August 4, 2009
Tags:
poetry, community, life circumstances
For openers, here is a space where English and Spanish will live comfortably side by side. If you are monolingual in English, don't worry, skip the Spanish posts, or if you are intrigued, try to figure them out. Same goes for persons monolingual in Spanish. Try the English. It won't hurt you. This is a postmodern world so let's enjoy it and not get hung up in local, regional and linguistic differences.
My most recent book, "Resolana," co-authored with Miguel Montiel and Tomás Atencio, is concerned with families and communities trying to live with dignity in a globalized world where goods are more important than people. It isn't a book of poems or about poetry, yet, in a sense, "Resolana" is related to poetry because my poems spring from my life circumstances, including family, communities, my inner world and the way it interfaces with the larger world, with the cosmos.
Comments?
Comments
If only we could figure out how to create and share e-beer--
or better, e-tequila.
This discussion is so necessary--poetry, literature, and culture.
Tony, I'm thinking of Bukowski's gravestone: "Don't Try" Something that was a theme for him throughout his crazy life.
But I think your: "Get over it" is much more suited to our time. And to the cross-cultural problems to which you refer when it comes to that, I don't think any other three words could say it better...
Here's an early November thought: I'm teaching (actually "conducting" or "guiding" would be a better term) a brief course called "The Spanish Civil War and its significance for us today." Now, at least as far as I am concerned, the best Spanish poets of that era were all politically left of center -- Lorca, Alberti, and my favorite, Machado. It seems that the political Right has a difficult time producing first-rate poets. Yes, I know there are exceptions, but what do you think about the relationship of poetry to politics in Western (as in Western Civ)poetry?
Para decir algo semejante en español, se me hace que los mejores poetas dentro del mundo occidental han tirado a la izquierda en la política. ¿Qué piensan uds.?