Side Effects Of Corn Flour

Twenty years ago I thought that I would become a critic of poetry. I can even say that I was, at least somewhat. A tight binder of more than thirty machine notes, all published, are my best race. Also, the enmity of two or three poets whose questionable success since then has only grown.

season I spent making criticism of poetry was a huge learning. Among other things, I understood that this activity was not for me to read books because they'd just appear, read poetry to write about it. If you still do from time to time is because it resembles the writing itself poems, which has become increasingly urgent, joyful and casual. The most valuable experience was that I ended up in defining what part of the tradition that I had received as a reader, an apprentice of the trade and to students of the Faculty, was the mine, the one I said to myself, the closest to my personal way of reading the poems. What was my starting point?

Contrary to what would be expected of an arts student at UNAM, I knew the poetry of the Generation of 27 long before its contemporary Mexicans drank more and better speech between inspired and colloquial Pedro Salinas, or the delightful arrangements of traditional poetry of Rafael Alberti first, that in Villaurrutia night, which caused the delight of teachers and students of the race, or the verbal and imaginative fullness Pellicer, the best poet of our poets, as the happy phrase of Octavio Paz. Naturally, the area I am interested in the tradition common to all English speakers was not that interested in Mexico.

When in 2002 I moved to Spain I thought I would find someone to share enthusiasm and contrasting views on my favorite poets, even though I came across the sea. What he could not foresee is that I came also across time. And is that neither crucial contributions of 27 imported into English poetry today. Mencionémoslas even as another important step to the idea that I have from tradition, or rather to the idea of \u200b\u200bmy tradition. The first is certainly the update of the values \u200b\u200bof the Baroque around epitomized Gongora, there was a meeting of poets in May 1927. The other is the definitive adaptation (late as usual for Europe: Spain, late fruit, "says beautifully Menéndez Pidal) final adjustment, I mean, really artistic, an old romantic aspiration: traditional poetry or popular origin, in the educated-and nineteenth-century Spain and its colonies usually had only gotten rave.

As I came to understand that the English land inheritance was clearly double-neglected heritage, I mean, as a living source for writing in the face of it, drinking it, even if you want to against hers. Is, careful, explicitly left out: in many poets and critical thinking, any author of Polyphemus today reproaches causes identical to those used in the past century hacérsele. Other sources say nothing of my interest alive as the Archpriest of Hita and the old ballads or Captain Aldana ...

not believe that the English were to look far its main vein existing tradition (the tradition is a liberation or a prison) and is not unusual to have been in the same list of 27 where he found his greatest teacher.

The problem is that only elected they should not, the one that could not be: Luis Cernuda. English, I mean, most despised the flock of his contemporaries, who desperately sought solitude and died brooding bitterness against bad mother ... But above all, the author of a jealous and exclusive that no can imitate without losing its essence. What would he say if they saw it become a crowd that seeks, solicits, procures, praises, benefits, awards on behalf of its aesthetic values, and writes in imitation of the beautiful and (in all) serene style only after have carefully removed the poison? But that's another story. What is good for this is that in Spain I was so far from tradition as I had seen in Mexico. And then, I think I understood: the circumnavigation eventually led me to an idea that has some starting point: the only tradition is your own. The one I choose. Pick up from the river which passes or thinning of dry stones, which I copy or soothsayer and suddenly every time I read or write.

I have the impression of a romantic nature, that the poet is an island that speak a language isolate, initially for himself. I know that may sound drastic. And yet, my poetry reading and living has led me to this strange kind of reduction. I have become, in a sense, more flexible, in others more radical. Isolated language that has the charm, transparency and expressiveness which called for 27, would be great. It also has the added richness of certain mechanisms of American poetry, which have been so sensitive in Mexico, would be another worthwhile. That creative dialogue with the avant-garde, or rather with the work of those who departed from them to invent the modern expression, would become optimal. When I remember those notes for twenty years, I realize that I could not become a critic of poetry because I was looking for in others, was even demanding other, the values \u200b\u200bI wanted for me.

Maybe that's why I can not think of a better way to end this speech with reading a poem, perhaps more expressive way to express my reading of the tradition that much of what can I say. Appeared in January in the journal Conspiratio and is dedicated to Florencia Molfino.

While I like a cherimoya

Florencia Molfino

1

While I like a cherimoya, and see through the window sparrows

rob the thunder peeks at my desk,

warn that destroy rather than swallow,

causing a trail of seeds that fall on multiples

infinitesimally small

waterfalls

in the street bounce

like sparks in the welding workshop, and I understand that destroy

the integrity of the inflorescences,

waste and no matter what mess is part

of the trade.

2

While I like a cherimoya, and I see the window sparrows

rob thunder looming on my desk,

I think they eat a few

of the many

they lose, and I think the few that reach

crop cavity

peak of sewage will

safe, to be dropped this afternoon or the other on the same street

or beyond, in order to propagate,

their contribution payment,

intact.

3.

While I like a cherimoya, and see through the window sparrows

rob thunder looming on my desk,

carefully spit

seeds culled from the soft flesh,

and I keep getting into the mouth because they are the heart

of the sweet fruit,

; and see them on the plate , ovoid,

blackish, many, I imagine the tree

I do not know

and thank you, thank dutifully have nothing to do

with its spread .

_______________________

This text was read on Thursday April 14 at the Casa del Poeta in a roundtable called "Poetry and Tradition" which was also attended by poets Jorge Fernandez Granados and Julio Trujillo. Maria Rivera moderated.