Juan Gelman
trans. by Lisa Rose Bradford
Selections from Hoy
Poet and critic Jorge Bocannera recently stated that Argentine poet-in-exile Juan Gelman’s Hoy (Today) is “one of the most revealing works of our times, a sort of Guernica of the written word, [...] a showcase of tiny polished gems.” This book distills the best qualities of the poetics of his 20 plus books of verse published since 1956, including his social commentary, exquisite musicality, and startling imagery. Composed in a profoundly unsettling manner, these prose poems offer musing on art and justice and exhibit once again a perception and an artistry that have established Gelman as one of Latin America’s foremost contemporary poets.
Originally entitled “Condenas” (convictions), these poems from Today were triggered by the sentencing of Eduardo Cabanillas, Honorio Martínez Ruiz, Eduardo Alfredo Ruffo and Raúl Guglielminetti, executioners of his son Marcelo, whose body was found in a barrel filled with cement in the San Fernando River. Marcelo was “detained” in the clandestine Automotores Orletti illegal detention/extermination center, active during the military dictatorship of General Jorge Rafael Videla. Each text in this collection forms a different layer of the poet’s ever-present thoughts: the ceaseless pain of losing a son, the ambivalence of justice, the world’s perversity, and the saving graces of passion and beauty.
Taken from the superbly rich 288 poems included in Today, this selection forms part of what the poet himself chose to read during the book launch—“Juan Gelman: a renovation of ethics and aesthetics”—that took place in Buenos Aires in August of 2013 in the auditorium of the Biblioteca Nacional, where the poet read to a hall packed with loving admirers.
VII
In pondering death, death becomes transformed. From reason to delirium there’s a journey / passengers galore / constant roadblocks / stations. Bulls horses, names boggled by violence. The equivocal face of error never adorned the caves. Being here is a naked task. Unease and the self with nowhere to moor.
XCVII
Misery’s rage forges the bullets to come. This / for the just love of a doe’s song. In red sandals, heavenly bodies stroll upon the fields of flax where the sun lies down to rest / the poor man’s only possession uses so few words. Love begs inside out / suffering from the world’s mistakes / gunshots curdle and thicken. Tongues listen in mute desperation.
CXLIX
Who is it that corrects the word piece / its limits / separations / its flight of roots? Where now is the hand that conjoined its looks? The pieces of itself no longer ensemble in song / versions of that unity / the shade of the clouds. Foregone the parties where reason raised a toast to the arithmetic of the lip. In a seat of honor, legitimate beasts wield reality without so much as a warning.
CXCIV
The skylark didn’t want them to dirty her / she said the end / the end. The end she said / not wanting them to dirty her / the end. Bred to write her gift of flight / the end. She was dripping wet when she said the end in the alleys of black wisdom / strokes of madness. It had been a surprise and she said the end / they’re killing everything around us / the end. She cracked the locks of evil / flashes of the furious heart / the end. The skylark said the end.
CLXXX
The poem I wish to write for you, amouramour, has not yet a word. It travels in its negations and disasters like the yesterday in today and its plot is a flame. No one can extinguish it, guarding its secret when your face fills with wonder, opening doorways to the subject, sacrifices of the when, two circles with no original scribe.
¿And
if poetry were a forgotten memory of the dog that mauled your blood / a false delight / a venerable fugue in me major / an invention of what can never be said? And if it were the denial of the street / the manure of a horse / the suicide of two keen eyes? And if it were just some anywhere that never sends word? And if it were?
Argentine poet-in-exile Juan Gelman (Buenos Aires, 1930-Mexico City, 2014) published more than twenty books of poetry in his lifetime, and his numerous awards include the Pablo Neruda Prize (Chile, 2005), the most prestigious Spanish-language literary award, the Cervantes Prize (2007), and the Premio Leteo in 2012. His last book, Hoy, was published in 2013 and the present selection comes from this volume.
Lisa Rose Bradford teaches Comparative Literature at the Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina. She has published poems and translations in numerous magazines and edited various books on translation (Traducción como cultura, La cultura de los géneros) and of translations into Spanish (Usos de la imaginación: poetas latin@s en EE.UU. Los pájaros, por la nieve. Antología de la poesía femenina contemporánea de los Estados Unidos). Also, four of her bilingual volumes of Juan Gelman’s verse have appeared since 2010: Between Words: Juan Gelman’s Public Letter (National Translation Award), Commentaries and Citations, Com/positions, and Oxen Rage. She is currently translating Gelman’s last book of poems, Hoy.