On Poetry and Culture Shock

"cartoons drawn on the back of business cards" by Hugh MacLeod 

I have said before that all poets are thieves and liars. That includes me. What I had not said so often or so loudly is that, as Hugh very rightly points out, some poets more or less secretly write in order to get laid. I'm not saying if that includes me.

Hugh has started drawing digitally, saving him the trouble of scanning his handmade drawings and therefore making him post more new cartoons. I hadn't been so excited about something artistic in months.
 

I'm a bit sorry to have said so loud and so recently that all poets are thieves and liars, including me. It screeches next to what I'm going to say next.

I composed this yesterday, because my grandfather, Zifra' s father, and my future, are all in the same place. With all my love to anyone who understands how this feels.

Agua somos.
En la Bahía de Cádiz,
Todas nuestras cenizas.

To water we return.
In the Bay of Cadiz,
Lie all our ashes.

I have the impression that Spanish policemen tend to be a lot more lenient on women than on men. This happened to me on Friday night.

Policeman  waves about a light to make me stop and carries an alcoholimeter in his hand.

Nia. Good evening again, officer. 

Policeman: Have you been already tested?

Nia: No, I was the copilot on a car that passed by a minute ago. 

Policeman: Right then, go ahead. Good evening.

He didn't test me. A driver in her twenties with loads of smudged make-up on a Friday night at the hour the bars close.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote a colection of poems to her husband and she was so shy about declaring her love so openly that she thinly disguised them as a translation that she called "Sonnets from the Portuguese". The collection as a whole is unusual becuase it is mostly written from happiness. Sadness is a lot more photogenic, and unrequited love is so much easier to write from.

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile---her look---her way
Of speaking gently,---for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'---
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,---and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,---
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

Si vas a amarme, que sea por no más
que el amor mismo. Y no digas
"la amo por su sonrisa ---su mirada--- su forma
de hablar suave, por un detalle del pensamiento
que encaja bien en el mío, y que me dio
un sentimiento dulce, en tal día"
Porque estas cosas solas, Amor Mío, pueden
cambiar, hasta por ti, y el amor, así creado,
igual se destruiría. Ni me ames por
sentir pena, cuando secas mis mejillas ---
¡Puede olvidar el llanto, quien viva
contigo mucho tiempo, y así perder tu amor!
Ámame por amor mismo, para así
amar siempre, toda la eternidad.

If you thought yesterday's poem was to sickly sweet, my apologies. Here you have something small by Dorothy Parker. You need to be familiar with this (scroll down to poem 3) to understand it.

From a letter from Lesbia 

...So praise the gods, Catullus is away!
And let me tend you this advice, my dear:
Take any lover that you will, or may,
Except a poet. All of them are queer.

It's just the same -a quarrel or a kiss
is but a  tune to play upon his pipe.
He's always hymning that or wailing this;
myself, I much prefer the business type.

That thing he wrote, the time the sparrow died, -
(Oh most unpleasant, gloomy, tedious words!)
I called sweet, and made believe I cried:
The stupid fool! I've alwayd hated birds.

De una carta de Lesbia 

¡Alabados sean los dioses, Cátulo se fue!
 Y déjame darte un consejo, querida:
Ten los amante que quieras o puedas,
menos poetas. Son bichos raros.

Siempre es igual -una pelea, un beso
no es más que  una canción para la flauta.
Siempre está cantando tal o cual cosa;
yo siempre prefiero hombres de negocios.

Aquello que escribió, cuando se murió el gorrión
(¡qué cosa más horrible y aburrida!)
Dije que era tierno, y que me hizo llorar:
¡Qué hombre imbécil! Odio los pájaros.

I thought that, because today is the international Women’s Day, I would post a poem from a different woman poet every day of the week. The problem is, I hardly ever read (or enjoy) poetry written by women. Chronologically, my list of adored women novelists starts in Jane Austen, two centuries ago, and then there’s the Brontës and plenty of 20th century ones. But poetry, not really. I find the discovery surprising. Why aren’t there more excellent female poets, if there are plenty of excellent women writers? I think these are some of the reasons:

• Women not being allowed to learn to read and write. This applies mostly to the times in which only the upper classes wrote. So, upper-class women with artistic inclinations before the late Middle Ages might have learnt to compose poetry, but not write it.
  
• Women being able to read and write, but not receiving any further education. This applies from the late Middle Ages to the early 20th century.
  
• Women receiving some education, but not in the fields that everyone around them considered relevant for a poet. This is relevant most of all in the Renaissance and the couple of centuries that followed: 16th to 18th centuries. The idea is that women did not know much about classical antiquity or dead languages, and the current trends of the time were for poetry that imitated classic models. Therefore, women who wanted to express themselves poetically knew that their message was faulty.
  
• Women being told that having ovaries is an obstacle to good writing. Read the introduction to The Madwoman in the Attic if you want more information, as I can’t say anything you won’t find there.
  
• Women who finally can write and feel confident about their skills don’t turn up until the last couple of centuries. Hardly anyone can make a living out of poetry, and besides, someone who is painfully earning the right to be heard would rather write about stuff more immediate that lyrical poetry. Novels are ideal: wide readership that can provide an income (writers need to eat too), and a way to express ideals and at the same time tell stories.
  

My longest, most complete haiku anthology includes haiku by men and by women. I don't really find any thematic or formal difference between what each gender wrote.

Chigetsu-ni:

Todas las flores
están en su esplendor
y yo envejezco.

All the flowers
are in full bloom.
I'm getting old.

Sono-Jo

Siento en el pelo
la caricia del niño
a mis espaldas.

I feel on my hair
the caress of the child
behind me.

Chine-Jo

 Por estos bosques
tan profundos no cruza
ni un pajarillo

Not even one bird
is flying through
such a deep forest.

I'll introduce you to a revolutionary idea: let's assume that anonymous works of art were created by women. I mean, why not? what says that they couldn't be?

I'm not completely familiar with the Old Testament, but so far this is my favourite Psalm. I cannot judge to what extent it is good poetry or just a prayer I love for personal reason. In any case, this is an extract from Psalm 118, that I have naughtily edited to conform both to a modern English standard (it is a revision of the King James version) and to diminish gender bias (because "do not put your trust in man" nowadays sounds like "do not put your trust in males", which is weird).

O give thanks to Her, for She is good: because Her mercy lasts for ever.
Let Israel now say, that Her mercy lasts for ever.
LLet them now that fear God say, that Her mercy lasts for ever.
I called upon my God in distress: my God answered me, and set me in a large place.
She on my side; I will not fear: what can anyone do to me?
She takes the side of those that help me.
[It is] better to trust in Her than to put confidence in anyone.
My God is my strength, and dance, song, and She's become my salvation.
The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous: the right hand of our God is strong
The right hand of our God is exalted.
I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of our God.
My God has punished me sore: but She has not given me over to death.
Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, [and] I will praise my God.
This gate of God, into which the righteous shall enter.
I will praise thee: for thou hast heard me, and has become my salvation.
The stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner.
This is our God's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.

This anonymous Irish song may be more properly attributed to a colective of women than yesterday's choice, which was a bit of a joke. I know versions sung by Marianne Faithful, The Corrs, Sinéad O'Connor, Kate Rusby, and Lizzie Higgings. Each version changes the title; to me it's either Wish I Was or Love is Teasing. Each version is different, extracting here or expanding there. This is my own version; I haven't changed much, I'm just taking the bits I like from everyone else's.

I wish I was, I wish in vain,
I wish I was a maid again
But a maid again I can never be
Until oak was to grow up an ivy tree.

For love is teasin’, and love is pleasin’,
And love is a treasure when first it’s new
But as love grows older, then love grows colder,
And it fades away like the morning dew.

There is an alehouse on yonder town
Where my love goes and there sits down,
He takes a strange girl on his knee
Well now, don’t you think that vexes me?

There is a blackbird on yonder tree,
Some say it’s blind and it cannot see.
I wish it was the same with me,
And then of love I would be free.

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
I wish I was a maid again
But a maid again I'll never be
Until oak was grown up an ivy tree.

Sappho is problematic. Very problematic. It's one of those artists whose legend is sadly bigger than their work, for all the wrong reasons, like heroin addict big-mouthed rock stars. The first problem with Sappho is that what we keep of her is little and fragmentary. The second problem is that she was a woman who composed love poetry dedicated to both men and women. Lesbian critics want to make her a lesbian; feminist critics who want to make Sappho universal say that she composed sincere erotic poems to her husband and that the poems to her girlfriends were strictly platonic. I don't care either way. All I know is this: Sappho was a woman who composed poems about the beauty of women and men, about happy weddings, and about her baby daughter. And she was so good at it that the men of her country, a few centuries after her death, thought she was a goddess. I still haven't figured out if I like her work or not, but I like the fact that she existed.

Some an army of horsemen, some an army on foot
and some say a fleet of ships is the loveliest sight
on this dark earth; but I say it is
whatever you desire:

and it it possible to make this perfectly clear to all;
for the woman who far surpassed all others in her beauty,
Helen, left her husband
-- the best of all men --

behind and sailed far away to Troy; she did not spare
a single thought for her child nor for her dear parents
but [the goddess of love] led her astray
[to desire...]

[...which] reminds me now of Anactoria
although far away...
--Translated by Josephine Balmer

I generally dislike jazz on principle. The idea behind jazz is more or less the same as in free verse: as long as the central idea remains, you’re free to go in and out of the rhythm. I see jazz in one corner of a triangle with soul and blues on the other two. Blues is occasionally too monotonous; jazz is too free; soul has the perfect balance. This is something explained humourously in the novel The Commitments by Roddy Doyle, whose characters prefer soul, without a doubt. I agree with them: jazz is way too self-indulgent. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anything as boring as Miles Davis. Sorry.

The surprising thing about this is that I should not like Django Reinhart, who takes a theme or song and makes it jump and run all over the place, turns it backwards and inside out and then goes on as if nothing had happened. But I’ve just discovered Reinhart and I think I’m in love. If I could post music like it was a poem, I would. But I can’t, so stating my newly discovered love of Reinhart will have to do.

Edited to add: Coincidentally, Fitopaldi quotes someone who also despises Jazz. Heh. This may be the explanation of why I don't like Heavy Metal either.

The most visible consequence of global warming in this corner of the world is that orange trees are in bloom a month too early.

Such simple beauty,
orange blossom, perfect scent.
Your flavour’s subtle.
What a miracle it would be
to hear you sing!

Belleza simple,
azahar, perfecto aroma.
Tu sabor, sutil.
¡Qué milagro sería
que nos pudieras cantar!

I can find no explanation to why Joni Mitchell isn’t more famous; maybe she was as famous as she deserved in other countries, not Spain. ON the topic of art made by women, a teacher of mine once taught me that the problem is not that art by males is considered superior, but that it is considered universal. A man’s experience is a universal experience; a woman’s experience is most definitely female. Whatever the case, I think this lyrics by Joni Mitchell tell the other half of the story just as well as her two male equivalents, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. It actually feels like hypothetical female bits of dialogue, if Leonard Cohen’s songs had such a thing (and if you change the love to desire). I’ve edited out a bit that doesn’t translate well.

Again and again the same situation
For so many years
Tethered to a ringing telephone
In a room full ot mirrors
A pretty girl in your bathroom
Checking out her sex appeal
I asked myself when you said you loved me
Do you think this can be real?

You’ve had lots of lovely women
Now you turn your gaze to me
Weighing the beauty and the imperfection
To see if I’m worthy
Like the church
Like a cop
Like a mother
You want me to be truthful
Sometimes you turn it on me like a weapon though
And I need your approval

Still I sent up my prayer
Wondering who was there to hear
I said send me somebody
Who’s strong, and somewhat sincere
With the millions of the lost and lonely ones
I called out to be released
Caught in my struggle for higher achievements
And my search for love
That don’t seem to cease

Otra vez lo mismo,
Tantos años
Atada a un teléfono, que suena
En una habitación llena de espejos.
Una chica guapa en tu cuarto de baño
Juzgando su atractivo.
Me pregunté si cuando me dijiste que me querías
Pensabas que era verdad.

Has estado con montones de mujeres maravillosas
Ahora te has fijado en mí
Calibrando la belleza y la imperfección
Para ver si soy digna
Como la iglesia
Como un policía
Como una madre
Quieres que sea sincera
Aunque a veces haces que se vuelva contra mí, como un arma
Y necesito tu aprobación

Da igual, sigo rezando
y me pregunto si me oye alguien
Y pido “mándame a alguien fuerte, y relativamente sincero”
Igual que los miles de solitarios
Pedí la liberación
Atrapada entre la lucha por la superación
Y la búsqueda de un amor
Que no parece que acabe.

Algo me falta;
Me siento como un ritmo
buscando melodía.

There's something missing.
I feel I'm a rhythm
in search of a melody.

I have to say this in Spanish because it really doesn't translate.

Pues nada, sábado por la noche y he quedado en la Alameda (!). Aparco donde puedo y según salgo del coche, veo a un tío mayor y canijo, de pinta arrastrada. ¿Yonqui? Da igual, el caso es que está gritando "¡la luna, la luna!" como si fuera suya y la hubiese perdido. Pufff... aprieto el paso y me imagino invisible.

La calle es larga y bien iluminada. Hacia el final, otro hombre más joven, y de pinta más arrastrada que el anterior dice 

"Cachin la má! Cachin la má!"

Patea el suelo y mira al infinito. Me ve, se levanta,  (hoy no es mi día), y me pregunta:

"Perdona, ¿Has visto a una perrita blanca? "

"¿Luna?" 

"Sí". 

La que se queda blanca soy yo. No eran yonquis con alucinaciones: habían perdido a la perrita que se había cruzado delante de mi coche un minuto antes. Porque claro, todas las perritas blancas y pequeñas se llaman Luna. Espero que la encontraran, los pobres.

Today is the first day of spring, and International Poetry Day; this one is something I didn't know until today. The truly approppriate thing would be a poem on the beginning of spring, and there are thousands, my favourite being Alan Spence's

First warmth of spring
I feel as if
I have been asleep.

That one doesn't count because I have posted it loads of times. So I'm giving you one of mine instead, a bit of erotism to wish you happy spring loves.

The senses tanka.
In your slow caress,
your heartbeat makes my music.
Not just my eyes love
Your scent of salt, blood and sweat,
your pretty red chilli lips.

El tanka de los sentidos
En tu lenta caricia,
Los latidos de tu corazón son mi música.
No son sólo mis ojos los que aman
Tu olor a sangre, sudor y sal,
tus bonitos labios de chiles rojos.

In Spain, there is an association called the "Real Academia Española", The "Spanish Royal Academy", which publishes the most prestigious dictionary in the country (sorry, María Moliner). The Academy’s opinions are prestigious but not official; that is, contrary to what happens in France with the Academie, the Spanish Academia does not rule about what is "real" Spanish and what isn´t (some Spaniards mistakenly think it does, but that’s another story). Well, the Academia dictionary gives this as the first and sixth definitions in its long entry on poesía, "poetry":

• 1. Manifestación de la belleza o del sentimiento estético por medio de la palabra, en verso o en prosa.
  
• 6. Idealidad, lirismo, cualidad que suscita un sentimiento hondo de belleza, manifiesta o no por medio del lenguaje.
  

I have known Raven for a month or so; every time we’ve met I’ve had a lot of fun, and I think I owe him too many drinks (more drinks than times we’ve met? maybe). The other day we were talking about the persistence of the Gothic subculture from the early 80s all the way to the present. I found it absurd that a taste for black clothes, some rock bands, and old horror movies would translate into a personality aimed at a display of melancholy. I was, of course, wrong, because I was forgetting my own adolescence.

I was 16 to 22 years-old in the years in which trip-hop and Radiohead were the best commercial-and-at-the-same-time-alternative music to come out of the British Isles. Portishead. Tricky. Massive Attack. Björk’s first two albums. Music to be depressed to. I listened to Portishead’s Dummy every day for a year. I discovered Radiohead a little bit later, but it struck me just as intensely. OK Computer, an album that starts with a song about a traffic accident and ends with a song about stress, was my soundtrack of the first half of the year 2000. I wasn’t always sad when I listened to those bands, but the artists lived on an image of chronic despair. You don’t expect anything else from someone who sings "please, could you stay a while to share my grief? " and sounds as if she is just about to start weeping.

None of those bands would exist without the 70’s and early 80’s work of (among others) Pink Floyd, a band that I loved as a baby, and rediscovered few years ago. This is one of my favourite, wallow-in-self-pity songs from The Wall; it probably only makes sense with music.

I got a little black book with my poems in.
Got a bag, got a toothbrush and a comb.
When I’m a good dog they sometimes throw me a bone.
I got elastic bands keeping my shoes on.
Got those swollen hands blues.
Got thirteen channels of shit on the TV to choose from.

I got electric light,
And I got second sight.
Got amazing powers of observation.
And that is how I know,
When I try to get through,
On the telephone to you,
There’ll be nobody home.

I got the obligatory Hendrix perm,
And the inevitable pinhole burns,
All down the front of my favorite satin shirt.
I got nicotine stains on my fingers.
I got a silver spoon on a chain.
Got a grand piano to prop up my mortal remains.
I’ve got wild, staring eyes.
And I got a strong urge to fly,
But I got nowhere to fly to ...fly to... fly to... fly to.

Ooooo Babe,
When I pick up the phone,
There’s still nobody home.
 

Tengo un librito negro con mis poemas,
Y una bolsa, un cepillo de dientes y un peine,
Cuando soy un perrito bueno me tiran un hueso.
Tengo gomas elásticas para sujetar los zapatos,
Tengo el blues de la mano hinchada,
Tengo 13 canales de mierda para elegir en la tele.

Tengo luz eléctrica,
Y tengo poderes paranormales,
Tengo unas dotes de observación impresionantes.
Y por eso sé
Que cuando intente llamarte
No lo cogerá nadie.

Tengo la imprescindible permanente a lo Hendrix,
Y las inevitables quemaduras que fumar
Deja por toda la pechera de mi mejor camisa de raso.
Tengo manchas de nicotina en los dedos.
Tengo una cuchara de plata colgando de una cadena.
Tengo un piano de cola para apoyarme en él.
Tengo la mirada perdida y salvaje.
Tengo unas inmensas ganas de volar,
Pero ningún sitio a donde ir.

Ay, mi vida,
Cuando coja el teléfono
No va a cogerlo nadie.

Another poem about wanting to fly, after Pink Floyd's "Nobody Home".  Edwin Morgan is a Scottish poet that I know too little of.

I am only half out of this rock of scales.
What good is armour when you want to fly?
My tail is like a stony pedestal
and not a rudder. If I sit back on it
I sniff winds, clouds, rains, fogs where
I'd be, where I'd be flying, be flying high.
Dinosaurs are spicks and
all I see when I look back
is tardy turdy bonehead swamps
whose scruples are dumb tons.
Damnable plates and plaques
can't even keep out ticks.
They think when they make the ground thunder
as they lumber for a horn-lock or a rut
that someone is afraid, that everyone is afraid,
but no one is afraid. The lords of creation
are in my mate's next egg's next egg's next egg,
stegosaur. It's feathers I need, more feathers
for the life to come. And these iron teeth
I want away, and a smooth beak
to cut the air. And these claws
on my wings, what use are they
except to drag me down, do you imagine
I am ever going to crawl again?
When I first left that crag
and flapped low and heavy over the ravine
I saw past present and future
like a dying tyrannosaur
and skimmed it with a hiss.
I will teach my sons and daughters to live
on mist and fire and fly to the stars.

Estoy a medio salir de esta roca escamosa.
¿para qué sirve una armadura, si quieres volar?
Mi cola es como un pedestal de piedra,
En vez de un timón. Si me siento sobre ella
Huelo vientos, nubes, lluvias, nieblas donde
Yo podría, podría volar, volar alto.
Los dinosaurios son imbéciles y
Lo único que veo cuando miro alrededor
Son torpes idiotas en ciénagas
Que miden todo por toneladas.
Malditas placas y escamas
Que no pueden ni aislar de los mosquitos.
Creen que cuando hacen atronar el suelo
Al abalanzarse para pelearse o copular
Que alguien tiene miedo, que todos tienen miedo, P
ero nadie tiene miedo. Los señores de la creación
Están en el siguiente huevo del siguiente huevo del siguiente huevo de mi compañero,
El estegosaurio. Yo lo que quiero son plumas, más plumas,
Para la vida que nos queda. Y estos dientes de hierro
Ojalá los perdiera, y tuviera un pico liso
Que cortara el aire. Y estas garras
En las alas, ¿para qué sirven
Aparte de estorbo, es que te piensas
Que voy a volver a reptar en mi vida?
La primera vez que dejé el risco
Y sobrevolé el valle, pesadamente
Vi el pasado, el presente y el futuro
Como un tiranosaurio moribundo
Y pasé de largo con un siseo.
Voy a enseñar a mis hijos e hijas a vivir
De la niebla y el fuego, y volar a las estrellas.

It feels me with joy that the Alameda, home of the trendy and refuge of alternative types (you know, the sort who is "artistic" in a general, hazy way but is too busy going to the right bars to ever actually make something creative), the Alameda avenue, as I say, now has a bookshop among the bars.

It has been open for a year, it has the quirky name "Punto y Coma" (that's how we say it in Spanish; dot-and-comma is a much nicer name than semicolon), and it doubles up as newsagent. It is not surprising that about a third of the book section is on communism. Best of luck to the brave owner.