Excerpt from Paradise Empty: Poems 1983 – 2013

Paradise empty

Hugo Mujica

Paradise empty Poems 1983-2013

Selected, introduced & translated by

Katherine M. Hedeen & Víctor Rodríguez Núñez

2015

Published by Arc Publications, Nanholme Mill, Shaw Wood Road Todmorden OL14 6DA, UK www.arcpublications.co.uk Original poems copyright © Hugo Mujica, 2015 Translation copyright © Katherine M. Hedeen & Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, 2015 Introduction copyright © Katherine M. Hedeen & Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, 2015 Design by Tony Ward Printed in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall 978 1910345 14 6 (pbk) 978 1910345 15 3 (hbk) 978 1910345 16 0 (ebook) Cover design: Tony Ward Acknowledgements The translators wish to thank Hugo Mujica for his trust in their work. They, together with Arc Publications, are also grateful to Argentina’s Programa Sur for generously funding this project.

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part of this book may take place without the written permission of Arc Publications.

This work is published within the framework of “SUR” Translation Support Program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Trade and Worship of the Argentine Republic / Obra subsidiada en el marco del Programa SUR del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto de la Repúbica Argentina

Arc Publications ‘Contemporary Spanish-American Poetry’ series Series Editors: Katherine M. Hedeen & Víctor Rodríguez Núñez

contents

Introduction Hugo Mujica: The Poetry of Thought / 11 from brasa blanca / WHite ember (1983) 16 / 16 / 16 / 18 / 18 / 20 / 20 /

6 20 26 32 35 38 39

/ 17 / 17 / 17 / 19 / 19 / 21 / 21

from sonata de violoncelo y lilas / sonata of cello and lilacs (1984) 24 / 24 / 24 / 26 / 26 / 26 / 28 / 28 / 30 / 30 /

8 9 11 13 17 23 24 27 29 35

/ 25 / 25 / 25 / 27 / 27 / 27 / 29 / 29 / 31 / 31

from resPonsoriales / resPonsorials (1986) 34 / 34 / 34 / 36 / 36 /

1 2 12 19 34

/ 35 / 35 / 35 / 37 / 37

36 / 35 / 37 38 / 40 / 39 from Escrito en un reflejo / Written in a Reflection (1987) 42 / 42 / 42 / 44 / 44 / 46 / 46 /

4 6 11 20 32 34 45

/ 43 / 43 / 43 / 45 / 45 / 47 / 47

from Paraíso vacío / Paradise Empty (1992) 50 / Luna sobre las olas 50 / El desierto de cada día 50 / Ciclo 52 / Juego de niños 54 / Monólogos de un diálogo 56 / Leyes 56 / La última gota 58 / Ecce homo 58 / Palabras 60 / Paraíso vacío 60 / Meta 62 / Ausencia

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Moon on the Waves / 51 The Desert of Each Day / 51 Cycle / 51 Child’s Play / 53 Monologues of a Dialogue / 54 Laws / 57 The Last Drop / 57 Ecce Homo / 59 Words / 59 Paradise Empty / 61 Aim / 61 Absence / 63

from Para albergar una ausencia / To House an Absence (1995) 68 / Ritual de lo inútil • Ritual of Uselessness / 69 68 / Hay perros… • There are Dogs… / 69 70 / La misma noche… • The Same Night… / 71

72 / En la noche sobre la playa 74 / Tierra quemada 76 / Otro inicio…

78 / Lentamente 78 / Para albergar una ausencia

• • • • •

In the Night on the Beach / 73 Scorched Earth / 75 Another Beginning… / 77 Slowly / 79 To House an Absence / 79

from Noche abierta / Night Open (1998) 84 / Hay un alma 84 / Ante nada, para nada 88 / A veces la vida 90 / Noche adentro…

92 / Hasta el final 94 / Sin sombras ni huella 94 / Hace apenas días 96 / Atardece

• • • • • • • •

There is a Soul / 85 Before Nothing, For Nothing / 85 At Times Life / 89 Deep in Night… / 91 Until the End / 93 No Shadows or Trace / 95 Only a Few Days Ago / 95 Twilight / 97

from Sed adentro / At Thirst (2001) 100 / Relámpago 100 / Una vez más 100 / Uno tras otro 102 / Donde me digo 104 / Un cirio…

104 / El anuncio 106 / Después, letra a letra

• • • • • • •

Lightning / 101 Once More / 101 One After Another / 101 Where I Utter Myself / 103 An Altar Candle… / 105 The Sign / 105 Later, Letter by Letter / 107

from Casi en silencio / Almost in Silence (2004) 112 / Lo ajeno 112 / Transparencia 114 / En lo oscuro 114 / Entre la noche y el alba 116 / Cauces 116 / Infancia

• • • • • •

The Other / 113 Clarity / 113 In the Dark / 115 Between Night and Dawn / 115 Riverbeds / 117 Childhood / 117

118 / Lluvia sobre lluvia 118 / Como el mar 120 / Una estrella 120 / Hendidura 122 / Abandono 122 / Reflejo 122 / A lo lejos 124 / Poética 124 / Anuncio

• • • • • • • • •

Rain on Rain / 119 Like the Sea / 119 A Star / 121 Split / 121 Abandon / 123 Reflection / 123 Far Off / 123 Poetics / 125 Sign / 125

from Y siempre después el viento / And the Wind Always After (2011) 128 / Confesión 128 / Regreso 128 / En la piel 130 / Cada vida 130 / Nace el día 132 / Todo 132 / Ofrenda 134 / Aún no 134 / Después de tanto 136 / En lo alto 136 / La orilla 138 / Carne viva 138 / Sin oírnos 140 / En sí misma 140 / Más hondo

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Confession / 129 Return / 129 On the Skin / 129 Each Life / 131 Day is Born / 131 All / 133 Offering / 133 Still Not / 135 After So Much / 135 Up High / 137 The Shore / 137 Raw flesh / 139 Without Hearing Us / 139 In Itself / 141 Deeper / 141

from Cuando todo calla / When It All Goes Quiet (2013) 144 / 144 / 146 / 146 /

ii / 145 iii / 145 v / 147 vi / 147

148 / vii / 149 148 / x / 149 148 / xx / 149 150 / xxi / 151 152 / xxii / 153 152 / xxvi / 153 154 / xxviii / 155 154 / xxxiii / 155 154 / xxxiv / 155 156 / xl / 157 156 / xlvii / 157

Biographical Notes / 158

Hugo Mujica: the Poetry of Thought

Hugo Mujica began publishing his poetry in 1983, when Argentina had just emerged from a bloody military dictatorship, and initiated an arduous democratic reconstruction that has yet to be completed. The so-called Dirty War (1974-1983) was a systematic action taken by the state in which, to avoid legal complications, no one was killed, but “disappeared”. The truth commission documented nine thousand cases, but said there could be many others unreported, while organizations that defend human rights, such as the legendary Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, have claimed 30,000. They were mostly young people between 15 and 35, and not just guerrillas or militants of political and social organizations, but trade unionists, priests, intellectuals, lawyers defending political prisoners, human rights activists. The aim was to stop the powerful social and cultural movement that, since the mid-1960s, sought the transformation of Argentina, to end underdevelopment and dependence, to end the neocolonial condition.

The poetry that Hugo Mujica became a part of had suffered, like everything in Argentina, the devastating consequences of disappearance, exile, censorship. It was no longer the poetry that, until the mid-1970s, had proposed bringing together avant-garde aesthetics and political participation, and whose most prominent representative is Juan Gelman. Comparable trends like Enrique Molina’s surrealismo, Edgar Bayley’s invencionismo, and Joaquin Giannuzzi’s objectivismo had also gone by the wayside. Even the neo-vanguardismo that arose in the early years of the dictatorship, with its distrust of history, culture and language, had vanished. As poetic activity had been virtually wiped out, the new poets did not have to challenge their predecessors, they simply did their thing. The scene became more heterogeneous than before, with several tendencies that at times differed and at others converged: the Neo-Baroque of Arturo Carrera, Nestor Perlongher, 11

Tamara Kamenszain, and Xul magazine, the Neo-Objectivism of Diana Bellessi, Daniel Samoilovich, and Diario de Poesía, and the Neo-Romanticism of Jorge Boccanera, Víctor García Redondo, and the magazine and publishing house, Ultimo Reino.

Hugo Mujica’s poetry does not participate in any of the trends that develop in Argentina beginning in the early 1980s. In fact, one could say that it confronts each and every one them, of course implicitly, with the eloquence of silence, the gesture that distinguishes his brilliant discourse. The one commonality is that social intervention takes place in an untraditional way, through a shift from politics to ethics. Still, Mujica’s work is rooted in a current of the southern country’s poetry, established in the early twentieth century and crossing generations and historical circumstances: the poetry of thought. Those belonging to this tradition include Macedonio Fernández, Antonio Porchia, Jorge Luis Borges, Amelia Biagioni, Alberto Girri, Roberto Juarroz, Héctor Viel Temperley, and Alejandra Pizarnik. Yet the way Mujica materializes thought as poetry acquires a remarkable singularity, an indisputable personality. His obsessions are others; his ways are different; his dialogues have other references.

The interlocutors of Hugo Mujica’s poetry become explicit in his numerous brilliant essays. Just consider some of the titles: Origin and Destiny: From the memory of the Pre-Socratic Poet to the Hope of the Poet in Heidegger (1987), The Way of the Word (1989), The Initial Word: The Mythology of the Poet in Heidegger (1996), Arrow in the Mist: Identity, Word and Fissure (1997), Poetics of the Void (2002), The Nascent: Thinking the Creative Act (2007), The Passion According to Georg Trakl: Poetry and Atonement (2009), The Knowledge of Not Knowing: Desert, Kabbalah, Unbeing, and Creation (2014). It is a vast spectrum, from Taoism to Catholicism, from Expressionism to Existentialism, and poetry is at the 12

heart of it all. So, to say that Mujica is, by being a priest, a Catholic poet, is not only a sin of determinism but, above all, to limit his full scope. His poetry is religious but in the broadest sense, from the dark Latin root of that word, by its sincere desire to “reconsider” and “reconnect”. And it’s not fundamentally mystical, as would be expected from common sense; rather it’s thought that goes beyond the borders of theology, of philosophy itself.

If one accepts that ever since Plato metaphysics has been, as Heidegger thought, the oblivion of being and the inevitable fall into nihilism, it could be said that Mujica’s poetry is radically anti-metaphysical. His poetic subject never thinks alone and so is always considered fulfilled; what distinguishes it from the void, from nothingness, from death, is its relationship with otherness, with the other. It is born from the pain that is not its own, from an encounter, and transcends not as individual but as community. The I is a bridge, one is the house of the other, one is only no one, the I grows silent and the other speaks, and even beauty is always another. Consequently, what is denounced are metaphysical contraries, like outside and inside, fear and hope, reason and emotion, body and soul.

Opposites exist, but dialectically, that is to say, they are excluded as they are taken on. It recognizes the existence of reality, that it is not chaotic but sacred, that it reverberates in words. It is against the void, fragmentation, uprooting, oblivion. And this dialectic gnosiology is complemented by an ontology where the mirage, the mirror as an allegory, the glance are questioned because ultimately they imprison; if there is a hero in this lyric it is the blind man.

Hugo Mujica began publishing poetry when he was over forty and perhaps that’s why we are freed from a novice’s babbling. In other words, since his first book he has produced mature work, where there are highs and lows as is to be expected, still it evolves serenely with no 13

need for qualitative leaps. By challenging solipsism, he distances himself from Romanticism; by not hiding the condition of reality’s representation in his art, he moves away from Realism; by rejecting verbal luxury, he breaks free from Spanish American modernismo; by not prioritizing rupture over continuity, he leaves behind the Avantgarde. Arguably Mujica offers an essential poetry, beyond time and space if that were possible, where what is sought is the bareness of content and form. There is nothing more than what is needed in these poems, in terms of image, rhythm and language. Nor is there description, only interpretation; indeed, always with a heightened awareness that poetry is a lone language, sufficient and unnegotiable. Not coincidentally, Mujica’s poetry is one of the best in Argentina, and one of the most renowned in the Spanish language today.

Katherine M. Hedeen & Víctor Rodríguez Núñez

14

from

Brasa blanca / White Ember

(1983)

6 cierro el puño y golpeo, cierro el puño, para no ver la

mano vacía

20 sólo la lluvia no es fragmento y algún pájaro blanco dibujando gestos de infinito patria de alas el desarraigo lo asible de tu ausencia

26 mientras creo ser algo soy eso: algo

16

6 I close my fist and swing, I close my fist to not see my hand empty

20 only the rain is not a fragment and some white bird etching gestures of infinite homeland of wings the uprooting the graspable of your absence

26 as long as I believe I am something I am that: something

17

32 cada uno al borde de cada uno viajeros perdidos entre tanto no partir niĂąos saludando trenes o en la playa oteando hacia lo siempre lejos hacia el llegar de toda partida

35 cerca muy cerca se refleja un ciego sobre mi lĂĄgrima callada cerca mĂĄs cerca pongo mi lĂĄgrimas en sus ojos para que podamos ver

18

32 each one at the edge of each one travellers lost among so much not parting children greeting trains or on the beach glimpsing toward the always far off toward the arriving of every departure

35 close so close a blind man is mirrored upon my silenced tear close closer still I place my tear in his eyes so we both can see

19

38 amanece lila entre grises chimeneas humilde resurrección de cada noche un posible volver a crearlo todo algo así como un perdón

39 así, como haciendo el amor por la herida ¿no nacemos acaso desde el dolor ajeno?

20

38 it dawns lilac among grey smokestacks humble resurrection of each night a possible returning to create it all something akin to a pardon

39 so, like making love through the wound aren’t we perhaps born

from another’s pain?

21

from

Sonata de violoncelo y lilas / Sonata of Cello and Lilacs

(1984)

8 todo fue como siempre: abrĂ­ las manos y estabas y todo fue como siempre por Ăşnica vez

9 la ventana y tus dos jazmines sobre mi mesa y esta vez un pĂĄjaro, esta vez de carne y alas

11 y del otro lado de todo nada o quizĂĄ, el reflejo de este mismo lado: los espejos cortan la vida

24

nada.

8 everything was like always: I opened my hands and there you were and everything was like always just this once

9 the window and your two jasmines on my table and this time a bird, this time in flesh and wings

11 and on the other side of everything nothing or perhaps, the reflection of this same side: nothing. mirrors sever life

25

13 llueve, semillas de agua siembran verde en los muros un gato salta techados y una rosa blanca enrojece el ocaso

17 y sigo de este lado de la ventana aquĂ­, donde se estrellan pĂĄjaros contra un alba de vidrio

23 viajante de palabras brumas apretando en la mano un vidrio: todo nace de un encuentro

26

13 it’s raining, seeds of water sow green on the walls a cat jumps rooftops and a white rose reddens the sunset

17 and I’m still on this side of the window here, where birds shatter against a glass dawn

23 traveller of misty words clutching in his hand a shard of glass: everything is born from an encounter

27