Aug '02 [Home]
Interview
'Notice, It's Lo Cubano y la Poesía, not El Cubano': Writers Living the Nuance
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Aug '02 [Home] Interview 'Notice, It's Lo Cubano y la Poesía, not El Cubano': Writers Living the Nuance |
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I have to break in again to ask where I might find the books I'm looking for. They indicate they will take care of it, but first I have to listen to them exchange dinner menus. Finally, one woman indicates I should follow her. We wander around the small poetry and fiction section,and I'm finding the books faster than she is. Most of the titles are 1982, and forward. My guide indicates a table where a woman writes out in long-hand each of the titles I am buying, noting their prices, their authors, etc. After ten minutes of this, she points me toward another woman who must run through the individual slips, finally totaling the whole big deal. I'm an impatient man: If I had to go through this in the States, I'd quit reading, pronto. But I've got my bag of twenty books, and it's cost me less than twenty dollars. Evidently state subsidies extend to the book publishing trade, but where are the Retamar, the Diego, the Fayad Jamis books? There is the work of César Lopez [b. 1930, awarded National Literature Prize in 1999] and nothing by Padilla. I really didn't expect to find any of his work: It wouldn't seem appropriate in a revolutionary country to promote works which are counter-revolutionary, but wouldn't the text be more important than the ideology of the editor? What is the line one can't cross without being considered anti-revolutionary? —TS (journal excerpt)
TS: Yesterday, I was looking at some of the translations of David Cherician's poems. In one poem, David had a word that was seven syllables long in the last line. Right in the middle of that line he had a caesura with monosyllabic words on either side. The best the translator could do was come up with three syllables. And so, in terms of the metrics of the poem, the shape was lost as well as the suggestions. CL: To find good solutions is a terrible thing for any translator. Right now I am reading a novel—I don't know whether you know it—Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin [1929]. I am reading this novel in English even though it was written in German. He was a peculiar writer from the end of the last century to the 40's. I think he died after the war. [b. 1878 - d. 1957] He left Germany when the Nazis rose [to power], but he came back. The novel is similar to Ulysses, in the line of Ulysses. The translation is wonderful; it doesn't feel like a translation. And it is a very, very difficult work. I wonder how the translator found the solution that makes the reader feel the rightness of the words and syllables and phrases—and you feel the suffering the translator went through in his work. [Poet Eugene Jolas (1894-1945), editor of transition, a self-described 'American exile on the Franco-German frontier,' was a highly talented linguist and critic. perloff/jolas.html. —Eds.] It is, in my opinion, a fine example of translation and for a translator it must be an enterprise for all of your life translating Ulysses or Finnegans Wake. Nobody could translate it into any other language. As if English-speaking people ever read it. Publishing Against the Odds TS: Here's a stack of poetry books I found in Poesía Moderna. All of them have been published since l982. It seems as though it's an incredible number of books. CL: Yes. I think, for instance, an editor at Letras Cubanas told me that for this year they are preparing thirty titles of poetry. That's not bad. And it's only one house. And then there is the Writers' Union and Casa De Las Americas and others. It's not bad. But we have so many problems with paper. TS: Does the paper come from Canada? CL: Some of it does, and some perhaps from China. But this year we are to open a factory which will make paper from sugar cane and that should alleviate this problem. But then there is the coal shortage. TS: For the inks? CL: Yes. Sometimes the designs of the books are wonderful, but when it comes to realization of the book, it's not good because the materials are not adequate to the artist's conception. Sometimes we don't have equipment. There are so many other things which are very important to Cuba. It doesn't mean that books aren't important in Cuba or that people don't read, but we have so many other problems; it just means that people may have to read a book that isn't the best quality. But if you can read the book, that is the most important thing. TS: Exactly. And that there aren't smears of ink and stuff like that. CL: Of course. And when you discover errors, you pull your hair and say it happens to me and not to others. A Paradoxical Being: Lo Cubano TS: Cuban writing is much different from all the rest of Latin American writing as far as I can see. The themes of the materials are different. Terms like 'magical realism' don't apply. The sense of reality in the poetry which is being produced here is not the same dream as the rest of Latin America literature. It's not necessarily better, just different. CL: I agree with you, even if I don't agree with the extensions of your conceptions because we can be assured that, while differences exist, there are links which connect our works tenuously to all other works. But the most important question in my opinion is why Cuban poetry is different, without trying to justify the art and the poetry mechanically as a consequence of economic and political problems. We can't exclude the revolution as a phenomenon. It is the most important phenomenon we are living inside; in joy and suffering, sure and unsure at the same time. It influences the very insides of our works in spite of our differing ways of expression—structural, metaphorical, dialectical. We can show a poetry-lover a poetry so hermetically difficult as [José Lezama] Lima, for instance. And on the other hand, a poet who belongs to the same generation: the great and not so well-known Virgilio Piñera. In that period of time, we had four great writers: Lima, [Alejo] Carpentier, [Nicolas] Guillen and Piñera. I know for many observers Virgilio is not yet among the great, but he has had a strong influence, not only in theater, but in the short story, the novel, and poetry. It's very, very important, this anti-poetry which was introduced by him. But it was not his moment. It was very Cuban, very elegant. It was the moment of Guillen, Eliseo Diego, but it was Pinera who was the strongest influence on the poets of younger generation who grouped themselves around El Caiman Barbudo, which is a very important magazine. And this lineage leads to the younger poets—Reina Maria Rodríguez, Efrain Rodríguez Santana, Leon de la Hoz, Angel Escobar, Osvaldo Sanchez, Raul Hernandez Novas—a very large group of poets who are writing a different kind of poetry, but a poetry which at the same time it is different sets itself [apart], in the wholeness of Cuban poetry with all its differences, from other Latin American countries. TS: You've got such a confluence of influences on the text. You've got the past history; you've got the now history. You have the history that's carrying over and informing every daily act; you've got the folklórico tradition. CL: Yes. With folklórico, many details come from many different spaces and different parts of the life, everyday life or interior life or historical reference or cultural reference. It's all things. And sometimes I don't like to talk about influences. It's really something that's floating or which is going on in the mother which the poets are able to receive, perceive and immediately, as a result of this ability to receive inside, there is then the transformation of the idea into poetry. A poetry which is very contaminated. We are [sic] any notion of 'pure poetry,' as [Paul] Valéry used to say [Article, 1928]. Which doesn't mean we don't read Valéry or don't consider him a great poet. But the way in which we manipulate the text is quite different. And sometimes you realize in that mood, in Eliot and all the British, all the Anglo-Saxon poets, you see the clash. And utilizing the clash, the Cuban poets are instilling humor, a sense of criticism, something which may be the essence of the Cuban thing. Don't forget Cintio Vitier published a book in the 50's, Lo Cubano y la Poesía (The Cuban and Poetry), which reveals a certain looking for the identity of the Cuban in the poetry, in the life, in the history. It's a sort of obsession of the human being living here in Cuba to look for, and search for the main element which makes us what we are. TS: But it's not just one element… CL: No, not one. When I say one element, I mean one is a validation of the many things which make up the Cuban. It is Lo Cubano and not El Cubano. It is a very important nuance. But it is not the only element; there are many things which are integrated.TS: Could one say there is a poetry of the country and a poetry of the city? CL: No, I don't think so. I think it is impossible for us to separate poetry of history, of country, of being us, you know. I think it would be a sort of betrayal. I would betray myself. TS: Well, you could say that one poet might tend more or vacillate more toward one particular area, and you might say, well, that poet may have been influenced more by x, y or z, but that still doesn't explain it. It's very interesting and complicated to me. Open in Closed Form Now let me ask you a question about your new book, Ouiebra de la Perfección (Crack of Perfection), a book which has not yet been translated. In your earlier works you were working in open forms and suddenly you're going back to closed forms here. CL: Some people have said so. But that's not exactly true in my first published book Silencio en Voz de Muerte (Silence Through Death's Voice), a collection of poems dedicated to the memory of [Cuban revolutionary] Frank Pais , who was a good friend of mine [when we were] teenagers. He was killed at the beginning of the fighting. He was a leader, a very important leader even when he was very young. He was killed when he was twenty-three. In that book, there is a section integrated wholly by sonnets. So I was working in the beginning with closed forms and now, after a period of open forms and long verses and long lines, I have come back to some closed forms, something I would like to call 'protoforms.' They are not utterly closed or utterly classical, but make a sort of integration of these forms. And they keep themselves one moment away from being classic and closed. I would call them protoformas. TS: That's fine. I understand the suggestion that you carry along the classical form at the same time that you are halfway in between the open form and then you get the dialectic between the two. Humoring the Critics CL: Sometimes I introduce this tone of humor, black humor. A critic said about this book that it was shocking and he was surprised because the book seems to be a new neo-classicism. I respect so much the opinion of the critics, but I also find it witty, and it must be considered as a possible comprehension of this book. TS: Well, critics never understand humor ever, anywhere. They either won't pay attention to the work or they cast you aside because it is not worthy of their attention. CL: I like to let the critics stay by themselves with their critiques. But I think in this case it was useful because the critic was a witness to the new neo-classicism. Then, as I review my work, I don't think there are great changes. I think my work tends to unity through various and differing ways; then they can say whether it is achieved or not. But my great long[-term] aspiration would be to finish a real work which would include all my previous and separate works and poems and short stories and essays and so on. And which would constitute, at the same time, variations of the only main great subject. Enormous aspiration, proper for a paranoid mind. TS: There is the notion that we write one thing all our lives. CL: I agree. I try to work with a different point of view when I approach a subject, a situation, and I try to include myself inside this conception of wholeness we were talking about before. Do I have to explain aesthetics? I'm trying to make light conversation instead of a pedantic, academic one. Classical Education, Classic Exile TS: Who are you reading today? CL: I read everything I can. My background is so classic in the Spanish context. Don't forget; I did my studies in Madrid. I was a medical student and I studied philosophy. My background is serious. And I was lucky enough to have a family who supported me, even though they were not intellectuals. I can't remember when I was unable to read. Before going to school I started reading. Really reading books. My sister, my brother and myself—I was the youngest—even before we started secondary school had read Don Quixote [Cervantes]. A children's version. My mother oriented us and I had a good background. And after that, Cuban literature, the 19th century romantics, [José Martí, [Antonio] Casal. The novelists I started reading were mainly German. TS: Of what period? CL: [Thomas] Mann especially, and the great realists of the l9th and 20th centuries. And then, when we discovered [Franz] Kafka, it was very very important to us. And many American novels. But with respect to poetry, I read a lot of poetry from Spain, from Latin America, the great poets: [Pablo] Neruda, [César] Vallejo, [Octavio] Paz. Some French poetry. And then at 20 or 24, I started reading English poetry: [W.H.] Auden, [T.S.] Eliot, [Stephen] Spender. TS: Mostly modern writers? CL: Oh yes, of course, besides the classic ones. I was maybe a bad reader, but I was also an obstinate one. I read all the time. I read three or four languages, which is an advantage for me. There was an experience for the majority of the members of my generation, the Cuban abroad in the 50's. When I was in Spain and after I realized— It was an experience with so many of my friends who went to Paris, New York, London. In Spain, I discovered myself being a Cuban and a Cuban in search for the wider context of Latin American writers. I think it was the most exciting experience of the 50's for me, but I discovered something else I would like quote, try to translate, something of [José] Martí, the poet—and notice I don't say 'the great poet.' He's a poet who allows us to reveal ourselves in so many ways. Martí says, 'There is no home abroad.' And for me, taking the idea, it was the discovery that there wasn't, there isn't, there won't be a home abroad. I can't stay abroad. That is not home. The home is the idea. All the great poets in Cuba throughout history have been exiled abroad, but all of them have felt at all times that they were Cuban. Because of that, I consider the people who say they left the country for political reasons is a deeper betrayal because it's a betrayal of the most deep, the most actual essence: It is a betrayal of the self. Maybe perhaps my poetry, my essays try to express this rootedness, this closeness, this self, this revealing of the self. TS: Because whenever one goes some other place, for whatever reason, there's a counterpoint set up between, as you say, your mythic self that occurs again and again wherever you were born, whatever your native tongue is, wherever you're living at the moment. And so you're living as a shadow figure wherever you are and you are not complete except in replication. CL: Yes, but I will try to further explain. When you spend a long, long time away, but you keep yourself intact, more in touch, more open, more developed in some way. And I must say that it happens to people who wouldn't like to act in this way. I am not affirming that Cuba is better than other countries. No, it is something peculiar; it's something which corresponds to our way of living—no, to our way of being. This acceptance offers the possibility and opens the possibility of establishing communication with other people. It's paradoxical, but it functions in this way. TS: This process, this conversation, will also inform our work, and that's how we can be a little less serious. We've gone through the thinking, we've gone through the dreaming or whatever it is that produces the work and causes us to gnash our teeth, what one goes through in terms of ritual to prepare oneself to produce the poem or let the poem exist as it were. CL: Yes, but not only that. Whatever it is, it is a mechanism which constitutes feedback because, first of all, these feelings and sensations and experiences and histories and cultural backgrounds and emotional backgrounds are preparing the evolution of the poetry. But, after that, the poetry is an influence on oneself and you act in consequence of your poetry and afterwards the mechanism starts again and you produce more poetry with more maturity in closer accordance with your own point of view. It is the thing that allows you to keep writing poetry even after long periods of time, even when you are not the youngster you once were. And the way we were is contained in the way we are. I'm afraid that's rather too close to quoting Eliot.[*] For me, a popular song is sometimes as important as a verse of Shakespeare or [Pedro] Calderon. A popular song and the lyrics may be foolish, mad, but it functions in a peculiar context as a key for starting the mechanism.
[*] "In my beginning is my end . . . /// In my end is my beginning." ("East Coker" [I, V] Four Quartets) |