25 Who speaks? To whom? What does the speaker feel? What is the plot? The tension? The arc? Conflict?
I have been very fortunate to have participated in this Advanced Poetry Workshop and intend to continue the life long learning process of poetry. It is the most precious gift that the gods have given humankind.
∞
The bridge
Hers is not like other bridges
The one my mother builds
To connect me to my father
Or the one my father builds
To connect me to the world
Hers can resist
Centuries of snow
And countless miles of sun
Or a thousand parsecs of galaxies
As to a good shepherd
Her cares allow me to
Go in search of food and water
And as to any celebrant
To freely move around the altar
Hers is a different kind of bridge
Not like Sister Juliette’s
Happy to see us
In front of the cross
Praying rosaries
Breathing deeply
Asking ourselves
Will we be alive tomorrow?
Her bridge may not be a
Conferred peace
But it helps to discard
All the hollow columns
The empty pillars
And the slow poisoning
Of an old curse
I cannot describe
(The monsters in my dreams
Have long been gone
Yet a sort of restlessness
Kept disturbing me all these years)
Maybe like my Guardian Angel’s
–who always told me
The good news- her bridge is
The fruit of innocent pacts
Consequently
Here you will never see the current
Reflecting in silence
The arc of the bridge but
Broken waves and edgy eddies
Her bridge rams itself
Against the sands
Rock crushing on rock
And the bridge
Grinding
Grinding
Grinding
Thrusting against the riverbed
To one day obliterate
My gray obsidian center.
Her hair
Was thick and messy
Like a bird’s nest falling upwards.
We often make this sort of comparison
Oblivious to the facts behind the scene
Quick to judge, sentence and condemn
Her hair was not messy at all
It was a poodle’s except
Not shaved
So let me start over
Her hair was wavy as a spring and
It fell in all directions
Like beer spume or lava
Or words spoken by a preacher
But often we also see things that are not
For accustomed to use only our own
Eyes the brain develops neuronatic
Connections that paint a landscape which
Refuses to peacefully co-exist
So let me try one last time
Her hair was straight as a spear but
Soft as water
It didn’t wave like a river
But cascaded like emoticons
Only a child could imagne
I would later ratify
As I tilt my head to the right
Her hair appears in its entire splendor
Finally striking down all judgment
All sentencing, all ruminations so she could
Rise straight to the clouds
The movie never made
It is one thing to blow a horn and another to light
The atmosphere with fire and related
Iridescences of the heart
The movie had certain qualities that we, as
Holders of the keys could not report to
The upper echelons
First was the fact that the actress hated the
Leading man as much as I hated my own guts
So in the matter of me vs. humanity the judges
Ruled against my guts
Then the Butoh dancer explained to me that in
Matters of natural selection
Her fee arose from three to six thousand so
Photos to be posted in the web site did not
Represent her dancing figure anymore than a
Bleat would mask an exploding meteorite
Second was the case of the rolling poem
This was distracted by the fadeout girl tending the
Tent, her skinny fingers obliterated all
Hopes of wanton and early souvenirs
Third we ran out of actors so only the
Ubiquitous voiceover integrated the cast at
The time
“It is time to finalize the design” the director
Next door said and we all decided it was apt hour
To pull the plug and pack off our decorum
Travel
From up here all looks abnormal
Such is the impression things impress
Upon us when we care to climb to
Higher places, but we should keep
Things in perspective and know
That anyone can fall or climb at
A moment’s notice
The plane was a vine of blushes
All passengers were minding their own
Little coffee cups and nibbling on
Tiny sugar cars
From my window I could hear
The bags running up and down
The alleys in the luggage compartment
But no one cared
The pilot kept checking the tires in mid air waving
Good bye to ducks passing by
In a neatly formed V pointing north
The leader realized soon enough they
Were headed the wrong way
I don’t know if he changed course or not
Little and long rivers down below reminded us
That life also is capable of changing
Its course for us following mountainous
Forms of red, green, blue and brown lands
Other than not being able to rest or sleep
It was a pleasant flight with polite and nice
Stewards floating gracefully in the
Neatly pressed blue uniforms, blue eyes
Blue hairdos and blue nail polish
We all drank and read and typed profusely
On improvised laptops and coffee mugs
When I got home to the North Pole
The ducks were having a party
rubrics
with a trembling hand
borges mimics a signature
on the first page of my red book
-argentinean embassy, Lisbon 1985-
hands it back to me
some other time I will stamp the date
penta hotel
rafael alberti seats, overjoyed
besides me
shouting the name of my country
euphoric
stroking his long hair, places the glass of wine
on the side table
and signs my 1985 ocre agenda
palacio de queluz, alvaro cunhal enters
and we conjuncture the political evaluation
of a communist paradise in nicaragua
i have forgotten what i did
to compare terms is not enough for incomplete
to confide in others is inconvenient for scandalous
my clients are strange children
using stationary artifacts
impossible to classify,
could it be that the need is mutual and that
-grammatically speaking-
the abysses that unite us
depend on the sense of adventure
we continually neglect?
(the redheaded poet is a rare orchid in
this flowering midnight)
as long as work permits
we will create the corresponding pamphlets
we will make them circulate among live peoples
and the beauty of time will
confirm so many isolated pronouns
so many culprit desires
so many family tergiversations
life lowers our expectations
and to live in the united states of america
imposes a toll on lost words
killing ten or twenty poems at once
diabolical artists anti-war demonstrations
old dictions and styles new confusing syntaxes
i would give all my fortunes away
to have my language again
Dreamcatchers
I want to look for you -not the one you will be-
But the One you were when in past lives
-In China, France, and Egypt- we were together
When we were gypsies and had
A complete disregard for this life
When we had each other’s lips to bite softly
And our own searching nails to mark
The other’s back during lovemaking
I want to revive the single-candled nights
Slowly melting away
The bottle of Merlot unhurriedly growing down
I want to recover the Indian Sorceress
Who naked danced in rave bathed in oil
Exorcizing evil spirits, surrounded by angels
I want to be the terrible man
Put at your silence reach by someone above
The same who wouldn’t dare approach your fortress
Yet experienced your deeper bliss
I want to be the same pretender who unlocked
The curtain hiding this verse
Astonished, eyelids enclosing you
But now is not the time
Not in this century of broken transgressions
Not on this ship so close to the trade
I’ll have to fan my face at sunset
Eyes fixed on advancing darkness
I’ll have to call upon a light that doesn’t hurry
Its path on the waters
I’ll have to wait the whisper of your smile
Your fearless utterance
I’ll have to challenge the sunrise
And be there when the love of wanting me is born in you
- Again -
Like when we were someone else.
Tasba Pri
“Yapti Tasba Masraka nani Aslatakanka
Toward the end of 1984, peace talks opened between the MISURASATA [Miskito] Organization and the government of Nicaragua. These were the first peace talks between Managua and any organization engaged in armed struggle in the country. The process included four rounds of negotiations over a period of eight months in Bogota and Mexico City.
The agenda of the negotiations was based on the causes of the conflict: systematic repression and the denial of the historical rights to land and autonomy. (…) the majority of the Indians displaced to the Tasba Pri camps were allowed to return to their traditional communities along the Wangi (Coco River).”
YATAMA
Republic of Nicaragua
February 1989” [1]
1
Those were the days when risen martyrs
Scrutinized us from banners and street names
Tasba Pri lay silent like a phoenix still in ashes
In those days, fooled by slogans and grand promises
Young patriots befell to flesh on which cannons fed
In thin lines we marched through misty mountains
And dense confusing rivers
Hoarse machines hover above us
They drop the fruits of deadly entrails
We quiet Miskitos torched the land the aliens seized.
2
Dark soldiers took me away one night
They pulled me like a beast turned prey
Wild birds and protean monkeys witnessed
The iron that crumpled my skin
My lips were cold like an empty glass
My eyes sought your face in a broken mirror…
Remember!
You would be scolded at the National Palace
Along with ranks of ousted widows
3
A sudden sun beams through the forest
Archaic canopies pulled apart
Away from the edge where crocodiles
Splash and kill
We wait in silence for a fitting instant
When the waters clear and the fish snooze
4
(…) the Nicaraguan government, in February 1982, forcibly relocated about 8,500 Miskitos from communities along the Rio Coco to four resettlement camps about 60 km to the south, an area now known as Tasba Pri. [2]
They wait like panthers, eyes on a mirage
Of gentle bullets decimating our stock
You see them in dreams, a lonely woman
Writing from afar to my shadow, to my child
From a country with nameless streets and
Empty nouns your letters reach me in strange ways
I digest your pictures along empty hotel corridors,
Precarious shady parks where prostitutes meander
And dense crowded manifestations where we all banter
Angry slurs against the government
5
If you could listen to the rains I’ve seen
Boys with broken kites, their siblings and dogs sacrificed
Entire families slaughtered in the name of peace
And revolution
What will be of them in coming years? [3]
How long will Bilwi, Kukalaya, and Wawa Boom bleed?
How does this land hold its ground in front of
Mad Judas and assassin Goliaths?
6
While they interrogate me you stay with friends not daring
To cross the line that separate redemption from sacrifice
I find my self repeating daughters names like mantras
They deliver me from Avernos and miseries
But when the ice is not silencing your voice
It is their fire that negates me sanity
The camps are losing density, prisoners come and evaporate
Their brows wet with fear and sweat,
They emit no sound when the steel axes their lives
7
For twenty weeks they have tormented me
They show me pictures of broken bodies and
Limps severed at rabid razzias, but I don’t yield.
A golem-soldier excoriates my skin
He grunts the verdict awaiting my turn
Only the river holds, grotesque in its calm
Neutral as a corpse
A giant blade shines on my eyes announcing the
Intention, the neuter, and the end
[1] © 1999 Center for World Indigenous Studies
[2] Article copyright by Cultural Survival, Inc.
[3] Hurricane Felix hit on 4 September 2007 the North Region of Nicaragua causing the biggest disaster since Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
The impacted region has a territorial size of 32,000 sq. km with a total population of some 314,000, mainly Miskitos and Mayagnas people.
In the Tasba Pri district, wells and rivers have been contaminated by poisonous metallic residues from the mining industry. (ACT International, 2007)
Kumari
To Rashmila Shakya,
Virgin-goddess of Nepal [1]
1
I kept on looking intently
In the dream-mode reality
Knowing about complications
And spiritual intelligence
Attractors are a difficult
Thing to manage
The human heart is filled with power
Happy the man who reached
the homeport
Leaving behind seas and tempests
Whose dreams are dead
Or never born
Who seats in Bremen, drinks bear
by the fire
In peace he rests.
Happy the man who like a flame decays
Happy the man who like the sand darkens
Happy the man who frees his load and cleans his brow
He sits by the road:
Fears no one, waits not, hopes nothing
Fixing the falling sun with his eyes recalls
And you kept my book, a picture of myself
Back in 1886, a portrait so deeply intense
That a piece of my soul already belongs to you,
Kumari.
2
On a night like this one
The north winds bring snow forth
Someone sleeps in front of the TV
And someone decides to steal
On a night like this one, my flower blossoms
Watered by Kumari each day
On a day like this one
A comet showers us
From the deep abyss of kosmos
Some man stretches by his
Woman
And stops feeling his own weight
Important is today, not tomorrow
And time that briskly passes
On a night like this one
The witches of Salem would
Choose the moonlight more convenient
To their craft
And concoct the potion.
There is a man in Potsdam
Wailing to the moon
Sending messages to the woman who faced him
To the mirror of himself
(The poet tenses his arch transformed in Eros,
He seeks harmless words, serene
Words with the force of a hurricane
And the broad secrets of blood and seed)
Oh! Kumari, Kumari
In your breast you carry cold hungers
Something my chest misses at times.
They couldn’t break what is left
Within you
You are a strong woman,
Colorless
Am I the empty companion whom no longer
Has a name?
Am I the forsaken soul who
Can no longer weep?
You no longer grieve
So poor
You no longer fear
So tired
Spend me, a once-strong man
If we have to meet again
Out there, in the world, Sweet Beneath The Sun,
What kind of face would we confront each other with?
________________
[1] “The Royal Kumari is always a Buddhist girl of the Sakya caste. The girls are examined for the "32 perfections of a goddess," but almost certainly the list is simple: she must have had perfect health, with no serious illnesses, unblemished skin, black hair and eyes, no bad body smells, be premenstrual, and have lost no tooth. Her horoscope must in no way clash with the King’s.
There are a number of former Royal Kumaris, some of whom have held the position up until the age of thirteen and even sixteen. When one is declared unfit as Kumari, she immediately ceases to be
regarded as a goddess, goes through a final puja, and hands back her jewels and red garb. The spirit of the goddess is said to have vacated her body. She now returns to her family, but probably never to normal life.”
John Borthwick, The Living Goddess
the counselor
she sits by the window each afternoon
her men, all her men, are an experiment
they come naked as a statue.
they display black wounds and she inspects them
they rant and cry and she listens
they loath on arrogance and she jots it down
for one hour these men wear no masks
or just a small one
she can crush them or build them,
but takes only notes and appointments, collects co-payments
appointments and clear their cobwebs off
their brains and shuts her heart down
I know her, she knows me
Once, I collapsed at the bank
the soap opera way:
Eyes rolled back, limbs inert
like a talking doll with dead batteries
The doctor at the hospital thought there was something
Wrong with my heart
A medic said my brain was overcharged
With question marks and desperation
A nurse saw a microbe in my blood
So she extracted more blood
And some more
And then some more
A psychiatrist read a ghost in my dreams
Dark lengthy nightmares where
Moths run after me like monsters
Someone saw a hurricane approaching my eyes
There is no ocean left in my chest
Just an expanse of desert
A cold heritage, lonely like a candle
She makes me feel special
Quiet like a monk, short as a retreat
My body used to be slim and scarce
It had no straight jackets, it ran on oily rails
Showing its red vest and clumsy powers
It had a grand set of muscles
today, it lies by the pool
a glass of wine in its hand, the ironed eyes
gazing at the Big Dipper.
it doesn’t care too much about leather seats or
black walled offices, it doesn’t long for
briefcases packed with dollars or
hefty bank accounts
it only wants an oasis of silence
thick like a mountain
it wants the counselor’s naked hands
drawing my skin inch by inch
If a particle moves along a line
According to the law s = f (t) where
S represents the position of particle P
On a line at time t, then the velocity v of
P at time t is given by ds/dt
Calouste Gulbenkian never crossed the
Ponte 25 de Avril
He died sixteen years earlier
When Dictator Salazar was at
The height of his power
No, watch him walk the Alfama neighborhood
Overlooking the Tejo river and
With Laura Alves –his companion of latter days-
Hanging from his forearm
Every polynomial whose degree
Is greater than or equal to 1
Becomes infinite as x does
So they start at the Military Museum along
The rúa do Jardim de Tabaco
Where old couples also stroll, slowly
Like the big ships exiting the river
Never holding hands, but they do for
If a function is continuous over an
Interval, we can draw its graph
Without lifting pencil from paper
Further down at the Casa dos Bicos
They eat a dish of pataniscas with
Bual wine 1772 for it complements
The tasty salt-coded fritters her mother
Liked so much, the requijão cheese, round
A cylindrical shell may be regarded as
the outer skin of a cylinder, its volume is
the volume of the rectangular solid formed
when this skin is peeled from the cylinder
and flattened out, as Calouste and Laura
flatten the street with their black shoes
From afar Nossa Senhora de Conceição
Opens her arms like the Christ on Alfândega
Street while Calouste and Laura break west
Then north on rua Madalena towards
Castelo São Jorge
It is always possible to approximate the
Value of a definitive integral
With the derivatives of life and death
Ω
l’Uomo
…alla seconda ruota
l’Azione
…alla terza ruota
lo Strumento”
Giordano Bruno
Two frustrated semesters at universities in Florida and North Carolina [such is the nature of my daytime job] did not deter my pursuit of poetry truncated many years ago when, to satisfy the insistence of my father, I chose architecture over literature. The salvation finally came with the first bilingual on-line MFA program, established by the University of Texas in El Paso. Something good came out my itinerant consulting job, which had taken me from Nicaragua to Mexico, from Portugal to Honduras, from Miami to Detroit, and finally to Texas. All dreams are bound to materialize if we seize the occasion when it arises.
In this Advanced Poetry Workshop we had the opportunity –among many other benefits- to craft and deliver a collection of workshopped poems that are the basis of these introspective musings.
In following the analytical scheme provided by Professor Alcala, I will comment on these questions: 1] Is there a thematic thread that provides unity to the collection submitted? 2] Are there affinities or discrepancies with the ideas, concepts, and approaches studied in the course texts? 3] How was my revision process affected if I had one? 4] What conscious or unconscious techniques have I learned or improved upon? 5] What satisfying discoveries have I made about my own poetry and where do I want to take my craft next?
“Alla prima ruota l’Uomo”
We all go through different stages in our life and experience multiple changes in our body, expressions, thought, and beliefs. Poetic voice goes through the same transformation. We are the same, yet different. As we evolve and acquire a personality of our own certain recurring themes surface again and again in our craft. We may move from theme to theme, but I believe there is a canon that for most poets is difficult to abandon: it constitutes the essence of our being, the core or our craft, the eternal search [or return?] which answer eludes us. We cannot escape these themes or threads for we are them and, unless we suffer of multiple personality disorder, we will keep addressing the same ideas, problems, ideals, subject matters, and intellectual pursuits, as long as we do not fulfill our “cosmic mission”.
For several years now I have found that my poems address one or a combination of three themes: God, woman, and country. By God I mean religion, philosophy, metaphysics, and universal mind. By woman I mean relationships to others, to mother, to goddess, to Gaeia, to self. By country I mean exile, language, universe, politics, and justice. The themes overlap and cross boundaries for in my mind all is one and everything stems from the same source. Of the twelve poems submitted the following threads and central themes can be found:
No. poem Threads, topics theme
1 Bridge Religion, mother, father, love, relationships God
2 Hair Playfulness, woman Woman
3 Hotdogs relationships, inner search, love woman
4 Movie Playfulness, relationships woman
5 Travel Playfulness, travels country
6 Rubrics Exile, travels, language, inner search, justice country
7 Dreamcatchers Relationships, inner search, love woman
8 Deliverance Relationships, inner search, love woman
9 Tasba Pri Political, social unrest, justice, love, language country
10 Kumari Religion, inner search, relationships, love, travel woman
11 Counselor Inner search, relationships woman
12 Particle Travels, relationships country
Regarding tone, poems 2, 4, and 5 above are of a more playful and experimental nature and reality, as we know it outside of a poem, is more fantastic. Poem 1 is the most [maybe the only one] abstract of the collection and draws a lot on symbols and referents. Poems 6, 7, 8, and 12 allude to a more palpable reality still even if drawn from an exercise, like poem 12. Poems 9, 10, and 11 are all based on historical facts. Poem 10 is located in a far away land and is sprinklered with fiction. This poem is especially important to me for I wrote a movie script about it in the Advanced Screenwriting Workshop. Poem 9 was born as an exercise after reading Ana Akhmatova’s Requiem, but took a life of its own. Poem 11 reflects a personal plight I went through a few years ago. Lastly, poem 3, is the most realistic of the collection.
As many writers do, I keep a journal filled with ideas, projects, thoughts, drawings, and other poetic musings and paraphernalia. Poems 1, 3, 6, 7, and 11 were rescued from these journals. The rest were born out of exercises performed during the semester. An earlier version of poem 10 was published in the electronic magazine Artefacto and has a mix of English and Spanish stanzas. The newest version has just been accepted to a new upcoming magazine in Miami, Nagari.
I cannot say that I agree or disagree with the ideas and approaches discussed in the texts. I am of the opinion that all theories suffer the disease of pride: their author[s] thinks their one theory covers all the bases and explains all the things. There is no such thing as a theory of everything, at least not yet. I believe that as humanity advances the evolution of thought takes us to always new roads. Our species just appeared on the planet in the latest fraction of time. Each theory is capable of explaining one aspect of a phenomenon, in this case poetry and its role, techniques, tactics, and strategies, function, structure and form. It is what Ken Wilber et al call holons within holons; evergrowing and appearing spheres of knowledge, one giving birth to the next, spheres within spheres. In the end all holons in the poetic world could be reduced to three: the author’s holon [what intention s/he had in conscious or unconscious mind]; the object of art holon [what the object per se conveys and what the context it is bound to conveys as well]; and the observer holon [what the reader perceives, interprets, or makes of the text]. All three holons are in continual change. The Danilo Lopez of today will not be the same ten years from now. The poems I write today may have a different meaning to anybody twenty years from now. The objective and the archetypical reader of today will be different tomorrow.
“Alla seconda ruota l’Azione
When I first started writing, poems would come hitting me as lightning. My hands would pour an impressive amount of output barely catching up with brainwaves and a pounding heart. Back in those days [oblivious to technique, craft, and conventions] I would hardly or never revise what I wrote. According to me they were an expression of self and that was enough. There was no audience or it was not important to me. The mere act of writing, the outpouring of words and phrases justified all. Their raw state was their final and only possible state of being. The necessity of revision was born when the audience appeared. It was not enough to write for me, a solitary meaningless act I had to go through. I wanted to say something, to communicate intricacies of the mind and the soul that daily assaulted me. I wanted to point and show, to protest and change, to declare and admire, to chant and condemn, to critique and analyze. To learn and grow.
Attending poetry readings, devouring lots of books and magazines, organizing recitals all became part of the learning process, since studying literature was out of the question. Years later came the occasional chats with known poets and the timid sharing of my writings at workshops. Until I jumped in the water and started participating in readings myself and publishing in local newspapers and small magazines. Hearing from peers was not sufficient. I took a couple of adult education poetry workshops at Florida International University with the goal of eventually registering in their MFA program. Time constraints and family responsibilities, not to mention my job, got in the way. When I decided to start again in North Carolina, the same obstacles won over. By then I had read several books on craft and participated in many workshops, heard many critiques and publish a few poems, essays and short stories in both paper magazines and web sites. The on-line MFA at UTEP has been a blessing. I have learned a methodical revision process. I have learned to put ideas at rest in my journals for future development. I have learned to find inspiration in mathematical books, TV shows, daily life, restaurant menus, others poets’ work, news, etc. The whole world is a poetic place waiting to be expressed in those terms.
“Alla terza ruota lo Strumento”
The practice of poetry [Behn & Twitchell] provided a series of exercises that became very handy in producing ideas for poems. Novel ways to look at ideas of poems and the utilization of multiple sources to mine new work were very useful to me. There are still many exercises we did not do but I plan to use in the future. Koch’s Making your own days great contribution for me was how he dissects poetry in relation to language canon and music patterns. The anthology at the end provides a wide selection of poets from [almost] all ages and places. It is not common to delight oneself in such a display of diversity in styles, geography, theme, theory, praxis, and philosophy. This was an incentive for me to refresh my knowledge of other languages to truly appreciate some poets in their original tongues.
Spahr’s main point of interest for me was a new use of language poems. This is a mini-reflection in many ways of Cardenal’s Cosmic Canticle and Neruda’s Canto General regarding the treatment of political and social protest anchored in the universal brotherhood [hermandad would be more apropriate for it denotes no gender preference] of mankind. In Dictee Cha pointed a different approach of what a book is. For some time I have been toying with with the idea of making a different book, mixed with other media. Dona Nobis Pacem [published last year in Miami] and Dead Souls [a DVD currently in the works] are crude approximations to this book-idea of mine. In the meantime I also read other poetry books that contributed to the learning experience, namely Stardust [Bidart], Post Meridien [Ruefle], Averno [Glück] and Uno y el Universo [Sabato].
In studying the course materials, Prof. Alcala’s Notebook entries and the valuable input from fellow students, a device for critiquing and self-critiquing poems was born: twenty five analysis lines that I will use as a scheme of analysis. Not all could be applicable at one time, but when the mind goes blank and the sensations are not ignited by what I read, the following points or questions or topics could be asked to jumpstart the analytical mode. I am sure that many more questions could be asked, but these I’ve compiled in reading my peers and my professor; plus my own experience. Look at it as an instrument of use for analysis:
1 What are the subject, verbs, and object of each sentence in the poem?
2 Paraphrase the poem to see if you understood it, retell the story
3 Who is the speaker?
4 What is the situation?
5 What are the issues, ideas, and mood?
6 What is the tone and the emotions?
7 Is the poet the subject of the poem?
8 What contrasts appear?
9 Does the title relate to the body of the poem?
10 What allusions are present?
11 What is the diction, word choice, and meaning?
12 What denotation and connotation or words?
13 Any wordplay?
14 Any unusual words?
15 What is the level: formal, informal, colloquial, dialectical, slang?
16 Are diction and tone in sync?
17 What imagery is present? Do they appeal to the senses? Which ones? To the emotions? Which ones?
18 Is the language descriptive? Figurative? Metaphors? Analogies?
19 Is progression of time present? How?
20 What is the rhythm? The metric?
21 Are there any sounds? Onomatopeia, alliterartion? Assonance? Consonance? Rhyme?
22 What is the structure? Ideas? Sounds? Free verse? Formal verse?
23 Any symbolism? Realism? The setting? Place, situation, time, social, political, physical?
24 What literary schools would be useful in analyzing the poem?
25 Who speaks? To whom? What does the speaker feel? What is the plot? The tension? The arc? Conflict?
I have been very fortunate to have participated in this Advanced Poetry Workshop and intend to continue the life long learning process of poetry. It is the most precious gift that the gods have given humankind.
∞
The bridge
Hers is not like other bridges
The one my mother builds
To connect me to my father
Or the one my father builds
To connect me to the world
Hers can resist
Centuries of snow
And countless miles of sun
Or a thousand parsecs of galaxies
As to a good shepherd
Her cares allow me to
Go in search of food and water
And as to any celebrant
To freely move around the altar
Hers is a different kind of bridge
Not like Sister Juliette’s
Happy to see us
In front of the cross
Praying rosaries
Breathing deeply
Asking ourselves
Will we be alive tomorrow?
Her bridge may not be a
Conferred peace
But it helps to discard
All the hollow columns
The empty pillars
And the slow poisoning
Of an old curse
I cannot describe
(The monsters in my dreams
Have long been gone
Yet a sort of restlessness
Kept disturbing me all these years)
Maybe like my Guardian Angel’s
–who always told me
The good news- her bridge is
The fruit of innocent pacts
Consequently
Here you will never see the current
Reflecting in silence
The arc of the bridge but
Broken waves and edgy eddies
Her bridge rams itself
Against the sands
Rock crushing on rock
And the bridge
Grinding
Grinding
Grinding
Thrusting against the riverbed
To one day obliterate
My gray obsidian center.
Her hair
Was thick and messy
Like a bird’s nest falling upwards.
We often make this sort of comparison
Oblivious to the facts behind the scene
Quick to judge, sentence and condemn
Her hair was not messy at all
It was a poodle’s except
Not shaved
So let me start over
Her hair was wavy as a spring and
It fell in all directions
Like beer spume or lava
Or words spoken by a preacher
But often we also see things that are not
For accustomed to use only our own
Eyes the brain develops neuronatic
Connections that paint a landscape which
Refuses to peacefully co-exist
So let me try one last time
Her hair was straight as a spear but
Soft as water
It didn’t wave like a river
But cascaded like emoticons
Only a child could imagne
I would later ratify
As I tilt my head to the right
Her hair appears in its entire splendor
Finally striking down all judgment
All sentencing, all ruminations so she could
Rise straight to the clouds
The movie never made
It is one thing to blow a horn and another to light
The atmosphere with fire and related
Iridescences of the heart
The movie had certain qualities that we, as
Holders of the keys could not report to
The upper echelons
First was the fact that the actress hated the
Leading man as much as I hated my own guts
So in the matter of me vs. humanity the judges
Ruled against my guts
Then the Butoh dancer explained to me that in
Matters of natural selection
Her fee arose from three to six thousand so
Photos to be posted in the web site did not
Represent her dancing figure anymore than a
Bleat would mask an exploding meteorite
Second was the case of the rolling poem
This was distracted by the fadeout girl tending the
Tent, her skinny fingers obliterated all
Hopes of wanton and early souvenirs
Third we ran out of actors so only the
Ubiquitous voiceover integrated the cast at
The time
“It is time to finalize the design” the director
Next door said and we all decided it was apt hour
To pull the plug and pack off our decorum
Travel
From up here all looks abnormal
Such is the impression things impress
Upon us when we care to climb to
Higher places, but we should keep
Things in perspective and know
That anyone can fall or climb at
A moment’s notice
The plane was a vine of blushes
All passengers were minding their own
Little coffee cups and nibbling on
Tiny sugar cars
From my window I could hear
The bags running up and down
The alleys in the luggage compartment
But no one cared
The pilot kept checking the tires in mid air waving
Good bye to ducks passing by
In a neatly formed V pointing north
The leader realized soon enough they
Were headed the wrong way
I don’t know if he changed course or not
Little and long rivers down below reminded us
That life also is capable of changing
Its course for us following mountainous
Forms of red, green, blue and brown lands
Other than not being able to rest or sleep
It was a pleasant flight with polite and nice
Stewards floating gracefully in the
Neatly pressed blue uniforms, blue eyes
Blue hairdos and blue nail polish
We all drank and read and typed profusely
On improvised laptops and coffee mugs
When I got home to the North Pole
The ducks were having a party
rubrics
with a trembling hand
borges mimics a signature
on the first page of my red book
-argentinean embassy, Lisbon 1985-
hands it back to me
some other time I will stamp the date
penta hotel
rafael alberti seats, overjoyed
besides me
shouting the name of my country
euphoric
stroking his long hair, places the glass of wine
on the side table
and signs my 1985 ocre agenda
palacio de queluz, alvaro cunhal enters
and we conjuncture the political evaluation
of a communist paradise in nicaragua
i have forgotten what i did
to compare terms is not enough for incomplete
to confide in others is inconvenient for scandalous
my clients are strange children
using stationary artifacts
impossible to classify,
could it be that the need is mutual and that
-grammatically speaking-
the abysses that unite us
depend on the sense of adventure
we continually neglect?
(the redheaded poet is a rare orchid in
this flowering midnight)
as long as work permits
we will create the corresponding pamphlets
we will make them circulate among live peoples
and the beauty of time will
confirm so many isolated pronouns
so many culprit desires
so many family tergiversations
life lowers our expectations
and to live in the united states of america
imposes a toll on lost words
killing ten or twenty poems at once
diabolical artists anti-war demonstrations
old dictions and styles new confusing syntaxes
i would give all my fortunes away
to have my language again
Dreamcatchers
I want to look for you -not the one you will be-
But the One you were when in past lives
-In China, France, and Egypt- we were together
When we were gypsies and had
A complete disregard for this life
When we had each other’s lips to bite softly
And our own searching nails to mark
The other’s back during lovemaking
I want to revive the single-candled nights
Slowly melting away
The bottle of Merlot unhurriedly growing down
I want to recover the Indian Sorceress
Who naked danced in rave bathed in oil
Exorcizing evil spirits, surrounded by angels
I want to be the terrible man
Put at your silence reach by someone above
The same who wouldn’t dare approach your fortress
Yet experienced your deeper bliss
I want to be the same pretender who unlocked
The curtain hiding this verse
Astonished, eyelids enclosing you
But now is not the time
Not in this century of broken transgressions
Not on this ship so close to the trade
I’ll have to fan my face at sunset
Eyes fixed on advancing darkness
I’ll have to call upon a light that doesn’t hurry
Its path on the waters
I’ll have to wait the whisper of your smile
Your fearless utterance
I’ll have to challenge the sunrise
And be there when the love of wanting me is born in you
- Again -
Like when we were someone else.
Tasba Pri
“Yapti Tasba Masraka nani Aslatakanka
Toward the end of 1984, peace talks opened between the MISURASATA [Miskito] Organization and the government of Nicaragua. These were the first peace talks between Managua and any organization engaged in armed struggle in the country. The process included four rounds of negotiations over a period of eight months in Bogota and Mexico City.
The agenda of the negotiations was based on the causes of the conflict: systematic repression and the denial of the historical rights to land and autonomy. (…) the majority of the Indians displaced to the Tasba Pri camps were allowed to return to their traditional communities along the Wangi (Coco River).”
YATAMA
Republic of Nicaragua
February 1989” [1]
1
Those were the days when risen martyrs
Scrutinized us from banners and street names
Tasba Pri lay silent like a phoenix still in ashes
In those days, fooled by slogans and grand promises
Young patriots befell to flesh on which cannons fed
In thin lines we marched through misty mountains
And dense confusing rivers
Hoarse machines hover above us
They drop the fruits of deadly entrails
We quiet Miskitos torched the land the aliens seized.
2
Dark soldiers took me away one night
They pulled me like a beast turned prey
Wild birds and protean monkeys witnessed
The iron that crumpled my skin
My lips were cold like an empty glass
My eyes sought your face in a broken mirror…
Remember!
You would be scolded at the National Palace
Along with ranks of ousted widows
3
A sudden sun beams through the forest
Archaic canopies pulled apart
Away from the edge where crocodiles
Splash and kill
We wait in silence for a fitting instant
When the waters clear and the fish snooze
4
(…) the Nicaraguan government, in February 1982, forcibly relocated about 8,500 Miskitos from communities along the Rio Coco to four resettlement camps about 60 km to the south, an area now known as Tasba Pri. [2]
They wait like panthers, eyes on a mirage
Of gentle bullets decimating our stock
You see them in dreams, a lonely woman
Writing from afar to my shadow, to my child
From a country with nameless streets and
Empty nouns your letters reach me in strange ways
I digest your pictures along empty hotel corridors,
Precarious shady parks where prostitutes meander
And dense crowded manifestations where we all banter
Angry slurs against the government
5
If you could listen to the rains I’ve seen
Boys with broken kites, their siblings and dogs sacrificed
Entire families slaughtered in the name of peace
And revolution
What will be of them in coming years? [3]
How long will Bilwi, Kukalaya, and Wawa Boom bleed?
How does this land hold its ground in front of
Mad Judas and assassin Goliaths?
6
While they interrogate me you stay with friends not daring
To cross the line that separate redemption from sacrifice
I find my self repeating daughters names like mantras
They deliver me from Avernos and miseries
But when the ice is not silencing your voice
It is their fire that negates me sanity
The camps are losing density, prisoners come and evaporate
Their brows wet with fear and sweat,
They emit no sound when the steel axes their lives
7
For twenty weeks they have tormented me
They show me pictures of broken bodies and
Limps severed at rabid razzias, but I don’t yield.
A golem-soldier excoriates my skin
He grunts the verdict awaiting my turn
Only the river holds, grotesque in its calm
Neutral as a corpse
A giant blade shines on my eyes announcing the
Intention, the neuter, and the end
[1] © 1999 Center for World Indigenous Studies
[2] Article copyright by Cultural Survival, Inc.
[3] Hurricane Felix hit on 4 September 2007 the North Region of Nicaragua causing the biggest disaster since Hurricane Mitch in 1998.
The impacted region has a territorial size of 32,000 sq. km with a total population of some 314,000, mainly Miskitos and Mayagnas people.
In the Tasba Pri district, wells and rivers have been contaminated by poisonous metallic residues from the mining industry. (ACT International, 2007)
Kumari
To Rashmila Shakya,
Virgin-goddess of Nepal [1]
1
I kept on looking intently
In the dream-mode reality
Knowing about complications
And spiritual intelligence
Attractors are a difficult
Thing to manage
The human heart is filled with power
Happy the man who reached
the homeport
Leaving behind seas and tempests
Whose dreams are dead
Or never born
Who seats in Bremen, drinks bear
by the fire
In peace he rests.
Happy the man who like a flame decays
Happy the man who like the sand darkens
Happy the man who frees his load and cleans his brow
He sits by the road:
Fears no one, waits not, hopes nothing
Fixing the falling sun with his eyes recalls
And you kept my book, a picture of myself
Back in 1886, a portrait so deeply intense
That a piece of my soul already belongs to you,
Kumari.
2
On a night like this one
The north winds bring snow forth
Someone sleeps in front of the TV
And someone decides to steal
On a night like this one, my flower blossoms
Watered by Kumari each day
On a day like this one
A comet showers us
From the deep abyss of kosmos
Some man stretches by his
Woman
And stops feeling his own weight
Important is today, not tomorrow
And time that briskly passes
On a night like this one
The witches of Salem would
Choose the moonlight more convenient
To their craft
And concoct the potion.
There is a man in Potsdam
Wailing to the moon
Sending messages to the woman who faced him
To the mirror of himself
(The poet tenses his arch transformed in Eros,
He seeks harmless words, serene
Words with the force of a hurricane
And the broad secrets of blood and seed)
Oh! Kumari, Kumari
In your breast you carry cold hungers
Something my chest misses at times.
They couldn’t break what is left
Within you
You are a strong woman,
Colorless
Am I the empty companion whom no longer
Has a name?
Am I the forsaken soul who
Can no longer weep?
You no longer grieve
So poor
You no longer fear
So tired
Spend me, a once-strong man
If we have to meet again
Out there, in the world, Sweet Beneath The Sun,
What kind of face would we confront each other with?
________________
[1] “The Royal Kumari is always a Buddhist girl of the Sakya caste. The girls are examined for the "32 perfections of a goddess," but almost certainly the list is simple: she must have had perfect health, with no serious illnesses, unblemished skin, black hair and eyes, no bad body smells, be premenstrual, and have lost no tooth. Her horoscope must in no way clash with the King’s.
There are a number of former Royal Kumaris, some of whom have held the position up until the age of thirteen and even sixteen. When one is declared unfit as Kumari, she immediately ceases to be
regarded as a goddess, goes through a final puja, and hands back her jewels and red garb. The spirit of the goddess is said to have vacated her body. She now returns to her family, but probably never to normal life.”
John Borthwick, The Living Goddess
the counselor
she sits by the window each afternoon
her men, all her men, are an experiment
they come naked as a statue.
they display black wounds and she inspects them
they rant and cry and she listens
they loath on arrogance and she jots it down
for one hour these men wear no masks
or just a small one
she can crush them or build them,
but takes only notes and appointments, collects co-payments
appointments and clear their cobwebs off
their brains and shuts her heart down
I know her, she knows me
Once, I collapsed at the bank
the soap opera way:
Eyes rolled back, limbs inert
like a talking doll with dead batteries
The doctor at the hospital thought there was something
Wrong with my heart
A medic said my brain was overcharged
With question marks and desperation
A nurse saw a microbe in my blood
So she extracted more blood
And some more
And then some more
A psychiatrist read a ghost in my dreams
Dark lengthy nightmares where
Moths run after me like monsters
Someone saw a hurricane approaching my eyes
There is no ocean left in my chest
Just an expanse of desert
A cold heritage, lonely like a candle
She makes me feel special
Quiet like a monk, short as a retreat
My body used to be slim and scarce
It had no straight jackets, it ran on oily rails
Showing its red vest and clumsy powers
It had a grand set of muscles
today, it lies by the pool
a glass of wine in its hand, the ironed eyes
gazing at the Big Dipper.
it doesn’t care too much about leather seats or
black walled offices, it doesn’t long for
briefcases packed with dollars or
hefty bank accounts
it only wants an oasis of silence
thick like a mountain
it wants the counselor’s naked hands
drawing my skin inch by inch
If a particle moves along a line
According to the law s = f (t) where
S represents the position of particle P
On a line at time t, then the velocity v of
P at time t is given by ds/dt
Calouste Gulbenkian never crossed the
Ponte 25 de Avril
He died sixteen years earlier
When Dictator Salazar was at
The height of his power
No, watch him walk the Alfama neighborhood
Overlooking the Tejo river and
With Laura Alves –his companion of latter days-
Hanging from his forearm
Every polynomial whose degree
Is greater than or equal to 1
Becomes infinite as x does
So they start at the Military Museum along
The rúa do Jardim de Tabaco
Where old couples also stroll, slowly
Like the big ships exiting the river
Never holding hands, but they do for
If a function is continuous over an
Interval, we can draw its graph
Without lifting pencil from paper
Further down at the Casa dos Bicos
They eat a dish of pataniscas with
Bual wine 1772 for it complements
The tasty salt-coded fritters her mother
Liked so much, the requijão cheese, round
A cylindrical shell may be regarded as
the outer skin of a cylinder, its volume is
the volume of the rectangular solid formed
when this skin is peeled from the cylinder
and flattened out, as Calouste and Laura
flatten the street with their black shoes
From afar Nossa Senhora de Conceição
Opens her arms like the Christ on Alfândega
Street while Calouste and Laura break west
Then north on rua Madalena towards
Castelo São Jorge
It is always possible to approximate the
Value of a definitive integral
With the derivatives of life and death
Ω
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Art, diction, tone, and organization is four poetry books by Bidart, Barrett, Tate, and Hull
I have noticed that, for many poets, the lines that separate one artistic realm from another are rather blurred, to not say non-existent. It is not uncommon to find musicians, who also write poetry, or poets who also paint, or architects who sculpt. At times, for poets, these incursions into other artforms are reflected in their writing. It is also normal to talk, in poetics, about rhythm, musicality, structure, composition, image, and the like, all terms that also apply to other mediums.
In the four books referred to in here, the employ of other arts techniques –besides poetry, are apparent. “Star Dust” by Frank Bidart is rich is allusions to music. Poems in “Into perfect spheres such holes are pierced” by Catherine Barrett, make many references to painting. “The worshipful company of fletchers” by James Tate, often evokes the video and collage artforms. The “Complete poems” by Linda Hull also bring to mind painting and drama.
“Star Dust” is organized in two parts. Section I is titled “Music like dirt”, the poem that gives title to this section is written in pairs of sentences with a third sentence separating the pairs, that resembles a chorus-like repetition: music like dirt, music like dirt. In “For Bill Nestrick (1940-96) there is allusion to desideratum; one cannot avoid remembering the spiritual poem “Desiderata” written by Max Erhmann in 1927 and the music set into it by Les Crane in 1971. In Bidart’s book, there are also a “Little fugue”, “Stanza ending with the same two words”, “Heart beat”, and “Song”, all of which make reference to musical terms. Finally, the long poem, “The third hour of the night” is entirely devoted to the life of Italian composer Benvenuto Cellini.
The central theme of the book is a criticism of modernity, especially post-modernity in the XX and XXI first century America. Written in a language similar to that of philosophical discourse and self-reflection, “Star dust” is about the poet’s role as maker (as stated in the interview at the end of the book) of poetry and of sense in the chaos of this world. After al, poetry comes from the Greek poiesis (to make).
“Into perfect spheres…” by Catherine Barrett, narrates the story of the author’s nieces accidental death, and of everything she perceived in the family while vacationing in the beach with the devastated mother (her sister). Written in a more everyday-like language, “Into perfect spheres…” also makes numerous references to other artforms. There is a Frontispiece, which is an architecture term along with a Living Room with Altar. There are Site and Site II, with a Transcript, Duration, and Dinosaurs, which call archeology and paleontology to mind. Then there are a Portrait, a Son with Older Boys, and several Still Life poems that evoke painting (the poet’s mother is referenced in several occasions as a painter). At the same time gloomy and chatty, desolate and optimistic, the book is full of images about art in many forms. This collection is organized into three sections that I could classify as the tragedy, the denial, and the acceptance.
James Tate’s “The worshipful company of fletchers” is the most innovative in this group, in both language structure and subject treatment. Several references are made to painting with titles like Head of a White Woman Winking and Color in the Garden, there are also references to film and photography as in The Documentary we were Making and 50 Views of Tokyo. Truth be told, the entire book stroke me as a cinematic experience, as a psychedelic trip where a torrent of unconventional images, colors, and situations, explode in the mind as the moving poems are read.
The “Complete Poems” of Lynda Hull span her work of only a few years (she died at age forty) with an output so intense yet of a consistent high quality and lyricism. Each phrase of each poem appears constructed with the precision of a Michelangelo. Allusions to artforms are numerous: Hollywood Jazz, Love Song, Adagio (music), Cubism, Barcelona (painting). To me, nevertheless, the success of these excellent poems radiates from the direct appeal they make to the readers’ souls and minds. Like an intricate jewelry worker, Ms. Hull offers in each poem a myriad of details of what she speaks of, a craft she perfected over time. One can see how earlier poems were not as dense and rich as the later ones. The book was organized by her husband, after her death, in a chronological order, including previous books and some new poems. The result is a panoramic view of this great canvas of Lynda’s poetry, an immense mural that extends a far as the eye can see.
In the four books referred to in here, the employ of other arts techniques –besides poetry, are apparent. “Star Dust” by Frank Bidart is rich is allusions to music. Poems in “Into perfect spheres such holes are pierced” by Catherine Barrett, make many references to painting. “The worshipful company of fletchers” by James Tate, often evokes the video and collage artforms. The “Complete poems” by Linda Hull also bring to mind painting and drama.
“Star Dust” is organized in two parts. Section I is titled “Music like dirt”, the poem that gives title to this section is written in pairs of sentences with a third sentence separating the pairs, that resembles a chorus-like repetition: music like dirt, music like dirt. In “For Bill Nestrick (1940-96) there is allusion to desideratum; one cannot avoid remembering the spiritual poem “Desiderata” written by Max Erhmann in 1927 and the music set into it by Les Crane in 1971. In Bidart’s book, there are also a “Little fugue”, “Stanza ending with the same two words”, “Heart beat”, and “Song”, all of which make reference to musical terms. Finally, the long poem, “The third hour of the night” is entirely devoted to the life of Italian composer Benvenuto Cellini.
The central theme of the book is a criticism of modernity, especially post-modernity in the XX and XXI first century America. Written in a language similar to that of philosophical discourse and self-reflection, “Star dust” is about the poet’s role as maker (as stated in the interview at the end of the book) of poetry and of sense in the chaos of this world. After al, poetry comes from the Greek poiesis (to make).
“Into perfect spheres…” by Catherine Barrett, narrates the story of the author’s nieces accidental death, and of everything she perceived in the family while vacationing in the beach with the devastated mother (her sister). Written in a more everyday-like language, “Into perfect spheres…” also makes numerous references to other artforms. There is a Frontispiece, which is an architecture term along with a Living Room with Altar. There are Site and Site II, with a Transcript, Duration, and Dinosaurs, which call archeology and paleontology to mind. Then there are a Portrait, a Son with Older Boys, and several Still Life poems that evoke painting (the poet’s mother is referenced in several occasions as a painter). At the same time gloomy and chatty, desolate and optimistic, the book is full of images about art in many forms. This collection is organized into three sections that I could classify as the tragedy, the denial, and the acceptance.
James Tate’s “The worshipful company of fletchers” is the most innovative in this group, in both language structure and subject treatment. Several references are made to painting with titles like Head of a White Woman Winking and Color in the Garden, there are also references to film and photography as in The Documentary we were Making and 50 Views of Tokyo. Truth be told, the entire book stroke me as a cinematic experience, as a psychedelic trip where a torrent of unconventional images, colors, and situations, explode in the mind as the moving poems are read.
The “Complete Poems” of Lynda Hull span her work of only a few years (she died at age forty) with an output so intense yet of a consistent high quality and lyricism. Each phrase of each poem appears constructed with the precision of a Michelangelo. Allusions to artforms are numerous: Hollywood Jazz, Love Song, Adagio (music), Cubism, Barcelona (painting). To me, nevertheless, the success of these excellent poems radiates from the direct appeal they make to the readers’ souls and minds. Like an intricate jewelry worker, Ms. Hull offers in each poem a myriad of details of what she speaks of, a craft she perfected over time. One can see how earlier poems were not as dense and rich as the later ones. The book was organized by her husband, after her death, in a chronological order, including previous books and some new poems. The result is a panoramic view of this great canvas of Lynda’s poetry, an immense mural that extends a far as the eye can see.
Monday, March 22, 2010
El Espectro de la Rosa
Poema del Nicaraguense Julio Cabrales
"Le Spectre de la Rose" es una obra emblemática del ballet creada por Michael Fokine a principios del siglo XX.
Con música de Carl María Von Weber, el 19 de abril de 1911 interpretaron los role principales Tamara Karsavina y Vaslav Nijinski, sobre una coreografía firmada por Michel Fokine.
Fue el primer ballet presentado por Diaghilevs y sus Ballets Russos en el Teatro de Monte-Carlo el 18 de abril de 1911.
Unos versos del poeta Théophile Gautier titulado "Después del Baile", que comienza diciendo: "Yo soy el espectro de la rosa, que tu llevaste ayer al baile "... inspiraron a Jean-Louis Vaudoyer este corto ballet. Escenográfo León Bakst.
Argumento
El ballet cuenta la historia de una joven que vuelve de un baile a su hogar y se encuentra en su habitación con una rosa en la mano. Al respirar su perfume con profundidad, se abandona en una butaca y cae dormirá. En sus sueños, el espectro de la rosa aparece por la ventana arrastrándola en una danza encantada. Ella sueña que baila con el espíritu, hasta que la rosa desaparece con un salto espectacular a través de la ventana y ella se despierta y solo ve a la rosa que traía consigo.
El Poema de Julio Cabrales:
Fue en Madrid, en la Calle Altamirano
donde compré por una peseta
un sucio librito de bolsillo
que trataba sobre la vida de Nijinsky.
Vatzlav Nijinsky no tuvo estrella
pero nuestra imaginación hace sonar
las campanas del Kremlin
y cabecear las palomas de la plaza de San Marcos
en Venecia y hacerlas espantar en desordenado vuelo.
Es decir, todo hombre tiene su estrella
tal vez la de David o la de Cristo o la del Horóscopo.
Vatzlav desde pequeño bailó
-el retrato vivo de la época azul y rosa de Picasso-
bailaba junto con su madre
por dinero
ya Quevedo lo dijo,
ya nuestros indios lo sabían,
Pound en el canto XLV cristianamente
dijo “Bienaventurados los pobres de espíritu”,
y así Vatzlav bailaba junto a su madre
por dinero.
A los 16 años entró a la Escuela Imperial de Danza
en San Petersburgo.
era un potrillo alado,
sus muslos se curvaban sobre sus rodillas
como el cuello de los potros en el abrevadero.
EL CHINO le decían por sus ojos rasgados.
Rodeado de espejos que son los que nos descubren
nuestras virtudes y vicios del rostro y del cuerpo
y del ALMA!,
frente ellos bailaba
poniendo el pie de plano
y como catapulta
suspendiendo la frágil cintura de una mujer,
el pie inclinado y frenado el impulso
por los dedos
o como un gimnasta
y de salto en salto como un cervatillo
de la sala de estudio al escenario,
bajo los focos, sobre la música,
por las ovaciones, en el circo.
los prismáticos como cangrejos
de señoras gordas olorosas
ataviadas de collares
y señoritas pálidas y doncellas bellísimas
se preguntaban “¿quién es, quién es?”
frunciendo la nariz o con los ojos luminosos.
Vatzlav hacía palidecer a las primas bailarinas,
es decir, bailaba muy bien,
era el sol.
En el entrechat royal a dix
entrecruzaba diez veces los pies
antes de tocar el suelo.
En las tertulias oía hablar por primera vez
de Monet Renoir Rodin Debussy Mallarmé
y allí estaba Diaghilev que era una fiera,
elegante el hijueputa
haciéndole dar importancia a sus palabras
disimuladamente
y formaba ruedas y a saber que cosas decía,
total que hizo amistad con Nijinsky
y fue su maestro, protector y apoderado;
le fue moldeando el gusto a su gusto:
(No sé hasta donde el hombre por su temperamento escoge)
el olvido de las mujeres,
el olvido de los tragos,
el olvido de la sangre.
Nijinsky era una mina.
Y Vatzlav hacía y ejecutaba
con la fidelidad de un perro.
Iba y venía con él,
después de cada ensayo,
de cada viaje.
La monstruosa influencia del maestro.
El pobre no sabía:
esto es bueno, esto es malo,
estaba aún en el paraíso de la idiotez!
por eso vino Cristo Maestro de Maestros,
(no sé hasta donde lo fue Sócrates)
Vatzlav era en una palabra: ¡PENDEJO!
Y cuando en París se presentó
el 1 de Mayo de 1909:
había llovido esa noche
y las luces del teatro Chatelet
rielaban en las calles nocturnas
y en las vitrinas se miraban
los programas y dibujos de Cocteau.
En París se decía que Serguei
tenía secuestrado a Vatzlav
-el pueblo y el chisme son una misma cosa-
Serguei, es cierto, lo amaba por ambición.
Esa noche se interpretaba El Espectro de la Rosa,
la mejor composición de Fodín
inspirada en un poema de Gautier
(inspiración de inspiraciones etc.).
Je suis le spectre de la rose
que tu portais hier au bal
Soy el espectro de la rosa
que ayer llevaste al baile.
Y no había entonces más amor
que para su danza
y de un salto cruzaba el escenario
desapareciendo como un fantasma.
Y Cocteau hurgaba el camerino de Vatzlav
y éste le decía:
Je ne suis pas un sauter
Je suis un artiste
Yo no soy un acróbata
Soy un artista.
Pero era un esclavo,
es un oficio duro,
ya Cardenal lo decía
en su poema a Marilyn Monroe:
tras el telón hay más tragedia
que la que se representa.
Mientras unos van al bar,
mientras otros fuman y se cuentan chistes,
mientras aquellos van a la mar un fin de semana
y esos a cazar y otros a pescar
al cine al lupanar al NIGHT CLUB
o de mañanita un domingo a misa,
mientras unos están enamorados
y otros enamorados de sí mismos,
mientras el río,
mientras el mar,
mientras los astros,
mientras los automóviles!,
mientras la vida,
Vatzlav estaba allí, esclavo,
¡coño! Diaghilev allí
sin hacer nada por el pobre muchacho.
Las aves construyen sus nidos.
Los castores su presas.
Las hormigas sus hoyos.
Maeterlinck! Thoreau! Walt Disney!
Más trarde Nijinsky fue a Suramérica
y esto le dolió a Diaghilev
y más le dolió cuando se casó
con Rómola
(una compañera del ballet)
entonces intervino la economía,
la economía es un mago
saca conejos de los sombreros
pero a la mejor mona se le cae el zapote
y Nijinsky no tenía escenario
pero tenía una mujer,
es decir, para mí una mujer lo es todo
si no pregúntenselo a Coronel.
Y cuando volvió Nijinsky
la argolla de Diaghilev le echó en cara:
“Por ahora vuestra creación será un hijo
El Espectro de la Rosa ha optado por ser padre.
Qué cosa más antipática es un alumbramiento.”
Y Nijinsky:
“Vosotros habíais admirado siempre
la hermosa entrada del Espectro de la Rosa.”
no sabían lo que decían,
no sabían que “el hijo es muerte, ¡Ay!
Es muerte, digo –pasión de la esperanza-“.
Serguei Diaghilev hizo como si lo ignorase
pero por dentro un fuego le consumía.
A Nijinsky la guerra europea lo sorprendió
en Hungría
como siempre la guerra nos sorprende
aunque la esperemos
siempre nos sorprenden los dientes
de la rata peluda de la guerra,
es decir, de la muerte.
Allí permanecío un tiempo
inventando, imaginando
como hacen los artistas,
una y otra forma:
la naturaleza, el viento, pájaros!
Un sistema de notación de la danza
como el de las partituras.
Y amando a Rómola como el primer hombre
y como el último,
compartiendo todo
como su fruto:
KYRA,
una niña.
Y cuando la suerte cambió
porque a veces los golpes de la suerte
son tan fuertes. Qué se yo!
Y fue a Nueva York. Y cuando volvió
a Madrid
en el vestíbulo del hotel Ritz
Diaghilev lo abrazó apasionadamente:
Vatzlav, draga moi kak tui pajivayeski
le dijo.
Más tarde en Saint Moritz
se le acercaron círculos, colores redondos,
cada vez más intensos:
el negro con el amarillo,
el rojo con el blanco.
Palomas blancas cruzaban la noche.
Vientos extraños encendían fuegos en el bosque.
Lo negro danzaba en la sombra.
Lo rojo en la sangre.
Se le acercaron cuadros, colores cuadrados.
Escenas, chispazos, aletargamientos.
El alejamiento de una estrella en la noche.
Decía:
Como cuando se apaga el televisor.
Quiero mostrar a la vez la belleza
y el poder destructor del amor.
Y componía figuras:
Mariposas fantásticas con cabeza de él
dignas de Rorschach y los psicoanalistas,
extrañas arañas que evocaban a Diaghilev
ESE ES SERGUEI señalaba con el dedo
y bajaba al pequeño pueblo
con una gran cruz dorada en el pecho
y detenía
Y preguntaba al que encontraba
si había
celebrado el Santo Sacrificio de la Misa.
Lo mismo que Federico
Nietzsche
estaba celoso de Cristo.
Nijinsky estaba enfermo
y bailaba, seguía
bailando sobre dos pedazos
de terciopelo
que formaban una cruz
y extendía los brazos diciendo:
ahora os bailaré la guerra;
sus sufrimientos, sus distracciones,
sus muertes.
La guerra que no habéis impedido
y de la cual habréis de responder.
Y bailó como nunca,
como un trompo trasladánsdose,
como una garza en un pie girando,
como un torbellino, como un remolino,
como las hélices de un avión
que hace suspender la gravitación de la masa,
como las aspas de un molino
que hace triturar la harina del hambre
o los suenños de Cervantes.
Girando como gira la esfera de la Tierra,
con su corazón, con su sangre recordando
la escena de Petruschka
-la marioneta tratando de escapar a su destino-.
Un día Sergue Diaghilev fue a verle
e impresionado y como en broma le dijo:
pero hombre, Vatzlav, eres un holgazán!
Te necesito, es necesario que bailes
para el ballet ruso, para mí.
No puedo, le dijo, porque estoy LOCO.
Diaghilev le dio la espalda y se echó a llorar:
qué debo hacer. Es culpa mía.
Rómola recordaba sus palabras al ser internado:
Valor femka! No pierdas la esperanza.
Dios existe.
No es el primero ni el último
que lo afirma o lo niega
sin haber visto su Rostro.
Mientras el fantasma de Nijinsky
Ladies & gentleman
Y el fantasma que va a ser de ti
está entre nosotros. Buenas noches!
Julio Cabrales nació en Nicaragua en 1944 y es hijo del poeta Luis Alberto Cabrales, uno de los iniciadores del grupo "Vanguardia". A los 16 años publicó sus primeros poemas en La prensa Literaria y desde entonces ha escrito mucha poesía y ha publicado bastante en revistas nacionales y extranjeras. Tiene algunas de sus producciones publicadas en separatas de revistas pero hasta la vez no ha publicado ningún libro a pesar de la abundancia y calidad de su obra. Vivió un tiempo en españa; ahora estudia Humanidades en Managua. (Recientemente, el poeta Julio Cabrales no escribe mas debido a la enfermedad de esquizofrenia que lo aqueja. Danilo Lopez, Marzo 2010)
"Le Spectre de la Rose" es una obra emblemática del ballet creada por Michael Fokine a principios del siglo XX.
Con música de Carl María Von Weber, el 19 de abril de 1911 interpretaron los role principales Tamara Karsavina y Vaslav Nijinski, sobre una coreografía firmada por Michel Fokine.
Fue el primer ballet presentado por Diaghilevs y sus Ballets Russos en el Teatro de Monte-Carlo el 18 de abril de 1911.
Unos versos del poeta Théophile Gautier titulado "Después del Baile", que comienza diciendo: "Yo soy el espectro de la rosa, que tu llevaste ayer al baile "... inspiraron a Jean-Louis Vaudoyer este corto ballet. Escenográfo León Bakst.
Argumento
El ballet cuenta la historia de una joven que vuelve de un baile a su hogar y se encuentra en su habitación con una rosa en la mano. Al respirar su perfume con profundidad, se abandona en una butaca y cae dormirá. En sus sueños, el espectro de la rosa aparece por la ventana arrastrándola en una danza encantada. Ella sueña que baila con el espíritu, hasta que la rosa desaparece con un salto espectacular a través de la ventana y ella se despierta y solo ve a la rosa que traía consigo.
El Poema de Julio Cabrales:
Fue en Madrid, en la Calle Altamirano
donde compré por una peseta
un sucio librito de bolsillo
que trataba sobre la vida de Nijinsky.
Vatzlav Nijinsky no tuvo estrella
pero nuestra imaginación hace sonar
las campanas del Kremlin
y cabecear las palomas de la plaza de San Marcos
en Venecia y hacerlas espantar en desordenado vuelo.
Es decir, todo hombre tiene su estrella
tal vez la de David o la de Cristo o la del Horóscopo.
Vatzlav desde pequeño bailó
-el retrato vivo de la época azul y rosa de Picasso-
bailaba junto con su madre
por dinero
ya Quevedo lo dijo,
ya nuestros indios lo sabían,
Pound en el canto XLV cristianamente
dijo “Bienaventurados los pobres de espíritu”,
y así Vatzlav bailaba junto a su madre
por dinero.
A los 16 años entró a la Escuela Imperial de Danza
en San Petersburgo.
era un potrillo alado,
sus muslos se curvaban sobre sus rodillas
como el cuello de los potros en el abrevadero.
EL CHINO le decían por sus ojos rasgados.
Rodeado de espejos que son los que nos descubren
nuestras virtudes y vicios del rostro y del cuerpo
y del ALMA!,
frente ellos bailaba
poniendo el pie de plano
y como catapulta
suspendiendo la frágil cintura de una mujer,
el pie inclinado y frenado el impulso
por los dedos
o como un gimnasta
y de salto en salto como un cervatillo
de la sala de estudio al escenario,
bajo los focos, sobre la música,
por las ovaciones, en el circo.
los prismáticos como cangrejos
de señoras gordas olorosas
ataviadas de collares
y señoritas pálidas y doncellas bellísimas
se preguntaban “¿quién es, quién es?”
frunciendo la nariz o con los ojos luminosos.
Vatzlav hacía palidecer a las primas bailarinas,
es decir, bailaba muy bien,
era el sol.
En el entrechat royal a dix
entrecruzaba diez veces los pies
antes de tocar el suelo.
En las tertulias oía hablar por primera vez
de Monet Renoir Rodin Debussy Mallarmé
y allí estaba Diaghilev que era una fiera,
elegante el hijueputa
haciéndole dar importancia a sus palabras
disimuladamente
y formaba ruedas y a saber que cosas decía,
total que hizo amistad con Nijinsky
y fue su maestro, protector y apoderado;
le fue moldeando el gusto a su gusto:
(No sé hasta donde el hombre por su temperamento escoge)
el olvido de las mujeres,
el olvido de los tragos,
el olvido de la sangre.
Nijinsky era una mina.
Y Vatzlav hacía y ejecutaba
con la fidelidad de un perro.
Iba y venía con él,
después de cada ensayo,
de cada viaje.
La monstruosa influencia del maestro.
El pobre no sabía:
esto es bueno, esto es malo,
estaba aún en el paraíso de la idiotez!
por eso vino Cristo Maestro de Maestros,
(no sé hasta donde lo fue Sócrates)
Vatzlav era en una palabra: ¡PENDEJO!
Y cuando en París se presentó
el 1 de Mayo de 1909:
había llovido esa noche
y las luces del teatro Chatelet
rielaban en las calles nocturnas
y en las vitrinas se miraban
los programas y dibujos de Cocteau.
En París se decía que Serguei
tenía secuestrado a Vatzlav
-el pueblo y el chisme son una misma cosa-
Serguei, es cierto, lo amaba por ambición.
Esa noche se interpretaba El Espectro de la Rosa,
la mejor composición de Fodín
inspirada en un poema de Gautier
(inspiración de inspiraciones etc.).
Je suis le spectre de la rose
que tu portais hier au bal
Soy el espectro de la rosa
que ayer llevaste al baile.
Y no había entonces más amor
que para su danza
y de un salto cruzaba el escenario
desapareciendo como un fantasma.
Y Cocteau hurgaba el camerino de Vatzlav
y éste le decía:
Je ne suis pas un sauter
Je suis un artiste
Yo no soy un acróbata
Soy un artista.
Pero era un esclavo,
es un oficio duro,
ya Cardenal lo decía
en su poema a Marilyn Monroe:
tras el telón hay más tragedia
que la que se representa.
Mientras unos van al bar,
mientras otros fuman y se cuentan chistes,
mientras aquellos van a la mar un fin de semana
y esos a cazar y otros a pescar
al cine al lupanar al NIGHT CLUB
o de mañanita un domingo a misa,
mientras unos están enamorados
y otros enamorados de sí mismos,
mientras el río,
mientras el mar,
mientras los astros,
mientras los automóviles!,
mientras la vida,
Vatzlav estaba allí, esclavo,
¡coño! Diaghilev allí
sin hacer nada por el pobre muchacho.
Las aves construyen sus nidos.
Los castores su presas.
Las hormigas sus hoyos.
Maeterlinck! Thoreau! Walt Disney!
Más trarde Nijinsky fue a Suramérica
y esto le dolió a Diaghilev
y más le dolió cuando se casó
con Rómola
(una compañera del ballet)
entonces intervino la economía,
la economía es un mago
saca conejos de los sombreros
pero a la mejor mona se le cae el zapote
y Nijinsky no tenía escenario
pero tenía una mujer,
es decir, para mí una mujer lo es todo
si no pregúntenselo a Coronel.
Y cuando volvió Nijinsky
la argolla de Diaghilev le echó en cara:
“Por ahora vuestra creación será un hijo
El Espectro de la Rosa ha optado por ser padre.
Qué cosa más antipática es un alumbramiento.”
Y Nijinsky:
“Vosotros habíais admirado siempre
la hermosa entrada del Espectro de la Rosa.”
no sabían lo que decían,
no sabían que “el hijo es muerte, ¡Ay!
Es muerte, digo –pasión de la esperanza-“.
Serguei Diaghilev hizo como si lo ignorase
pero por dentro un fuego le consumía.
A Nijinsky la guerra europea lo sorprendió
en Hungría
como siempre la guerra nos sorprende
aunque la esperemos
siempre nos sorprenden los dientes
de la rata peluda de la guerra,
es decir, de la muerte.
Allí permanecío un tiempo
inventando, imaginando
como hacen los artistas,
una y otra forma:
la naturaleza, el viento, pájaros!
Un sistema de notación de la danza
como el de las partituras.
Y amando a Rómola como el primer hombre
y como el último,
compartiendo todo
como su fruto:
KYRA,
una niña.
Y cuando la suerte cambió
porque a veces los golpes de la suerte
son tan fuertes. Qué se yo!
Y fue a Nueva York. Y cuando volvió
a Madrid
en el vestíbulo del hotel Ritz
Diaghilev lo abrazó apasionadamente:
Vatzlav, draga moi kak tui pajivayeski
le dijo.
Más tarde en Saint Moritz
se le acercaron círculos, colores redondos,
cada vez más intensos:
el negro con el amarillo,
el rojo con el blanco.
Palomas blancas cruzaban la noche.
Vientos extraños encendían fuegos en el bosque.
Lo negro danzaba en la sombra.
Lo rojo en la sangre.
Se le acercaron cuadros, colores cuadrados.
Escenas, chispazos, aletargamientos.
El alejamiento de una estrella en la noche.
Decía:
Como cuando se apaga el televisor.
Quiero mostrar a la vez la belleza
y el poder destructor del amor.
Y componía figuras:
Mariposas fantásticas con cabeza de él
dignas de Rorschach y los psicoanalistas,
extrañas arañas que evocaban a Diaghilev
ESE ES SERGUEI señalaba con el dedo
y bajaba al pequeño pueblo
con una gran cruz dorada en el pecho
y detenía
Y preguntaba al que encontraba
si había
celebrado el Santo Sacrificio de la Misa.
Lo mismo que Federico
Nietzsche
estaba celoso de Cristo.
Nijinsky estaba enfermo
y bailaba, seguía
bailando sobre dos pedazos
de terciopelo
que formaban una cruz
y extendía los brazos diciendo:
ahora os bailaré la guerra;
sus sufrimientos, sus distracciones,
sus muertes.
La guerra que no habéis impedido
y de la cual habréis de responder.
Y bailó como nunca,
como un trompo trasladánsdose,
como una garza en un pie girando,
como un torbellino, como un remolino,
como las hélices de un avión
que hace suspender la gravitación de la masa,
como las aspas de un molino
que hace triturar la harina del hambre
o los suenños de Cervantes.
Girando como gira la esfera de la Tierra,
con su corazón, con su sangre recordando
la escena de Petruschka
-la marioneta tratando de escapar a su destino-.
Un día Sergue Diaghilev fue a verle
e impresionado y como en broma le dijo:
pero hombre, Vatzlav, eres un holgazán!
Te necesito, es necesario que bailes
para el ballet ruso, para mí.
No puedo, le dijo, porque estoy LOCO.
Diaghilev le dio la espalda y se echó a llorar:
qué debo hacer. Es culpa mía.
Rómola recordaba sus palabras al ser internado:
Valor femka! No pierdas la esperanza.
Dios existe.
No es el primero ni el último
que lo afirma o lo niega
sin haber visto su Rostro.
Mientras el fantasma de Nijinsky
Ladies & gentleman
Y el fantasma que va a ser de ti
está entre nosotros. Buenas noches!
Julio Cabrales nació en Nicaragua en 1944 y es hijo del poeta Luis Alberto Cabrales, uno de los iniciadores del grupo "Vanguardia". A los 16 años publicó sus primeros poemas en La prensa Literaria y desde entonces ha escrito mucha poesía y ha publicado bastante en revistas nacionales y extranjeras. Tiene algunas de sus producciones publicadas en separatas de revistas pero hasta la vez no ha publicado ningún libro a pesar de la abundancia y calidad de su obra. Vivió un tiempo en españa; ahora estudia Humanidades en Managua. (Recientemente, el poeta Julio Cabrales no escribe mas debido a la enfermedad de esquizofrenia que lo aqueja. Danilo Lopez, Marzo 2010)
Sunday, March 21, 2010
“Math, Physics, and The Last Supper” *
December 11, 1997
* Notes of a presentation given to students at the Exact Sciences Conference, Miami Dade Community College, Wolfson Campus.
by: Danilo Lopez, AIA.
I like to think of college students, and students in general for that matter, as sorcerer’s apprentices. Most of you here today are studying engineering, architecture, computer sciences or any other career in which math and physics play a central role. Many of you also say, “What should I have to study calculus, or numeric analysis, or C++?. Will I ever use them in real life?”. My daughters ask the same questions all the time. One of them is a psychologist, the other wants to be an elementary school teacher, and the youngest wants to be a musician.
All this is really about the future, yours and Florida’s. What is the role of math and physics in our future? Why do we include them in our education curriculum? More curiously, what does The Last Supper have to do with math and physics?
Theory and Reality
Remember that when we write down a mathematical formula in a physics context, we are only making a statement about reality, and we are using numbers to express that reality. For example, when we say that energy is the capacity to do work. That work is a force applied to a certain mass as to displace it in space at a certain angle. That force is the product of a mass moved in space with certain acceleration. We are creating numerical symbols for metaphysical realities. Each statement has a corresponding formula. Aristotle titled one chapter of his book “metaphysics” only because it was after the chapter on physics, and he did not know what to call it.
Scientists speculate, observe reality, and deduct natural laws. Some times they study reality to discover laws; others they theorize about possible laws and later prove them in reality. These are the realms of math and physics. But the beauty is that pure reason will not give us all the answers: we need intuition. As Einstein used to say: “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. And imagination to me is that constant interplay we do in our minds between theory and reality, imagination and fact, math and art. To Pythagoras, we are number, and nowadays, there are still people that devote themselves to numerology to know the character of others and see the future. This is about where we are now and where we will be in the future.
Reason and Intuition
In interacting with reality, designing a building, constructing a bridge, or painting a still life, we use either reason or intuition. Many use both. True scientists, true artists see no divisory line between them; see no separation between art and math, letter and number. In architecture, at the extreme of the mathematical approach we have Mies Van Der Rohe (“God is in the details”), with adepts like the early Christopher Alexander, Rafael Leoz de la Fuente, Craig Elwood, and Yona Friedman . At the extreme of the intuitive approach we have Mendelsohn (“Design is revelation”) and such followers as Wright, Pedersen, and Graves.
One of the persons I admire the most is Leonardo da Vinci, epitome of the Renaissance man, who used reason and intuition to develop his solutions and inventions, who was as much an artist as he was a scientist. The Last Supper is an acute analysis of proportion, composition, and number; but also of color, mood, and symbol. In modern times I believe only Le Corbusier can really be put in the same group.
What’s in it for you?
In taking math and physics, what’s in it for you students? In addition to them being a requirement of the curriculum, I will give you the answers my own daughters found out. To Reima, the psychologist, the use of statistics is paramount in her field of specialization: tests to measure different variables. Chi square, Student’s T, and all measures of central tendency are used by her almost on a daily basis.
Kristel told me that ever since she applied herself in the study of pre-algebra, her music performances have improved tremendously. Curious about her assertion, I investigated this topic and found out that scholar research has been made with findings of enhanced mathematical rendition for students kindergarten to twelfth grade who studied piano and took music lessons. The key appears to be that the portions of the brain that have to do with music and art also have to do with math and numbers.
Danibel understands that physics in nothing but applied math. Applied to interpret reality and the concepts each formula hides or expresses, has helped her understand our world. How it works, why it works like that, and, surprise, who she wants to be.
Real Life
So this is about real life. Who do you want to be when you grow up? A Mendelsohn or a Corbusier? A van der Rohe or a da Vinci? A brief history of math -which, don’t panic, I won’t get into here- will show you that the history of humankind is closely linked to math and art alike. Read Leibniz’s biography with his mix of mathematics and philosophy, which led to the invention of computers. Or Lewis Carrols’s the author of Alice in Wonderland, who was an accomplished mathematician.
This is the Sorcerer’s path. You are the apprentices. Did you know that the head of Racal, that big company with new offices in Broward County is a mathematician? Which tells me that he must also be a good business person. In this modern world you need other traits too: management skills, dealing with people, that something called “emotional intelligence”.
Last, but not least, you need to be at the edge of technology (which owes its advances to math and to the imagination and business sense of people like Billy Gates and the Japanese). Personally, at work, thanks to math I have been able to prepare facilities lists for new schools in excel spreadsheets, do cohort statistical calculations, and budgeting. At home, I have been able to discuss with experts about the best mortgage deal for my family, utility bills, interest rates, computers and help my children with their homework and science projects.
So I encourage you to apply yourselves in the study of math, physics, and computers. Florida faces a high technology challenge in the world today: we see technology as a fast growing, exploding industry but we lack the human resources to tap into it. We need to make science and technology an integral part of our education curriculum, attract companies, and train our work force. This will allow us to compete in the economy of tomorrow, and we have to begin today. You, students of the exact sciences, are the future.
* Notes of a presentation given to students at the Exact Sciences Conference, Miami Dade Community College, Wolfson Campus.
by: Danilo Lopez, AIA.
I like to think of college students, and students in general for that matter, as sorcerer’s apprentices. Most of you here today are studying engineering, architecture, computer sciences or any other career in which math and physics play a central role. Many of you also say, “What should I have to study calculus, or numeric analysis, or C++?. Will I ever use them in real life?”. My daughters ask the same questions all the time. One of them is a psychologist, the other wants to be an elementary school teacher, and the youngest wants to be a musician.
All this is really about the future, yours and Florida’s. What is the role of math and physics in our future? Why do we include them in our education curriculum? More curiously, what does The Last Supper have to do with math and physics?
Theory and Reality
Remember that when we write down a mathematical formula in a physics context, we are only making a statement about reality, and we are using numbers to express that reality. For example, when we say that energy is the capacity to do work. That work is a force applied to a certain mass as to displace it in space at a certain angle. That force is the product of a mass moved in space with certain acceleration. We are creating numerical symbols for metaphysical realities. Each statement has a corresponding formula. Aristotle titled one chapter of his book “metaphysics” only because it was after the chapter on physics, and he did not know what to call it.
Scientists speculate, observe reality, and deduct natural laws. Some times they study reality to discover laws; others they theorize about possible laws and later prove them in reality. These are the realms of math and physics. But the beauty is that pure reason will not give us all the answers: we need intuition. As Einstein used to say: “Imagination is more important than knowledge”. And imagination to me is that constant interplay we do in our minds between theory and reality, imagination and fact, math and art. To Pythagoras, we are number, and nowadays, there are still people that devote themselves to numerology to know the character of others and see the future. This is about where we are now and where we will be in the future.
Reason and Intuition
In interacting with reality, designing a building, constructing a bridge, or painting a still life, we use either reason or intuition. Many use both. True scientists, true artists see no divisory line between them; see no separation between art and math, letter and number. In architecture, at the extreme of the mathematical approach we have Mies Van Der Rohe (“God is in the details”), with adepts like the early Christopher Alexander, Rafael Leoz de la Fuente, Craig Elwood, and Yona Friedman . At the extreme of the intuitive approach we have Mendelsohn (“Design is revelation”) and such followers as Wright, Pedersen, and Graves.
One of the persons I admire the most is Leonardo da Vinci, epitome of the Renaissance man, who used reason and intuition to develop his solutions and inventions, who was as much an artist as he was a scientist. The Last Supper is an acute analysis of proportion, composition, and number; but also of color, mood, and symbol. In modern times I believe only Le Corbusier can really be put in the same group.
What’s in it for you?
In taking math and physics, what’s in it for you students? In addition to them being a requirement of the curriculum, I will give you the answers my own daughters found out. To Reima, the psychologist, the use of statistics is paramount in her field of specialization: tests to measure different variables. Chi square, Student’s T, and all measures of central tendency are used by her almost on a daily basis.
Kristel told me that ever since she applied herself in the study of pre-algebra, her music performances have improved tremendously. Curious about her assertion, I investigated this topic and found out that scholar research has been made with findings of enhanced mathematical rendition for students kindergarten to twelfth grade who studied piano and took music lessons. The key appears to be that the portions of the brain that have to do with music and art also have to do with math and numbers.
Danibel understands that physics in nothing but applied math. Applied to interpret reality and the concepts each formula hides or expresses, has helped her understand our world. How it works, why it works like that, and, surprise, who she wants to be.
Real Life
So this is about real life. Who do you want to be when you grow up? A Mendelsohn or a Corbusier? A van der Rohe or a da Vinci? A brief history of math -which, don’t panic, I won’t get into here- will show you that the history of humankind is closely linked to math and art alike. Read Leibniz’s biography with his mix of mathematics and philosophy, which led to the invention of computers. Or Lewis Carrols’s the author of Alice in Wonderland, who was an accomplished mathematician.
This is the Sorcerer’s path. You are the apprentices. Did you know that the head of Racal, that big company with new offices in Broward County is a mathematician? Which tells me that he must also be a good business person. In this modern world you need other traits too: management skills, dealing with people, that something called “emotional intelligence”.
Last, but not least, you need to be at the edge of technology (which owes its advances to math and to the imagination and business sense of people like Billy Gates and the Japanese). Personally, at work, thanks to math I have been able to prepare facilities lists for new schools in excel spreadsheets, do cohort statistical calculations, and budgeting. At home, I have been able to discuss with experts about the best mortgage deal for my family, utility bills, interest rates, computers and help my children with their homework and science projects.
So I encourage you to apply yourselves in the study of math, physics, and computers. Florida faces a high technology challenge in the world today: we see technology as a fast growing, exploding industry but we lack the human resources to tap into it. We need to make science and technology an integral part of our education curriculum, attract companies, and train our work force. This will allow us to compete in the economy of tomorrow, and we have to begin today. You, students of the exact sciences, are the future.
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