Thoughts in Progress

When the great Latin American poet Mario Benedetti died in 2009, it was not just a massive blow for my culture, but also for me personally. It was the end of an era, even if his writing – mainly his poetry – has never stopped being popular in my neck of the woods.

Benedetti was and still is intrinsically linked to one of the more exciting periods in my life. He was the reason, after being exposed to his poems, why I took up public poetry-reading as part of an arts collective in the confusing and tumultuous days of mid-90s Havana. We were four friends brought together by a common interest in everything that was challenging and non-mainstream. Although our roles in our creative endeavour overlapped somewhat, we managed to carve out well-defined tasks which we fulfilled with gusto. It was around this time when I began to write in earnest (in Spanish, mind you) and read the fruit of my labour in our monthly rendezvous to fellow anxiety-challenging Cubans. It was then that I first played with the idea of reading Benedetti’s timeless and romance-filled poem “Corazón Coraza” (possible translation, Armoured Heart). But instead of the original in Spanish, I wanted to tackle the version in German that the author himself had performed in the Argentinian movie “El Lado Oscuro del Corazón” (The Dark Side of the Heart).  I admit that I had reservations about the reading, the film having been shown in Cuban cinemas scarcely a couple of years before and becoming very well-known and oft-quoted.

Then, El Maestro passed away seven years ago and I was left with a Benedetti-shaped hole in my life. I had not read poetry in public for almost twenty years. In fact, at the time I was reading very little poetry at all.

Therefore, the clip below is a risk-taking exercise. In it are contained both the thought-out and planned idea of a homage to Benedetti and the impromptu, off-the-cuff, organic nature of poetry-reading.

Of course, if you cannot speak German and you are not familiar with the original in Spanish, an internet-found translation appears right below the video. I will not comment on the quality of the translation because it is very hard to translate poetry, so I usually tend to praise whoever undertakes such task selflessly. The photos are not incidental, nor are they there for any artistic merit (I am not a photographer and I am fine with that). They have a certain personal significance, since the poem, although lover-centred, can also be interpreted in other ways. I straddle two cultures. That means that when I say “Because I have you and don’t”, I might not have a person in mind necessarily.

If you want to see the author performing his own poem in German in the aforementioned film, please, click here.




Because I have you and I don’t,
because I think about you,
because the night is young,
because the night passes and I say love,
because you have come to take your image,
and you are better than all your images,
because you are beautiful from your foot to your soul
because you are good from your soul to me
because you hide your sweet self in pride
small and sweet
armoured heart.

Because you are mine
because you are not mine
because I look at you and I die,
and worse than dying,
if I do not see you, love,
if I do not see you.

Because you are always everywhere,
but you are better where I love you,
because your mouth is blood
and you are cold
I have to love you, love
I have to love you,
even though this wound hurts twice as much
even though I search for you and do not find you
and even though the night passes
and I have you,
and I don’t.

Living in a Multilingual World (The One About Formality and Informality)

One of my favourite poems by the late Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti is Sery Estar. Although heavily political the piece also has a nice combination of humour and didacticism. The latter is illustrated by the author’s poetic explanation of the difference between the verbs ser and estar (hence the title) in Spanish to an imaginary US marine. This is always confusing for people learning Spanish. In English, there’s only to be. Or not, as Shakespeare put it. In French, there’s être and in German there’s sein. But in Spanish we have two verbs, one of which denotes identity (ser) and another one that infers condition (estar). Confusing, uh? You bet.

Yet, Anglo speakers can occasionally indulge in the pleasure of hanging a sign outside their houses that reads “Schadenfreude” (or epicaricacy, in English) and watch us, speakers of other languages, struggling to come to terms with modern linguistic currents. For instance, when to be formal and when to be informal.

Spanish has a common trait with French and German, the other two languages I speak (although not as fluently as I used to). They all have formal ways of addressing someone according to age or social status. For instance, if I were in Spain or any other country from the Diaspora, it would never occur to me to use the “tú” with a new acquaintance unless he or she was my age or younger. Anyone over fifty would be given the “usted” treatment straight away. Same with French and “vous” and the German “Sie”. Besides, in the case of German, one of the reasons why I usually stay with the formal is that it makes it easier for me to conjugate verbs. They usually keep the infinitive form – with the exception of “sein”, methinks. Even when my interlocutor assures me that "Wir sagen doch du, ja?", I still sometimes use the "Sie". Which is just as rude as "Du-ing" someone without his or her consent.

I can hear Anglophones laughing their heads off now. But we only have “you” for both singular and plural, they’re probably shouting out. And they’re right. What makes matters more confusing is that nowadays the distinction between “tú/usted”, “tu/vous” and “du/Sie” is fading away rapidly. Part of it is technology. There are five letters in “usted” and 140 characters to contend with in Twitter. Guess which of the two addresses is handier? Well done for figuring that one out. Another reason for this linguistic shift might be the drive to turn less dynamic languages (Spanish and French come to mind) into lexica more attuned to the times we’re living, like English has done for the past few decades. Readers of this blog know that I’ve neither time nor patience, for the Real Academia Española, the body tasked with looking after the correct use of our grammar and syntax. The overhaul of the “tú/usted” division might be a way of reacting against centuries-old, traditional dogma which made even relatives observe formality when addressing each other. In fact, I know that in some countries in South America (Ecuador and Peru, for instance) children still address their parents as “usted”.

There is a third reason why the confusion about when “se tutoyer” and when “se vouvoyer”, or when to “du” or “Sie” someone, has come to the surface in recent years. There are countries, mainly in Europe, that are still resistant to the Americanisation of their culture. They see US influence as detrimental to their heritage. I’ve no truck with this attitude, but it was interesting to see a few years ago the short shrift the British ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair was given when he was presumably addressed as “Yo, Blair!” by ex-White House dweller, George W. Bush. Never mind the lack of a formal second person singular in English, this chumminess was a step too far. Especially on the back of the ill-fated invasion of Iraq a few years before and the too-close-for-comfort relationship between Downing Street and Washington during that period. In these circumstances, maybe keeping our “tú/usted”, “tu/vous” and “du/Sie” dichotomy is a sign of showing respect to people we meet for the first time. It also creates a space between individuals to get to know each other progressively. In the same way I wouldn’t dream of calling my former line-manager (a headteacher) “mate” in public, I wouldn’t “du” anyone just because it’s cool to do so. Surely a question for the marine boy of Benedetti’s poem to ask the Uruguayan master. After all, the poet uses “tú” al the way through.

© 2013

Next Post: “Sunday Mornings: “Coffee, Music and Reflections”, to be published on Sunday 24^th February at 10am (GMT)

Goobye, Mr Poet

I never stayed motionless by the roadside, Mario, I moved on and walked. And I am still walking...

The clip below was taken from the movie 'El Lado Oscuro del Corazón' (The Dark Side of the Heart), one of the landmarks of Latin American cinema in the early 90s and a movie that influenced my generation a great deal. It introduced several young people to the poetry of Oliverio Girondo, Juan Gelman and the poet to whom this tribute is dedicated tonight and who has just died, Mario Benedetti. To watch the same scene with subtitles in English, click here. I reserve my opinion on the quality of the translation, or lack of it thereof. Many thanks
Mario Benedetti, Uruguayan poet (born 14th September, 1920, Montevideo, died 17th May, 2009)

Next Post: 'Song for a Spring Sunday Morning' to be published on Sunday 24th May at 10am (GMT)

National Poetry Day (Moderato)

It's Poetry Day today. I remember when I wrote my first poem. I was about nine years old, inspired by our National Hero José Martí and willing to fill up the page in front of me with metaphores and similes. Alas, the piece had a short life. I tore it up into smithereens because that other me believed that poetry was for gays.


Many years would go by and countless literature lessons assimilated before the full appreciation of verse and rhyme reached me. And it was Benedetti who did the trick. Admittedly, my first love, rock'n'roll, had already contributed to it, what with Queen, The Beatles, Dylan and The Stones, the road to Milton's Paradise Lost had already been well paved.


During my years in college (this is the equivalent of sixth-form in the UK and if you're reading this in the US, they call it high school over there), I became an ardent fan of Mario Benedetti's oeuvre. His conversational style suited my adolescent self and whilst my peers continued to salivate over Pablo Neruda's lyrical exultations to the point where the most common chat-up phrase in those years would start with: Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche (I can write the saddest verses tonight), I always preferred the most direct fashion of the author of 'Hagamos un Trato' (Let's Make a Deal). This was years before the Uruguayan author became trendy, caused mainly by the release of the movie 'El Lado Oscuro del Corazón'.


And as today it's Poetry Day, I wanted to share a couple of poems with you my dear readers, posters and fellow bloggers. The first one is an old favourite 'Táctica y Estrategia' by Mario Benedetti. The second one is by my favourite female poet, the Mexican Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a nun who has gone down in the Latin American narrative as the first feminist to question the prevailing ecclesiastical view in 17th century Mexico. She's also been hailed as a lesbian icon due to her close relationship with the viceroy's wife, who was in fact the person who encouraged Sor Juana to write in the passionate way she did.


The first poem has no translation and I make no apologies for that. It's hard finding good translations in the vast realm of the internet. The second one has what to me is one of the finest translations I've ever come across and as a language graduate I am very fussy when it comes to linguistics and translations. I also reproduce the original poem for those of you who straddle both ends of the linguistic spectrum. You can draw your own comparisons.


TÁCTICA Y ESTRATEGIA
Mario Benedetti


Mi táctica es
mirarte
aprender como sos
quererte como sos
mi táctica es
hablarte
y escucharte
construir con palabras
un puente indestructible
mi táctica es
quedarme en tu recuerdo
no sé cómo
ni sé
con qué pretexto
pero quedarme en vos
mi táctica es
ser franco
y saber que sos franca
y que no nos vendamos
simulacros
para que entre los dos
no haya telón
ni abismos
mi estrategia es
en cambio
más profunda y más
simple
mi estrategia es
que un día cualquiera
no sé cómo
ni sé
con qué pretexto
por fin
me necesites


REDONDILLAS
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

Hombres necios que acusáis
a la mujer, sin razón,
sin ver que sois la ocasión
de lo mismo que culpáis;
si con ansia sin igual
solicitáis su desdén,
por qué queréis que obren bien
si las incitáis al mal?
Combatís su resistenciay luego, con gravedad,
decís que fue liviandad
lo que hizo la diligencia.
Parecer quiere el denuedo
de vuestro parecer loco,
al niño que pone el coco
y luego le tiene miedo.
Queréis, con presunción necia,
hallar a la que buscáis
para prentendida, Thais,
y en la posesión, Lucrecia.
¿Qué humor puede ser más raro
que el que, falto de consejo,
él mismo empaña el espejo
y siente que no esté claro?
Con el favor y el desdén
tenéis condición igual,
quejándoos, si os tratan mal,
burlándoos, si os quieren bien.
Opinión, ninguna gana,
pues la que más se recata,
si no os admite, es ingrata,
y si os admite, es liviana.
Siempre tan necios andáis
que, con desigual nivel,
a una culpáis por cruel
y a otra por fácil culpáis.
¿Pues como ha de estar templada
la que vuestro amor pretende?,
¿si la que es ingrata ofende,
y la que es fácil enfada?
Mas, entre el enfado y la pena
que vuestro gusto refiere,
bien haya la que no os quiere
y quejaos en hora buena.
Dan vuestras amantes penas
a sus libertades alas,
y después de hacerlas malas
las queréis hallar muy buenas.
¿Cuál mayor culpa ha tenido
en una pasión errada:
la que cae de rogada,
o el que ruega de caído?¿
O cuál es de más culpar,
aunque cualquiera mal haga;
la que peca por la paga
o el que paga por pecar?
¿Pues, para qué os espantáis
de la culpa que tenéis?
Queredlas cual las hacéis
o hacedlas cual las buscáis
.Dejad de solicitar,y después, con más razón,
acusaréis la aficiónde la que os fuere a rogar.
Bien con muchas armas fundo
que lidia vuestra arrogancia,
pues en promesa e instancia
juntáis diablo, carne y mundo.


You Men


Silly, you men
so very adept
at wrongly faulting womankind,
not seeing you're alone to blame
for faults you plant in woman's mind.
After you've won by urgent plea
the right to tarnish her good name,
you still expect her to behave
you, that coaxed her into shame.
You batter her resistance down
and then, all righteousness, proclaim
that feminine frivolity,
not your persistence, is to blame.
When it comes to bravely posturing,
your witlessness must take the prize:
you're the child that makes a bogeyman,
and then recoils in fear and cries.
Presumptuous beyond belief,
you'd have the woman you pursue
be Thais when you're courting her,
Lucretia once she falls to you.
For plain default of common sense,
could any action be so queer
as oneself to cloud the mirror,
then complain that it's not clear?
Whether you're favored or disdained,
nothing can leave you satisfied.
You whimper if you're turned away,
you sneer if you've been gratified.
With you, no woman can hope to score;
whichever way, she's bound to lose;
spurning you, she's ungrateful
succumbing, you call her lewd.
Your folly is always the same:
you apply a single ruleto the one you accuse of looseness
and the one you brand as cruel.
What happy mean could there be
for the woman who catches your eye,
if, unresponsive, she offends,
yet whose complaisance you decry?
Still, whether it's torment or anger
and both ways you've yourselves to blame
God bless the woman who won't have you,
no matter how loud you complain.
It's your persistent entreaties
that change her from timid to bold.
Having made her thereby naughty,
you would have her good as gold.
So where does the greater guilt lie
for a passion that should not be:
with the man who pleads out of baseness
or the woman debased by his plea?
Or which is more to be blamed
though both will have cause for chagrin:
the woman who sins for money
or the man who pays money to sin?
So why are you men all so stunned
at the thought you're all guilty alike?
Either like them for what you've made them
or make of them what you can like.
If you'd give up pursuing them,
you'd discover, without a doubt,
you've a stronger case to make
against those who seek you out.
I well know what powerful arms
you wield in pressing for evil:
your arrogance is allied
with the world, the flesh, and the devil!


And as a PS, I did start writing poetry again when I was in Uni, thus challenging my own preconceptions and prejudices.


Chao,


Copyright 2007

Herz Schutzschild

Weil ich dich habe und nicht

weil ich dich denke,

weil die Nacht offene Augen hat,

weil die Nacht vorüber geht und ich Liebe sage,

weil du gekommen bist um dein Bild abzuholen

und besser bist, als alle deine Bilder,

weil du schön bist von den Füßen bis zur Seele,

weil du gut bist von der Seele zu mir,

weil du dich versteckst, süß in deinem Stolz,

klein und süß,Herz Schutzschild.

Weil du mein bist,

weil du nicht mein bist,

weil ich dich anschaue und sterbe

und schlechter sterbe,

wenn ich dich nicht anschaue, Geliebte,

wenn ich dich nicht anschaue.

Weil du existierst, wo auch immer,

aber besser existierst, wo ich dich liebe,

weil dein Mund Blut ist

und dir kalt ist,

muss ich dich lieben, Geliebte,

muss ich dich lieben.

Auch wenn diese Wunde wie zwei schmerzt,

auch wenn ich dich suche und nicht finde,

und auch wenn

die Nacht vorüber geht und ich dich habe

und nicht.

Mario Benedetti

And a saxo plays. And the prostitute looks at the sailor dumbfounded, bewildered and perplexed.

Weil Ich dich habe, und nicht.

Proximity and distance. Because I have you and I have you not. The dichotomy of Oliverio's life is depicted against a backdrop of poems by Mario Benedetti (the sailor reciting in German), Juan Gelman and Oliverio Girondo. The eternal search for the woman who flies and makes him fly are at the heart of what made El Lado Oscuro del Corazóna strong contender at the 1993 Oscars in the category of Best Foreign Film. The poetry lies, not just in the poems, but in the black and white photography, in the windy and melancholic afternoons of that Buenos Aires of cafés and bordellos, tango and Death. Oh, yes, Death. "¿Ya encontraste a la que vuela?" (Have you found the one who flies?), asks Death. Is she on duty or merely flirting with her victim?

weil ich dich anschaue und sterbe
und schlechter sterbe,
wenn ich dich nicht anschaue, Geliebte,
wenn ich dich nicht anschaue.

And have we not found ourselves in the same position when the power of love chokes us slowly and renders us powerless when we can't see the one we love. Oliverio wants Ana, misses Ana, loves Ana, even though he, at some point, will have to pull the lever, the inevitable lever. Or is it inevitable? One of the elements of El Lado Oscuro del Corazón that I could never bring myself to agree with was the fatalistic attitude about love. You found the one who made you fly, Oliverio, why exchange that for scars? The same scars you'll be showing Death in the final scene. Why? You're battered and bruised, Oliverio, but please, don't pull the lever. Take it from me, one who found the one who flies.

Copyright 2007