On Poetry and Culture Shock

Juliet Wilson’ s work is an excellent example of how incredibly difficult it is to write political poetry, by which I mean poetry about "issues", not just about whether you vote this or that party. It is very easy, if you want to take poetry beyond the personal, to become boring or preachy: having a worthy cause to defend has nothing to do with an ability for creating interesting language. Personally, I stay self-consciously away from political poetry because I think I’d suck at it. Prose satire, maybe. But I don’t think I can put the thoughts of my prose satire in verse. Alexander Pope managed to rhyme sarcasm well enough and there’s no point at me copycatting.

Anyway, back to Juliet. In her case, political means environmental. I’ve read about fifty of her poems and there’s always an air of melancholy, of a forest very slowly losing the battle against asfalt, and the cries of seagulls in a landfill, but never losing rhythm and original images. Even so, the poem by her that I read again and again and that I feel like translating is not political at all. It has the best of lyrical poetry:so well-written I don’t care if it is autobiographical. It must be because it is so intense. It can’t be because no one can analyse their own feelings so painfully.

Making of a Muse

There was urgency, then,
in my love for you.
Sudden in the sunlight,
your beauty and laughter,
tight-reined passion
followed me, ghostlike,
everywhere.

I sensed your feelings, recognised
love that could not speak,
to dare being too brave
in such strange circumstance.

I loved you well enough to know
my silence kept you safe;
knew there was no easy way
to tell you how I felt.

Now continents and years away,
your likeness sits here in my soul,
a symbol, cipher, set in stone
for e to bring to mind
when I find a word or line
on which to hang another poem
of unrequited love.

La Creación de una Musa

Había ansia, entonces,
en mi amor por ti.
Súbita e iluminada,
tu belleza, tu risa,
pasión refrenada
me seguía fantasmal
a todas partes.

Intuía tus emociones, reconocía
un amor con miedo a hablar,
a atreverse a ser valiente
en circunstancias extrañas.

Te quería y sabía que mi silencio
era tu seguridad,
sabía que no había palabras fáciles
para decir cómo me sentía.

Ahora, tras años y continentes,
Tu imagen se sienta en mi alma,
un símbolo, un código, grabado en piedra
para que lo recuerde
cuando encuentro una palabra o una frase
en los que colgar otro poema
de amor no correspondido.

This haiku is dedicated to Zifra , because I think he likes this sort of thing.

A haiku has three lines,
seventeen syllables,
and one idea.

Un haiku: tres versos,
diecisiete sílabas,
una idea.

This one, a French one, is my favourite caricature of the ones that have caused trouble in Denmark lately (the original ones weren’t that good). It’s not from the original ones, but a French reaction to the protests against the Danish initiative.

You’ll hear two things: one, the protests are taking place because the caricatures are seen as an insult; two, the reason of the protest is that Muslims feel offended that non-Muslims are not obeying the Muslim law of not representing Mahomet. Both are lies. The cartoons were originally published in October and the reason why they are an issue now is because the were published as a challenge. A writer couldn’t find an illustrator for his book and a newspaper wondered out loud, "is it because illustrators are scared? we dare them to submit their cartoons of Mahomet". Some Muslims were offended by the open bravery.

The French cartoon is entirely made up of the sentence "I should not make make a Mohamet cartoon"

Los siete puentes
abrazando la ciudad,
a todos nosotros.

Our seven bridges
Hugging the city,
hugging us all.

The mantra goes:
Alamillo, Barqueta, Chapina, Triana, San Telmo, Delicias, Quinto Centenario.
A harp, a leap, a ship, a dance, a park, a road, a tower.
To Gran’s, to bars, to walk, way back, to class, to park, and trucks.

I find it very frustrating that I cannot translate this one into Spanish.

Let's see.  If you owned a school and you wanted to hire a teacher, where would you put an ad? Now, if you owned a clinic and you needed to hire a doctor, where would you put an ad? If you owned a cinema school and you wanted to make an audition for actors and actresses, where do you think you should put an ad?

Yesterday it made the local news that a private cinema school is precisely doing that. And a young woman, a producer I assume, said with zero irony: "We weren't looking for anyone especifically. We just put plenty of poster ads on bars".

I have talked about the incompetence of librarians and other public services in my town before . Today's adventures with the University of Seville information system:

ME: Can you give me the English Library phone number? (everyone knows there is an English Library and a Languages Library).
INCOMPETENT 1: Wait a minute... (a few minutes pass). It's the 1001 and the 1002.

ME: Hello, the Library?
1001: Yes?
ME: I need to know when these books I have are due, can you look at the file?
1001: You have to call 1003 for that.
I'm puzzled because I know the library is very small and if I am calling the library the files and the phone are on the same desk. But I call 1003 anyway.

ME: Hello, The Library File System?
1003: This is not a Library, this is the office of a History professor.
ME: Oops, sorry.

ME: Hello, is this the library?
1002 (which I know for a fact is picked up by the same person as 1001): Yes, how can I help you?
ME: I need to know which of my books are due this week.
1002: I can't give you that information on the phone.
ME: but you have done so before, and the file is in front of you!
1002: OH! you're trying to call the English Library! This is the Languages Library. The phone number of the English Library is 1004.

Yes, they made me call three wrong numbers before giving me the right one. Isn't it fun.

I like this poem because it is short and to the point. It says more than complete treatises on art.

The poet is a poem twenty four hours a day,
The poet is an alchemist who knows
how to turn the lead of everyday life into gold.
His poems speak for themselves.

Jotie T’Hooft.

Edited  to add: I didn't realise it was Valentines Day as I posted this. Consider it a love letter to each poet that shapes my time and my poetic language.

I live in the heat and the dust.
Will you change my endless summer
for your occasional spring?

Yesterday I did that poet thing that looks so terribly pretentious: At the meet of my town’s bloggers, as we were spreading over the sofas of a bar, I asked for a pen because I just needed to write down a poem. Yes, very exhibitionist of me... the poem involved a lot of tweaking and polishing, it wasn’t just a spark of sudden inspiration. Here it is.

Stiffness on my back.
Your warm hand hugs me
Three seconds longer than I expected.

Mi espalda, tensa.
Tu abrazo ha durado
tres segundos de más.

There were some people with a strong interest in culture/art/poetry yesterday at the bloggers meet I attended. I couldn't help giving quite harsh opinions about Neosurrealism and related matters, and someone (who will forgive me because I don't have his blog's address on me, so the link will have to wait) told me that a friend fo his ridicules the current fashion for adopting foreign styles and modes, especially the haiku. This person thinks the traditional forms of Spanish poetry are rich enough and worth exploring. But how can I adapt back into Spanish? I haven't been exposed to enough brilliant Spanish verse that made me want to imitate it.

I think one of the first things I ever read that made me seriously want to write poetry (about six months before I actually did) was some fragements of Middleton's play The Changeling. Middleton was a contemporary of Shakespeare and  this play tells a story or two of seduction. De Flores, the villain speaking in these two fragments, is by far Middleton's best character. Because, after reading such brilliant, strong, rich, merciless, rhythmic poetry, do you have any doubt that De Flores will do exactly what he wants with Beatrice?

I, I She had rather wear my pelt tann’d in a pair of dancing pumps,
than I should thrust my fingers into her sockets here;
I know she hates me, yet cannot choose but love her;
no matter, if but to vex her, I’ll haunt her still;
though I get nothing else, I’ll have my will.

II,I Wrangling has prov’d the mistress of good pastime;
as children cry themselves asleep, I ha’seen
Women have chid themselves abed to men.

I, I Más quisiera ella usar mi piel para forrar sus zapatitos,
que dejarme meter los dedos en su guante;
sé que me odia, y no hay nada que hacer, la quiero.
Da igual. La perseguiré, por fastidiarla,
la tenga o no, pues ese es mi capricho.

II, I Las peleas son las criadas del mejor pasatiempo;
igual que los niños que se duermen llorando,
he visto mujeres que refunfuñan camino de la cama.

Zifra told me yesterday "the prisoner's dilemma". According to him, it rules all human relationships. All of them. We used an example close to my own experience and he managed to convince me that yes, he was right.

This is the dilemma: you have two collaborating thieves. They get caught. They are put on isolated cells and each one is told that there is no evidence against them, so the police tries to get any of them to testify against the other one. Under these conditions:  

If no one betrays the other, both will go to prison for 6 months.
If both betray each other, both will go to prison for 6 years.
If one betrays and the other doesn't, the accusing one will go free and the other one will go to prison for 10 years.

What is best to do? Easy. The moral of the story is that cooperation in good faith is advantageous for both parties. Mutual hostility is disadvatageous -to some extent. If one party is hostile and the other is not, the hostile will win more and the cooperating one will lose more. This is not exactly like this all the time: in the situation from my own experience I referred to previously, mutual cooperation led to advantage, far greater than one-sided hostility.

What I as a writer and a reader find very interesting is that the prisoner's dilemma does not apply coherently to fiction. There is always a narrator with plans of his own.  

It bothers me the extent to which feminist criticism can easily become resentful and defeatist. It’s very hard to make good feminist criticism; I understand it as paying great attention to gender roles and more attention than has been given previously to female characters, under the assumption that gender roles are a construct. Not much more than that. Feminist criticism does not need to assume or denounce that women are badly represented by an especific piece of art, because the problem with this is that _all_ art can be put under suspicion.

Let’s put action and crime movies and TV as an example. We like to see violence onscreen. the problem of feminist analysis is:

Female victim, and you’re accused of perpetuating the role of women as passive victims. Pretty victim, you glamorise violence. Ugly victim, she has been punished for being ugly.
Female villain and you’re accused of making your female characters unlikeable.
Male villain and victim, you’re accused of inventing an all-male world. I have seen analysis of Harry Potter around the publication time of the third book that complained that Wizard women are too passive and badly represented.... because there were no female villains.

Same for every theme. We live in a world in which women are undoubtedly mistreated so some of us are too used to see the author mistreating the female characters. I don’t want to do that in my work as a critic, but it is nearly unavoidable.

This one is not really supposed to be taken seriously. I think I have a handful of poems that I see as humorous,  or at least ironic, about love or rather erotism.

For those of you interested in the composition proccess, or just the gossipy bit, the whole poem is built around the first line. Someone said it to me in all seriousness, as a part of their seduction strategy. It didn't work, but I stole the line. I already told you that every poet is a thief and a liar and I'm no exception.

Primera impresión.

Con esos labios no puedes ser mala.
Esa cintura dice siempre la verdad.
Tienes caderas de buena persona.
Tus rizos son los más sinceros,
y tienes la piel más simpática.
Andas muy cariñosamente,
y es una lástima que no nos conozcamos.

First impressions

You can't be bad, with such lips.
Your waist always tells the truth.
You have kind, gentle hips.
Your curls are the most sincere,
and your skin, the friendliest I've seen.
It's a pity that we don't know each other.

Tomorrow I'll be going to Glasgow for a few days. It's my third trip to Glasgow in three years; the last time was almost two years ago and I have never let so much time pass between a visit to Scotland and the following one. I can't wait. It's so strange to miss so much a place that never was home.

Three haiku by Alan Spence, from the book Clear Light.

The rain has stopped
but it's still falling
under the trees.

The sun plunges
into the ocean.
The ocean overflows.

The oystercatcher's cry -
cold loneliness, the far north.

Hello, I'm back! I'm disappointed with myself, but I have to say that I have found nothing in Glasgow to culture-shock me. Maybe I shouldn't be: I haven't lost powers of observation, it's just that anything shocking comes from not knowing the place, and anything amusing happens when I'm in one place, not rushed, for long enough. A three-day stay in my second home has neither element.

Well; while I took my parents to see beautiful things in lovely museums, and bought second hand books, and chocolate from brands I cannot buy in Spain, I saw street ads with one thing in common. "kids die because there aren't enough organ donations: donate". "kids get worse treatments because there aren't enough murses: become one". But wait, the kids are always little girls. Always.

Is it because female children look more pityworthy than male ones? Let's see. I don't think that the UK as a whole treats its girls very kindly. The alarming rate of teenage pregnancy tells me that parents and educators don't bother teaching them sexual education, or self-respect, to say nothing of the boys who make them pregnant (no, I'm not taking any responsibility away from the girls but to get a 14 year-old pregnant you need at least six people to have made mistakes: two sets of parents and the teenagers involved). Children finish school two or three hours before the usual adult time for finishing work, so either kids or parents have to make a compromise about what the children can do those hours in the day. Those are just two facts I'm very familiar with. But still, if you want to get pity in order to sell something, nothing beats a blond female under ten. Ah, tha paradoxes of the modern world.

An exceptional bilingual post because I couldn't make up my mind about what language to use. Scroll down for the English version.

Me he puesto al día con los blogs habituales y resulta que la crónica del mitap que Zifra empezó se va a quedar inacabada. Hasta tiene la cara de pedirnos a los demás que hagamos nuestra propia crónica! Pero bueno, como a todo el mundo le gusta un poco de cotilleo (o un montón), y ninguna quedada está completa si su crónica, allá va la mía.

La noche anterior, me acuesto a las dos de la mañana. Creo que he soñado con mi tesina. Me levanto antes de las nueve. Portátil. Tesina, conclusión, email a mi directora, son las 12.30 del mediodía y voy cerca de una hora tarde. Da igual. Bailo por mi cuarto, me pongo ropa que guardaba para una ocasión especial, y voy para allá conduciendo a lo loco.

Daba por hecho que conocería a poca gente. Por lo menos estaba allí Zifra, agradable como de costumbre. Echo de menos a Carboanion y me siento perdida con tanto desconocido, pero el vino y la euforia post-tesina me hacen sentirme un poco menos fuera de lugar. Al cabo de un rato, alguien me da trabajo! Seguro que esto no era en lo que Hugh pensaba con aquello de que los blogs son buenos para conseguir que las cosas ocurran de forma indirecta, pero a mí me vale.

Hasta donde pude escuchar en un grupo tan grande de gente, algunos se conocen ya y hablan más bien entre ellos, de sus cosas... y de chismes raros para el ordenador. Parece que todo el mundo tiene alguna relación con la Universidad, incluidos varios profesores. Quemamos y reconstruimos el sistema universitario español con tiempo para ir a comer. Todas las opciones eran exóticas y al final decidimos que coreano. El restaurante no era de verdad coreano-coreano, más bien una mezcla de cosa asiáticas. Nada me recordaba a mi compañera de piso coreana y sus cinco or seis platitos individuales para cada comida. Bueno, a lo que iba, la comida estupenda y además tengo la suerte de estar sentada con Raven y Stalker ; cotilleamos sin vergüenza ninguna y hablamos del piercing de Raven y de la gente de la que uno no debería fiarse jamás.

Almuerzo exótico, bebidas frikis: fuimos al Dragón Verde, el sueño húmedo de cualquier fan de Tolkien hecho bar. La gente mariposeaba en grupitos, la niña de Zifra (y un par más, creo) juraron por el mismísimo dragón verde que se portarían bien (y lo cumplieron). Hubo oportunidades para destripar la escena artística local (sí, el rollo neosurrealista-intimista con el que pierdo tanto tiempo) con Raven, que pertenece a ese mundillo; y la relación entre religión y política, con dos ateos militantes. Pues eso. Empezó a largarse gente; Habíamos llegado a ser más de 20 y quedábamos como la mitad. Demasiado temprano para cenar; Raven sugirió un bar moderrrrrrno en la Alameda (cuna de la moderrrrnidad modernísima y de su propio sabor de esnobismo, pero no quiero que Raven piense que no me gustó su elección; al fin y al cabo me invitó a un par de copas).

El bar no tiene sillas ni sofás sino pufs. Genial. Escribo un poema, me echo una siesta; entre los demás, las cosas ya han pasado a la fase tonteo (Zifra, ¿a cuántas les pediste que se casaran contigo?). Hablo de mi tesina y mira qué sorpresa, Eva (no es bitacorera, es la mujer de uno que sí lo es) trabaja en el mundo real con lo que yo analizo en teoría en mi tesina. Toma ya. Casi me peleo con la Caminante (lo siento si soné muy bruta, corazón, ya sé que no me estabas tocando donde duele queriendo), pero con reconciliamos enseguida.

Tenemos hambre. A cenar. Alguien escoge un italiano y nos las apañamos para pedir pizzas, todas para compartir, que a todo el mundo le gustan: ¡la prueba definitiva de que nos hemos hecho los mejores amigos del mundo! Me siento con Zifra y Luis , que hablan de tangos y jazz, y me enseñan el Dilema del Prisionero. Compruebo que tienen razón.

Creo que para entonces quedábamos: Luis y Eva; Raven y Stalker; Zifra y Hamlet; La Caminante y acompañante; y yo. Hamlet, Luis and Eva se fueron justo después de cenar, y los demás nos fuimos a otro bar. Se llamaba Ego? Creo que sí. Otro sitio en La Alameda todavía más modernísimo que el anterior. Adivina quién lo escogió. La Caminante casi se queda frita en una silla, Raven me invitó a un cocktail estupendo, y los interesados en escotes discutieron los méritos relativos de los que se exhibían por el local. Una noche fantástica.

* * *

I read what's going on in other people's blogs after coming back and it turns out that Zifra's meetup chronicle is unfinished and he doesn't seem to have any intentions of completing it.HE even has the nerve of asking others to finish the story! Anyway, Ssnce everyone likes a bit (or a lot) of gossip, and no meetup is ever complete without a chronicle, here's mine.

Bed at two a.m. the night before. I think I have even dreamt of my dissertation. I'm up before nine. Laptop. Dissertation, conclusion, email to advisor. It's 12.30 noon, and I'm about an hour late. It doesn't matter. I dance about the room, pick clothes I was saving for a special occasion, and drive like a maniac.
I counted on knowing very few people. At least Zifra was there, as friendly as usual. I miss Carboanion and I'm lost among so many strangers, but the wine and the dissertation-is-over euphoria help me feel less awkward. Minutes later, someone gives me a job!

As fr as I could tell in such a big group, the conversation of people who alread knew each other was about themselves... and about computer gadgets. It turns out nearly everyone has a connection of a type or another with university, including several professors. We burn and rebuild the Spanish University System in time for lunch. All the options were exotic and we finally decided it'd be Korean.

The restaurant wasn't really Korean, but a mix of Asian things over a Korean base. Nothing reminds me of my Korean roommate and her carefully laid out set of tiny dishes (she served herself a bit of five different things on five different saucers and picked from them all). The food's lovely anyway. I'm lucky enough to be sitting accross Raven and Stalker we gossiped scandalously and talked about Raven's recent tongue piercing (eek) and about people who should never be trusted.

Exotic lunch and geeky after-lunch drinks: we went to El Dragón Verde. Yes, the Green Dragon, the wet dream of any Tolkien fan. People fluttering about in small groups, and Zifra's wee one (and two other wee ones, I think his nieces) taking an oath by the sign of the Dragon to be well-behaved (they all were). There were opportunities to tear apart the current arty/poetic scene (yes, the whole Lyrical Neosurrealism I waste so many entries and time satirising), with Raven, who belongs to it; and the relationship between religion and politics, with militant atheists. Yay. People started to leave; we had been about 20 at some point and there was about half left now. Too early for dinner; Raven suggests some trendy pub in the Alameda (home of local trendiness and its own brand of snobbishness, but I don't want Raven to think I didn't like his choice; after all he invited me to a couple drinks). The pub turns out to have not sofas or chairs but huge cushions you can sink to. I write a poem and take a nap; among everyone else, things have already gone into the flirting stage (Zifra, how many women did you propose to, you shameless thing?). I talk about my dissertation and  surprise, surprise, Eva (not a blogger, the wife of one) works with the real-world aspect of what I research in fiction.  I almost fight with La Caminante (sorry if I sounded to harsh sweetie, I know you weren't prodding my bruises on purpose, but we made up easily. 

We're hungry. It's dinnertime. Someone picks an Italian restaurant and we manage to order pizzas to share that everyone will like: the definite proof that we're all the best friends in the world! I sit with Zifra and Luis, who talk about tangos and jazz, and teach me the Prisoner's Dilemma. I check its truth.

I think that at that time we were: Luis and Eva; Raven and Stalker; Zifra and Hamlet; La Caminante and the one that came with her; and me. Hamlet, Luis and Eva left after dinner and the ones left went to, what was the name of the place? Ego? Probably yes. Another place in the Alameda even trendier than the previous one; no prices for guessing who recommended it. La Caminante nearly fell asleep on a chair, Raven gave me a lovely cocktail, and those interested in cleavages discussed the relative merits of several nearby ones. Not a bad night at all.