Marginalia Nº 4 - August 2003
CUENCA, ATHENS OF ECUADOR
UNIVERSITY CITY
CULTURAL HERITAGE OF HUMANITY
Interview
Doctor of Philosophy and Letters. Renowned poet and essayist, with a deep sense of teaching and mysticism. She has written about fifty books, in prose and verse, works in which her profound sensitivity and laborious work with the word stands out, viewed from its deep metaphysical essence, as the bearer of subtle mysteries and beautiful revelations.
Here is an excerpt from our conversation with her:
MARGINALIA: It is currently said that poetry is taking a back seat to human existence. Is this true?
IMD: No, it is not true; that's an absurd criterion. Because the existence of each person is not something that is left out; poetry is something internal, not false. Poetry is in us.
MARGINALIA: If the goal of poets is to reach a wider audience each time, should poetry be written in a way that everyone understands?
IMD: The poet should not have those goals. Not everyone is at an adequate level to understand poetry. Not all people understand this "rapture" that the poet lives. He who is ready to understand, understands; that is to say, he who has eyes to see, sees; he who has ears hears.
MARGINALIA: Do you think that literary activity, in general, and poetics, in particular, have a future in a "light" society like ours?
The future is in us, society is an abstract entity; what prevails is the individual, the personal. One could almost say with Leibniz that we are closed monads, units. We do not depend on society.
MARGINALIA: What to do to motivate the new generations in the face of literary work?
It is not necessary to do anything: The motivation has to be in the vocation that they have, in their philosophical attitude of understanding, not only of poetry but of all life ... The poet obeys the dictates of his spirit, of his inspiration , of your inner voice.
MARGINALIA: Tell us about your literary projects ...
I live the present ... the eternal now of the Hindus. .. I don't know if death knocks on my doors later ... No .. You have to live in the present. I rather have a literary past ... The future will come by itself. The future becomes present in every moment of our life. It is possible that I write something else, it is possible that I no longer write ...
MARGINALIA: Any recommendations perhaps, for the new poets that are currently emerging?
That they cultivate their spirit, in addition to their intellect, that they study, that they have academic culture ... at least fundamentals of philosophy, both Western and Eastern ... Which is not just writing for writing and disapproving of everything they call it "traditional". No. We always live our time. The future becomes in every moment, present, and the present becomes past. We cannot be ahead of time. Time, Plato said, is the moving image of eternity. We only live in the moment, the moment that we can barely capture with our conscience ... Nothing more.
GOD AND MAN
The beautiful sinner
that offered his body
In holocaust of ivory pink
break the glass of perfumes
to anoint the holy feet.
Her hair like strands of gold
they fall on the face wet with love.
A fragrance of tuberose
floats in the field
that illuminates the divine Presence.
The word of forgiveness
cleanses his soul of the unusual guilt
Cuenca poetry
Old stone of centuries lying in legend,
old brown clay mix mitimae,
From the hands of the Indian you became history,
with a necklace of moors, singing yaravíes.
In you you have the soul of the Indian made a mountain:
long poncho pain, fresh tear flower,
lying on the road to watch auroras.
In you, jugs of water that suckle crops
and a handful of anguish in the hands of the Indian.
Old stone: on your stone haunches, the hoarse voice
from Huagñay conceited, he enlisted to the contest;
in your breasts of wasteland I hastened the nostalgia
of the race and I walked after the round cry
torn from the wind by mitaya throat.
And I found that that cry was the same as now:
fertile and ancient scream of horn and quena,
that there -when history had to be written-
With the sharp tooth of the blade and plow,
bit the brown belly of the maiden earth,
to give birth to a thousand ripe crops.
And I found that you were born, as afternoons are born,
mixed with the winds, like swallows:
your mountain breasts facing the dawn,
your bronze chieftain waist at noon
and your mouth jewel face to face with the sun.
And I heard that the word of Father Pachacámac
He said to me, pointing to your resounding vastness:
there is the Ingapirca with his song of centuries,
there the immense Narrío, source of secrets,
there the Inti Bath, there the Book of Time,
open before the searching eyes of history.
Old stone: on the kissing mountain of the stars
you wake up blowing fog bandages.
In you the furrows loved the green of the ear,
the golden sweetness of the wheat field, and the bunch
yellow calluses on the Indian's fingers.
That's how everyone loved you, that's how my longing loved you,
thus the year witness to the fable, the dust
roaring voice from the road, and the bland frown
of the armed colonist who broke your plain.
Old stone thrown to the edge of time,
old brown clay, I give you my song
in the fragrant mouth of your beautiful women.
In their fertile bellies the winds quieted,
in her sleeping breasts the white wing awoke
of my verse, in his hands the current was formed
breaker of anguish that I bring you in my hands.
Here, my indigenous heart beating enormously.
Here, necklace of moors singing yaravíes.
Here poncho sweat, fresh pitcher of water,
and a pain made verses in the soul of the Indian.
Universal poetry
AMALEQ AGAG
Agag, king of Amaleq, strong warrior,
just beaten - and forgiven - he said
to himself, kneeling the words,
like someone who worships defeat:
The bitterness of death was removed.
A short time later, the curved dagger
of Samuel would trace on his sides
the sign of divine anger,
profuse source of noble blood.
And of the immortal brilliance of that phrase,
solemn funeral of hope
and of faith, there will be no sparkles
in anthologies: everything is smoke.
Guest poet
IN ITS FIRST CENTENARY
Tireless fighter, promoter and director of magazines and literary supplements, who were honored with contributions from distinguished writers of the time -Gabriela Mistral, Jorge Carrera Andrade, Gonzalo Escudera, Carlos Sabat, Juana de Ibarborou, Alfonsina Storni, among others-, was, also, a great traveler, socialist, teacher, feminist and pacifist. But, for political reasons, she was separated, in 1963, from her chair at the University of Guayaquil.
He published two books: Como el incenso (1925) and Tiniebla (1943). The rest of his work remains, unfortunately, unpublished.
His love poetry is considered "scandalous" in its time, as it is revealed as a perfect harmony between the carnal and the mystical; while the subject of death, of great depth and emotion, constitutes a whole book (Tiniebla), written about the disappearance of her mother.
Poetry, for Aurora, is the key that opens the world of things, the past of her human race; that brings her the lost memory of the centuries, and helps her to rediscover herself in the torrent of time and space.
IT'S A SWEET AND LOST TONGUE
On what blue, Mediterranean beach,
were your walls and towers raised?
From what heavenly island
did your ships sail to the Seven Seas?
And that someone of a race that started
Was ...
I don't know where or when ...
The dust has erased my roads ...
Was it perhaps the land of the miracle,
or the infinity of my own dream?
No one can tell me where he was
nor the song of the waves on its beach!
But in an arcane point of my soul
there is a swollen furrow of destinies
saving the memory of that voice
come to me in long distances ...
he said to me in a prayer of a strange tongue.
(...)
You arrive in lilies of air,
sweet,
from the lost island ...
And where the thought is born
you are nostalgic,
sweet and immobile tongue.
Reviews
POETIC ANTHOLOGY OF ILEANA ESPINEL
Committee for Tribute to Ileana Espinel
Guayaquil, 2002
Preceded by a lucid study of her friend, the also poet Sonia Manzano, we attended this beautiful anthology of the work of Ileana (Guayaquil, 1933-2001), one of the few poets in Ecuador who has made school with her characteristic style, so classic and so contemporary at the same time. Poetry that mercilessly investigates between the suffered folds of the human condition to still rescue something of that "divine scum" that we are. Rescue that, is shown to us in each verse, is only possible by and through the poetic word.
Poetry that oozes bitter wisdom. Brave assumption of oblivion, time and nothingness in which, finally, we end.
"I rehearse a song for your death / how I could do it for your life. / Oh, my nostalgia for your lost face / that neither cries nor laughs at not seeing you // Who would have known how to convince you / of the useless haste of the suicide, / yes in a train that returns from your flight / I arrive at the same destination of your luck! "
Alexandra Andrade
CITY IN VERSE. ANTHOLOGY OF NEW ECUADORIAN POETS
Xavier Oquendo Troncoso
House of Ecuadorian Culture,
Librea, Quito, 2001
Thorough, serious and well documented study. Written with passion and wit, it boasts an attractive and compelling style. The work includes a long analysis of the main features, according to the author, characteristic of this group of poets and of their time, and a representative anthology of texts. The selection of poets, born between 1964 and 1981 (25, in total: Oquendo himself, Roberto Altamirano, Marialuz Albuja, Marcelo Báez, Luis Mussó, Ana Blum, Julia Erazo, Franklin Ordóñez, Pedro Gil, Alfonso Espinosa, Marcelo Silva , among others) goes through the following points: a) permanence within the field of poetry, b) literary merits, c) poetic quality. Although this last aspect is not sufficiently developed, since the work is conceived more within a sociological than a literary framework itself.
However, it is, without a doubt, a good contribution to the knowledge of the last poets of Ecuador.
Sara Vanegas Covena
FOOTPRINTS
Juliet Zamora Donoso
se, Cuenca 2001
With an impressionist tone, the writing of Julieta (member of the Literature Workshop of the Ibero-American Academy of Poetry, Cuenca chapter) does not get lost in complicated metaphysical musings, but simply sings to her environment, to her world. Try to reproduce in words the elusive sensation or the rapid emergence of a thought: her is the grasp of the moment and what that moment brings to her consciousness.
In this way, HUELLAS, his first book, is revealed as a lyrical bell, full of beautiful insights, which opens the doors to the interior landscape, as well as to the world of everyday events. There are the flowers, the waves, the mountains, the fireflies; but there are also the heart, its adventures and its demons.
"I don't know / if the night is shedding / in pale petals / of shadows / ... / but I know / that the day gathers them / in flushed dew / and in dawn".
Sara Vanegas Covena
Credits
Year 2, Number 4
November 2002
Brazil 3-101, Cuenca
Fax: 818 840
Email: svanegas@uazuay.edu.ec
Director:
Sara Vanegas Covena
Collaborating in this issue:
Isabel Moscoso Dávila, Francisco Granizo Ribadeneira, Julieta Zamora, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Rosalinda García, Beatriz Schaefer Peña, Oscar Londoño, Alejandra Andrade, Xavier Oquendo Troncoso
Layout:
Anl. Katherine Ortiz Vidal
The management is not responsible for the opinions contained in the signed articles. Partial or total reproduction is allowed, if the source is cited.
Correspondence and collaborations:
box: 01-01-1178,
Ecuador basin
Email: svanegas@uazuay.edu.ec