Young, modern Spanish poets (insert sarcasm here)
I'm doing an experiment. I'm reading all the antologies and compilations of poetry by young, modern Spanish poets. Most of them are from the South. I have spoken very often (here , and here, and here) of my opinion of the current trends in local poetry. I often sound as if I have something against the poets themselves; I don't. I do have something against unoriginality, pretentiousness, and poems that are ugly and/or gratuituously hard to understand. So, I'm reading all the accumulated books and booklets that I have had lying around for years. I've had to read 30 poems by 25 writers to find someone that I think worth sharing (Scroll down for the translation). This is from Pablo García Casado, a widely published poet. All I will say against it is that I don't like his omission of punctuation signs: there was one e. e. cummings, the one and only, and I don't see a need to resurrect the irritating cummings-like tendency to forget about punctuation. In any case, what a poem. What a slap on the face. What a control of words. I do love a bit of cruelty once in a while.
FALDA
como un tornado que pasara lentamente
la vida esparció los objetos por las cuatro
esquinas de este mapa objetos
de escaso valor souvenirs bolígrafos gastados
transistores sin pilas y prendas prendas como esa falda
tirada por el suelo
recuerdo el día que la compraste ¿qué es esto? no
no voy a ponérmela es demasiado corta cien mil veces
en cócteles en verbenas en domingos estúpidos en casa
bailando para ti sólo para ti cien mil veces me la puse
sin bragas sin nada debajo como tú me pedías y ahora ves
tirada por el suelo
se la pone luisa para jugar con las amigas
si vieras cómo ha crecido en pocos meses
SKIRT
like a tornado passing by slowly
life threw around the objects to the four
corners of this map objects
of little value mementoes empty pens
radios without batteries and clothes clothes like that skirt
lying on the floor
i remember the day you bought it what's that? no
i'm not going to wear it it's too short a hundred thousand times
at cocktails at parties on stupid sundays at home
dancing for you only for you a hundred thousand times i wore it
without underwear nothing underneath as you asked me and now see
lying on the floor
luisa wears it to play with her friends
you should she how much she's grown on the last few months