READIN

Sunday, November 24th, 2013

🦋 11 muchachos desnudos bajo el arcoiris de fuego

Early poetry from Bolaño and comrade infras. I'm now reading and translating Hiram Barrios' fantastic essay on Infrarealism from Cuadrivio.net, Visitando al infrarrealismo.

posted morning of November 24th, 2013: Respond
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🦋 ¿Quiénes son los «verdaderos» Detectives Salvajes?

Once son ellos, once, ferozmente poetas:
Hernán, Roberto y Montané, chilenos;
el ecuatoriano Nieto Cadena;
de la patria de Sandino: Beltrán Morales;
el peruano Enrique Verástegui,
el también peruano Jorge Pimente;
Luis Suardíaz, del primer teerritorio
libre en América: Cuba, cubanamente;
más tres meshicas que son, qué remedio,
Orlando Guillén, ¡impresente!,
Mario en el camino de Santiago
y Julián Gómez... once son, pues,
y, ¿se fijaron?, ni una sola hembrita,
con tan buenas, guapamente sabrosas que son
y que escriben como Afroditas que surgieran
no de un pantanoso taller literario
sino de un bárbaro océano de pantalones de mezclilla.

--Efraín Huerta

It's eleven, eleven, ferociously poets:
Hernán, Roberto and Montané from Chile;
Ecuadorian Nieto Cadena;
from the land of Sandino, Beltrán Morales;
Peruvian Enrique Verástegui,
and Peruvian too, Jorge Pimente;
Luis Suardíaz, from the first-ever free
territory of the Americas: Cuba, Cubanly;
and there's three Meshicas, what else can I say,
Orlando Guillén, absent!,
Mario on the road to Santiago,
and Julián Gómez... so they're eleven,
and notice? Not a single chick,
for all the lovely, sweet things out there
that write like Aphrodites sprung
not from some fetid literary workshop
but from a savage ocean of blue jeans.

posted afternoon of November 24th, 2013: Respond
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Friday, November 29th, 2013

🦋 Let's listen to

Ampersan: this is Orlando Guillén's "ABCD", from Muchachos desnudos.

posted evening of November 29th, 2013: Respond
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🦋 Enseñame a bailar

Here is a poem of Bolaño's from Pájaro de calor. (It is quoted in Hiram Barrios' fabulous essay on the infra poets, Visitando al infrarrealismo.)

Teach me to dance
by Roberto Bolaño/ tr. Jeremy Osner

to draw my fingers through the cottoncandy clouds
to stretch out my legs tangled up in your legs...

(translation redacted, write me if you'd like to see it)

posted evening of November 29th, 2013: 1 response
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Monday, December second, 2013

🦋 The Domestication of Lightning

Another Infrarealist poem: this is by Guadalupe Ochoa, one of the few female Infrarealists.

The Domestication of Lightning
by Guadalupe Ochoa/ tr. Jeremy Osner

the lightning of touch announces
the downpour engendered in our embrace
fiery water of our bodies

posted morning of December second, 2013: 1 response
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🦋 A couple of Infrarealism links

• Interview with Bolaño in Plural, Oct. 1976
• Palabras Urgentes -- manifesto of the Hora Zero movement in Peru, 1970
• Bolaño in Mexico -- remembrances by Carmen Boullosa, 2007

posted evening of December second, 2013: Respond
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Saturday, December 14th, 2013

🦋 Well that was exciting

I was briefly in touch with Roberto Bolaño's literary agent over the idea of my publishing Teach me to dance... The answer as it turns out is unsurprisingly "No, the estate has other plans for his early poetry" -- oh well, it was fun anyway to have that contact.

posted morning of December 14th, 2013: 1 response
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Monday, February third, 2014

🦋 Brooklyn: La Uni. Desconocida

Very exciting: a school of Spanish-language writing and literature is being launched in Brooklyn under the compelling name of Bolaño's book of poetry. Go to their launch party on Saturday! (I can't make it because I'm going to a poetry workshop at Medicine Show Theater, about which more anon.) I am planning to enroll in the poetry workshop led by Isabel Cadenas Cañon, and maybe also the writing workshop led by Lina Meruane. Can't wait!

posted evening of February third, 2014: Respond
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Thursday, April 24th, 2014

🦋 la Universidad Desconocida: week 1

Had a little trouble following the discussion of the readings in more than fragments. Read a classmate's beautiful poem "Lullaby for insomniacs," remembering and mourning for her mother. I presented my poem "un ejercicia en la forma pronominal" and got some really valuable notes. The title is not really a title to speak of and the quote from Leiris needs to go -- Enrique Winter recommended I cut a few lines at the end.

But people really seemed to appreciate the poem and find it amusing. Ran out of time before we could read another classmate's poem, I'm going to read that now.

posted evening of April 24th, 2014: Respond
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Saturday, April 26th, 2014

🦋 Readings for week 2

I'm finding this week's readings for the Universidad Desconocida much more engaging than last week's. Check it out:

1. Fernando Pessoa, "Poema de canción sobre la esperanza"
2. T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton"
3. Anna Akhmatova, "Réquiem"
4. Eugenio Montale, "Sestear palido y absorto"
5. Federico García Lorca, "Romance de la luna"
6. Jacques Prévert, "Para hacer el retrato de un pájaro"
7. Robert Desnos, "Tanto soñé contigo"
8. Luis Cernuda, "Si el hombre pudiera decir lo que ama"
9. W.H. Auden, "Musée des beaux artes" (in a beatiful translation by José Emilio Pacheco)
10. Miguel Hernández, "El niño yuntero"
11. Dylan Thomas, "And Death Shall Have No Dominion"
12. Paul Celan, "Todesfugue"
13. Philip Larkin, "This Be the Verse" (another quite excellent translation, by Enrique Winter)
14. Wislawa Szymborska, "Lectura"

posted afternoon of April 26th, 2014: Respond

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