LIMES 2004

FRAGMENTS

LIMES 2004

Proyecto de Poesía Audiovisual en homenaje al poeta Pablo Neruda

Audio-Visual Poetry Project -
A tribute to Pablo Neruda

Directores del proyecto
JAIME ODDO & XIMENA NAREA


Co-producer: LORENA ACEVEDO NAREA


ISBN - 91-89648-10-2

FRAGMENTS, A VISUAL-POETIC EXPERIENCE

by Ximena Narea

ESSENTIALITY IN THE POETRY OF PABLO NERUDA

by Jorge Olivera

THE POETS AND POEMS

TRANSLATORS
LINKS

PRESENTATION
Since 1997 Heterogénesis has been developing an artistic project called Limes. The concept behind it is to enable encounters between artists, writers and others involved in the interpretation of culture in different parts of the world. For the 2004 version of Limes, we wanted to participate in the many tributes to Pablo Neruda in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the poet’s birth. In his honor, we present a collective audio-visual poetry project.
 
“Fragments” is the voice of a group of poets who responded to our call for this collective tribute. They live in different places of the world and speak seven different languages.
 
At the core of Heterogénesis are the Visual Arts; as such, our aim was for our contribution to establish links between text and image. The first step was to contact the Chilean artist Jaime Oddo. Through e- mail and chat sessions, we fleshed out the concept for the audio-visual project “Fragments.” During this initial stage of production, poets from different countries were invited to venture into an expressive territory unfamiliar to them—creating 40-second audio-visual segments in tribute to Neruda. The videos were then sent to Chile where Oddo took care of the postproduction and editing of the project. After its debut screening during the “Week of Pablo Neruda,” organized by the Association of Swedish Writers Författarcentrum Syd de Malmö, the video—subtitled in Spanish, Swedish and English—was launched in its tour of international screenings.
 
The result of our efforts is a striking “visual-poetic experience” showcasing the special gifts of 22 poets residing in 14 countries. “Fragments” is a unique experience where the poets blended text and image creating an audio-visual happening that will be forever recorded in our memories. Our most heart-felt thanks to all of the artists, for without their talent and dedication this project would not have been possible.

In addition to the video, Heterogénesis has edited three books featuring the poems in their original language accompanied by translations into Spanish, Swedish, and English. We would like to thank Verónica Albin, Senior Lecturer of Spanish and Translation at Rice University, for editing the English text and translations.

Fragments:
A Visual Poetic experience

by Ximena Narea

 
ANALIZING NERUDA'S WORK  

Essentiality in the poetry of Pablo Neruda

by JORGE OLIVERA

(Translation: Jorge Capelán)

Image, word and poetry have always been linked to the oral character of language, and it is for that reason that ”poetry was the first of the arts; poetry, language and the preservation of myth grew up together”1. Poetry is one way of showing the hidden realms of the world, a particular form of the image about that world which the poet constructs with language, and then projects onto the written or spoken word. I want to highlight that presence of the spoken word over the written word in order to understand the sonority of the poetic language and its manifestation through the image. The way in which that language constructs its images to reach the reader or listener; material sound of language which constructs the image that poetry finally delivers. This takes place because the written texts are, in one way or another, related to the sound, ”natural ambience of the language in order to transmit its meanings”2.

In Neruda, one can perceive the intention of ”wanting to rescue a word that can be an immediate blossoming of interiority (…) implies a suspension of the reflexive consciousness, a state of rapture, of alienation [which leads him to abandon] the analytical thought for the analogical, which has its own causality”3. The poetic language constructs the image, which transmits the sound already present in the essence of the former. Sound and image represent the two sides that make poetry, and in the case of the Chilean poet allow him to construct that essentiality of his poetry. The idea of ”conceiving poems as if they were direct manifestations of the natural energy”4, a place where the poet transforms himself into the axis from where the world can be contemplated: ”I am a poet, the one most lost in thought on the contemplation of the earth; I wanted to break, with my little jumbled poetry, the fence of mystery that surrounds the crystal, the wood and the stone, I specialized my heart in listening to the sounds that the universe unleashed in the oceanic night, in the silent extensions of the earth or the air…”5.

This stance of Neruda shows us a way of constructing the poem that has been called a ”mythical-metaphoric poetic”6 – a place where the image meets the desire to constitute itself into a speaker for an us, the rescue of the community’s memory. In this sense, the oral character of language always has had a close relationship with poetry, since it was centered around the ways of articulation of the knowledge of the community and the preservation of its memory. In this process, the oral character of language has needed of poetry in order to communicate that memory, and it had done so through the creative metaphoric construction of images. Actually, ”writing can never do without the oral (…) reading a text means translating it into sounds”7 and these sounds are the basic constituents of the poetic image.

”The metaphor is probably the most fertile power owned by man”, sustained Ortega y Gasset8. I cannot come up with another way of thinking the poetic work of Pablo Neruda but through the image as a way of conveying the feeling and the construction of a fertile space of communication with the reader. ”The metaphor hides an object by supplanting it for another, and it wouldn’t make any sense if we couldn’t see beneath it an instinct that induces man to elude realities” adds the Spanish philosopher. In Neruda, that phenomenon of supplanting has as its ultimate end the unveiling of reality, it is one of the axis of his work, because in it “poetry is essentially discovery and expression of the vital rhythm”9. I underline three relevant aspects, the metaphor as a useful tool, the capacity to achieve the supplanting it possesses and the sonorous expression of that vital rhythm generated in it.

We could say that the metaphor in Neruda is “the use of material images in order to suggest immaterial relations”, a “delicate substance of language (…) constructed on the foundations of metaphor”10; a modality seeking poetic images to interpret the voice of a people, an expression from the deepest feelings of the group. Thus, he can say “Poverty was for Spain / like horses of smoke, / like stones fallen from / the springs of misfortune…” (from España en el Corazón)11, actually establishing the conjunction between the tackling of the verse and the metaphor that transforms the material into immaterial. This is a way of working with the written word that evokes the propitiatory oral character of the poetic, a presentation of a world of images constructed by the sound. The poet assumes himself as the one who names: “Nothing have I discovered / everything already was / when I passed through this world, / if I return to this place / I beg the discoverers / to keep some things for me, / an unnamed volcano / an unknown madrigal.” (Artes Poéticas, II)12, the giver of voice to the surrounding space.

We can then observe that “the nature-revealing metaphor is the very substance of poetry. The known interprets the dark, the universe lives the myth. The perceptible world’s beauty and freedom provide a model, and life is impregnated with art” 13; and that the poet becomes “the channel for the dark forces of the Genesis”14, a re-generator of the myth and the memory.

This is a way of constructing a perception and a conception of the world that results in an aesthetics suited for the wide public, that which a critic called “closer to the blood than to the ink”, together with the “sensation that Neruda’s poetry gives of tearing down canons and intellectualisms in order to exclusively exalt or spin the fibers of the human”15.

All of Neruda’s poetry, from the romantic to the social, is marked by that attachment to the word and the image that emerge spontaneously and are its generating source. Let us recall how in Walking Around16 that duality of the social and the individual is already present, “it happens that I get tired of being a man. / It happens that I go to tailor shops and cinemas / I wither, impenetrable, like a felt swan / navigating waters of origins and ashes / or putting a nun to death by a blow in the ear” and the existential image that reconciles him with the world: “I don’t want to go on being a root in the dark”.

Neruda’s poetry evocates images because it has as a basic precondition its attachment to the world, its direct relationship with its circumstance, right in the place where language is converted into metaphor without obscuring what has been said, but shedding light on the verse. The analogical procedure in Neruda is the prime material that allows us to evoke his poetry as a succession of images transiting the verse. Thus, the image evokes the creational myth before it transforms itself into a game of language. It is the image what refers us to that condition of the oral: the sound – an almost prophetic dimension of his poetry which emerges like a rushing stream full of metaphors and sets the poet on the place of its very primal condition, the place where image, word and poetry construct the memory of the collectivity17. The essentiality of poetry lies in its condition of sound become image – an evocative form of the human, which is the modality of expression of Neruda’s poetry. That is also the reason of its profound hold on the readers, a poet to whom all those who look for their roots always return to.


Footnotes

1 Fenollosa, Ernest – Pound, Ezra, El carácter de la escritura china como medio poético, Visor Libros, Madrid, 2001, p. 52
2 Ong, Walter, Oralidad y Escritura. Tecnologías de la palabra, FCE, Buenos Aires, 1993, p. 7
3 Yurkevich, Saúl, Fundadores de la Nueva Poesía Latinoamericana, Barral Editores, Barcelona, 1973, p. 163.
4 Ibid, O. Cit. p. 165
5 Words of Pablo Neruda at the International Congress of Democracies, Montevideo, 1939, quoted by Rodríguez Monegal, Emir, El vajero inmóvil. Introducción a Pablo Neruda, Losada, Buenos Aires, 1966, p. 101
6 Yukevich, Saúl, Op. Cit. p. 224
7 Ong,Walter, Op. Cit. p. 17
8 Ortega y Gasset, La desumanización del arte, Revista Occidente, Madrid, 1923, p.
9 Portuondo, José Antonio, Concepto de la poesía, El Colegio de México, 1945, p. 150
10 Fenollosa – Pound, Op. Cit. p. 50
11 Nerida, Pablo, Tercera Residencia, Seix Barrals, Barcelona, 1990, p. 41. The translation of these verses was made by Jorge Capelán
12 Neruda, Pablo, Fin de Mundo, Losada, Buenos Aires, 1970, p. 79. The translation of these verses was made by Jorge Capelán
13 Fenollosa – Pound, Op. Cit, p. 51
14 Turkevich, Saúl, Op. Cit. 177
15 De Lellis, Mario J., Pablo Neruda, Editorial la Mandrágora, Buenos Aires, 1957, p. 9.
16 Neruda, Pablo, Residencia en la Tierra, Losada, Buenos Aires, 1974, p. 85-86 The translation of these verses was made by Jorge Capelán
17 “In Neruda, as in Bréton, a mythological behavior takes place. Both seek the naturalization of the artistic language, the abolition of the pre-established modules, as if they wanted to level the grounds of the established and the institutionalized”, in Yurkevich, Saúl, Op. Cit. p. 176


LOS POETAS - THE POETS
OSCAR AGUILERA
(Santiago, Chile)
Otro mundo es posible
En annan värld är möjlig
An other wrold is possible
MANUEL ANDROS
(Santiago, Chile)
A la última musa
Till den sista musan
To the last musa
GARY DAHER CANEDO
(Santa Cruz, Bolivia)

Residencias
Residenser
'Residences

AMANDA DURÁN
(Valparaíso, Chile)
Afonía
Afoni
At a loss for words
SONIA GONZÁLEZ
(Caracas, Venezuela)
En el país perdido
I der förlorade landet
In the loss country
ISMAEL HAIDARA
(Tombouctou, Mali)
 
HELEN HALLDÓRSDÓTTIR
(Reykjavík, Island)
Ljóð um ljóð
Un poema a otro
Dikt om dikt
A poem about a poem
ALFREDO HERRERA
(Caracas, Venezuela)
 
ANNA JÖRGENSDOTTER
(Sandviken, Sverige)
 
MIRNA LÓPEZ
(San Salvador, El Salvador)
Escribiste, Escribiste, Escribiste
Du skrev, du skrev, du skrev
You wrote, wrote, wrote
JAIME LUIS MARTIN
(Asturias, España)
La página no mostrada
Sidan som inte visas
The pace annot be displayed
MARIO MONTALBETTI
(Lima, Perú)
La dorada
Den gyllene
The royal sea bream
PAUL NILSSON
(Arlöv, Sverige)
Arbetarkvinna
Campesina
Peasant woman
JORGE OLIVERA
(Montevideo, Uruguay)

...y la voz sigue...
...Och rösten fortsätter
...and the voice goes on...

CLEMENTE PADÍN
(Montevideo, Uruguay)
 
GACY SIMAS
(Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Convite a os amigos
Invitación a los amigos
Inbjudan till vännerna
Inviting friends

ANDREA TAPIA
(Santiago, Chile)
 
LAWRENCE UPTON
(London, UK)
A General song
NICOLÁS VERGARA
(Santiago, Chile)

Los desaparecidos
De försvunna
The missing

JOOP VERHAAREN
(Enschede, Holland)
Ik
Yo
Jag
I

IRVING WEISS
(New Yorik, USA)

 

VERONICA ZONDEK
(Santiago, Chile)

Mall-titud
Mall-tityd

Traductores / Översättare / Translators

For the English version
Para la versión en inglés
För den engelska versionen


Deutch to English / Holandés al inglés / Holländska till engelska
Ben Kerkwijk: Joop Verhaaren

Swedish to English / Sueco al inglés/ Svenska till engelska
Miguel Gabard: Anna Jörgensdotter
Ximena Narea: Paul Nilsson

Spanish to English / Español al inglés/ Spanska till engelska
Verónica Albin: Ismaël Haïdara, Alfredo Herrera
Jorge Capelán
: Myrna López, Jaime Luis Martin, Jorge Olivera
Miguel Gabard: Oscar Aguilera, Manuel Andros, Andrea Tapia, Sonia González, Clemente Padin
Ximena Narea: Amanda Durán, Nicolás Vergara
Jaime Oddo: , Gary Daher Canedo
Martín F. Yriart: Verónica Zondek, Mario Montalbetti

Portuguese to English / Portugués al inglés / Portugisiska till svenska
Verónica Albin: Edy Simas


Revision /Granskning: Verónica Albin

Para la versión en español
För den spanska versionen
For the Spanish version


Sueco al español / Svenska till spanska / Swedish into Spanish
Miguel Gabard: Anna Jörgensdotter
Ximena Narea: Paul Nilsson

Holandés al español / Holändska till spanska
Rosario Amado
r: Joop Verhaaren

Francés al español /Franska till spanska / French to Spanish

Ismael Haïdara: Ismaël Haïdara

Islandés al español / Isländare till svenska / Icelandic to Swedish
Helen Halldórsdóttir: Helen Haldórsdóttir

För den svenska versionen
Para la versión en sueco
For the Swedish version

Español al sueco / Spanska till svenska
Jorge Capelán
: Jaime Luis Martín, Myrna López
Miguel Gabard: Gary Daher Canedo, Ismael Haïdara, Alfredo Herrera, Mario Montalbetti, Jorge Olivera, Clemente Padín, Gacy Simas, Joop Verhaaren, Verónica Zondek
Ximena Narea:
Oscar Aguilera, Manuel Andros, Amanda Durán, Sonia Gonzáles, Andres Tapia, Nicolás Vergara

Inglés al sueco / Engelska till svenska
Ximena Narea:
Irving Weis
s

Portugués al sueco/ Portuguisiska till svenska

Miguel Gabard: Gacy Simas

Isländare till svenska / Islandés al sueco / Islandish to english
Helen Halldórsdóttir: Helen Haldórsdóttir

Revisión /Granskning: Paul Nilsson


LINKS