The Cannibal Dynamo

On Jorge Remacha Pina’s Claveles de la calle (“Street Carnations”)

In these critical times because of COVID-19 pandemic — so hard to control by now — we all have heard opposing voices to the measures that governments worldwide are imposing on their citizens so as to overcome the problem: mostly, they claim a drastic change in the state of affairs. It is truly coincidental that this very year has seen the publication of this book (before the pandemic declaration in Spain) consisting of 30 poems: verses free from classical forms, and openly contrary to the rules of the social system. Thus, unexpectedly topical.

We can easily see the first poem, “Juramento” (“Oath”), as a true statement of intent on the main theme of the book: the poet’s commitment to social issues, in favor of the most helpless: the poor, the fallen, the hard working class … Even this statement is extended in another poem, “Nadie está mirando” (“Nobody Is Watching”), focusing on the most disadvantaged: prostitutes, drug addicts, repressed homosexuals, minors undergoing psychological problems, etc.

The reality depicted by Remacha Pina lacks humanity: in “Te Deum,” God is technology: a divinity cruel to mankind who provides miserable working conditions for His servants. “Saben lo que haces” (“They Know What You’re Doing”) expresses the idea of society as a system where individuals are ominously controlled. In another poem, “La vida se abre camino” (“Life Paving the Way”), the poet suggests that today’s lifestyle only leads to making an army of zombies: exhausted workers whose whole bodies ache; in addition, the citizen is compared to a slave in “Yo robot” (“I Robot”): the poetic voice uses expressions related to computing to evince this dehumanization; love is a lost file in the system, and the poet wants to recover it.

The city is represented as a prison where happiness is impossible to pursue: “Sincronía” (“Synchrony”). The noise from the television in “Sosiego encofrado” (“Framed Quietness”) conceals the feelings of all the members of a family; in a block of buildings, each and every inhabitant suffers anguish in their small cubicles. Moreover, in “Pesada sentencia” (“Heavy Sentence”), the monotonous life that society entails could inevitably drive to despair and, in consequence, suicide.

The situation for the youth is no better: “La hormiga más pequeña del mundo” (“The Smallest Ant in the World”) deals with this generation — Remacha Pina’s generation — regarded as the best prepared to success; however, they have precarious, less-paid works. Porn and video chat seem to be the uncomplicated oases in their colorless lives, but this actually shows an obvious lack of affection. In “El viaje del desarraigo” (“The Journey to Uprooting”), the poet portrays weekends for teenagers as chances for casual sex and fast relief, in opposition to schools, factories and juvenile detention centers undermining their desire for freedom: the system does tame. In other poems — “Cuento de sábado noche” (“Saturday Night Tale”), “De vuelta a casa” (“Way Back Home”), “Claveles de la calle II” (“Street Carnations II”) — we can still find other examples of confusion and listlessness in this lost generation: drugs, clubbing, prostitution, sordid sex as an appealing combination for a trip to ephemeral comfort … though no place to call home.

Of course, here in spanishgayfiction.blogspot.com we never miss our goal: there are two enchanting, committed poems dealing with the LGBT issue. First, “Inapropiadas” (“Unsuitable Women”), in which the poet tells about a couple of lesbians breaking social taboos by walking down the street holding hands and kissing. They decided not to follow the traditional rules imposed to women — marrying a man or becoming a nun — and eventually won the fight: the people that used to spit them out on the street in the past, they now step aside. Then, in “No sé si queda claro” (“Not Sure If I Make Myself Clear”), the poetic voice claims that he has been raised with a steady, staggering social objection to his natural way of being: the adult now refuses to keep afraid of not fitting in, or even suffer verbal or physical abuse. And this personal rebellion is precisely a key fact in these compositions: the poet’s indelibly positive attitude, regardless the hostile circumstances.

Remacha Pina, in “Siempre buscando una salida” (“Always Looking for an Exit”), speaks about the compelling need to raise a fist and wave a flag; stand up and light a torch. Fear has been silencing diverse voices for a long time, prompting to a general anger. (We can find a similar idea in “Neurosis:” this mental disorder means, after all, the anxiety caused by the awareness of the actual state of reality, which appeals to defiance). Those who do not conform to the pattern of this world endure contempt, or even aggressions: there is an urging demand to put an end to these social rules, which want to finish with the different ones, in order to seek true freedom. To this end, the author displays inspiring examples from the past. . .

There is a constant remembrance of revolutions throughout the book, but particularly in the poem “Ni cadenas ni corsés” (“Neither Chains Nor Corsets”): the French Revolution, the February Revolution, the Kurdish rebellions, the Paris Commune, the Stonewall riots, the Egyptian revolution of 2011, etc. (As a matter of fact, the poem is dedicated to the international socialist feminist organization Bread & Roses.)

However, the most ruthless skeptics may wonder: What will happen after the tables turn? Well, the last month of the year, “Diciembre” (“December”), implies a metaphor for the end of hard times and the beginning of a favorable adjustment with an excellent result: fruitfulness, like the arrival of spring.

Claveles de la calle is a heartening collection of disturbing, bewildering, awe-inspiring poems with a clear message to the reader: a better life is possible if you just fight for it. Like the panther from “La ley de la selva” (“The Law of the Jungle”) — who grew docile and became another piece of the social gear … but eventually regained her natural self-awareness and turned into a panther again — you are also cordially invited to the revolution.

I Sing the Body Terrific

On Luis Cernuda’s Poemas para un cuerpo (“Poems for a Body”)

In spanishgayfiction.blogspot.com we think it is high time for Poetry, and the occasion calls for one of the best 20^th century Spanish poets.

Portrait of Luis Cernuda

Luis Cernuda (Seville, 1902 - Mexico City, 1963) was not only a poet but also a literary critic who belonged to the so-called Generation of ’27.[1] Although not so universally popular as his acclaimed friend Federico García Lorca,[2] his work is also interesting in the study of Spanish LBGT literature. In 1936 he published his collected poetry so far in the book La realidad y el deseo (“Reality and Desire”).[3] This work was much praised by Lorca himself, and was supposed to establish the beginning of a brilliant career—but the cultural impact of La realidad y el deseo was collapsed by the upcoming outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. Society was definitely not in the mood for Erato’s stuff in those days.

Since 1938, Cernuda starts a never ending exile: from Europe (London, Glasgow, Cambridge, Paris) to America (Mount Holyoke, Los Angeles, San Francisco). In most of these places he works as a lecturer of Spanish for a living, but Luis never feels easy at all—until 1951. This year he will travel to Mexico for holidays and there he meets Salvador Alighieri, the young bodybuilder who inadvertently inspired Poemas para un cuerpo.

Our author had already sung young beautiful men’s praises, in the ways of the Surrealist aesthetics, in 1931 in the book Los placeres prohibidos (“Forbidden Pleasures”. . .quite a telling title). However, in the case of Poemas para un cuerpo, we cannot say its tone is particularly carnal or sexual, no matter what the use of the term cuerpo (“body”) may suggest—Apparently, Cernuda and Alighieri’s relationship did not surpass the boundaries of a male proper regular friendship.[4]

Then, what do we find in these poems? Lots of things: From the traditional poem in which the Poet puns on the meaning of his Beloved’s name (I . “Salvador”, meaning savior), or recalls the very moment that the Beloved got away from him (II. “Despedida”: “Farewell”), to a surprisingly deep reflection on love as the distinguishing nature of Fiction. In IX. “De dónde vienes” (“Where Do You Come From”), the Poet rejects the assumption that his Beloved may have parents, but he is Cernuda’s own creation. The last line of this poem, meaningfully apart from the general stanza, as a maxim, says: Un puro conocer te dio la vida. (“Just a pure knowledge gave birth to you”). The same as the title of his whole work, La realidad y el deseo, you can well deduce two Platonist existential planes from Poemas para un cuerpo: Reality, in which the Beloved was his parents’ son; and Desire, where the Beloved is an idea in Cernuda’s mind.

Additionally, Cernuda reflects on the concept that the Beloved has also created him. This is in XIII. “Fin de la apariencia” (“End of the Appearance”), where the Poet expresses that the Beloved has somehow deconstructed him, tearing his past life apart, but making him a brand new, innocent man who has to cope with life away from the Beloved. The Poet also adds that the only purpose of his existence is to love, though he knows that the Beloved does not seem to need or care about this affection. This bitter note, in which the Poet shows this awareness, is also repeated in other poems throughout the whole series. The Poet is sensitive about this situation. His love is a one way road: his feelings are not returned, and he has elevated the Beloved.

This way, creation and creator form a vicious circle: The Beloved needs the Poet to be created, to be alive; and the Poet needs the Beloved to love, to go on living. Instead of clay, the poet works with the hermosa materia (“beautiful material”), that hot sleeping body at which Cernuda stares, the same way a God stares at his creation (in the last poem of the series, XVI. “Un hombre con su amor”: “A Man with His Love”). And all this is expressed in words. After all, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

This creator topic pushes the limits of blasphemy. In XV. “Divinidad celosa” (“Jealous God”), the Poet claims that God pushes lovers apart as he is jealous of them: A man can get together with his equals, but God, being an only entity, cannot. Also in V. “El amante espera” (“The Lover Awaits”), the Poet begs God to make his Beloved come back, as he feels that God is the only helping friend that he can count on and his Beloved is his ultimate reason to live, though he admits that what he is pleading for is a sin. . .Finally, in XI. “El amante divaga” (“The Lover Digresses”), the Poet wonders if Heaven and Hell are nothing but earthly inventions by human beings with no other purpose than making life spicier.

In general terms, Poemas para un cuerpo is Cernuda’s continuous conversation with himself (an evident symptom of solitude: Cernuda is typically described as a dandy-like man in tweed, smoking a pipe, absorbed in his work—a sort of mild, silent, unsociable loner). He uses several person voices in his clear, unadorned, almost conversational style: sometimes 1^st person (e.g., he even names himself in III. “Para ti, para nadie”: “For You, For Nobody”); 3^rd person (in I. “Salvador”, when the Poet asks the Beloved to save him or condemn him); and even 2^nd person (for instance, in VI. “Después de hablar”: “After Speaking”, where he disapproves himself for telling his love out loud).

Despite this sorrowful picture of a lonely man recalling a past, unrequited love, Cernuda does not want our pity: He shows proud that, even after long years of lonesomeness, and though in his fifties, he has eventually experienced love—non corresponding, okay, but love indeed—, and he comes to the conclusion that the memory of this feeling is the high power that keeps him alive: now, he knows himself better than ever. In this fast, material, superficial, egotistical world. . .who else has loved as much as this profound, Platonic, fascinating, one-of-a-kind author?

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[1] In Spanish, Generación del 27: a group of writers and intellectuals who gathered in Seville in 1927 to pay homage to the Spanish Golden Age poet Luis de Góngora for the 300^th anniversary of his death. Besides Cernuda, you can find amongst them: Federico Gª. Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Dámaso Alonso, and Nobel Prize-winning Vicente Aleixandre.

[2] After Lorca’s execution, Cernuda produced the elegy “A un poeta muerto (F. G. L.)” (“To a Dead Poet”), whose sixth stanza was considered not for publication and thus removed. Here it is:

Aquí la primavera luce ahora.

Mira los radiantes mancebos

Que vivo tanto amaste

Efímeros pasar junto al fulgor del mar.

Desnudos cuerpos bellos que se llevan

Tras de sí los deseos

Con su exquisita forma, solo encierran

Amargo zumo, que no alberga su espíritu

Un destello de amor ni de alto pensamiento.

In these lines Cernuda describes splendid, seductive (though unkind and low-minded) boys walking naked on the beach in spring, and states Lorca loved them so when alive. The elegy was eventually published complete in Las nubes (“The Clouds”), a book that became the 7^th section of La realidad y el deseo.

[3] As a matter of fact (and as it was pointed out in the previous footnote), most of his following works will also be collected as sections of this book in later publications. Poemas para un cuerpo was first published in Málaga in 1957; however, they are now usually found as a short independent series of 16 poems inside the book Con las horas contadas (“Hours Are Numbered”), which happens to be the 10^th section of La realidad y el deseo.

[4] Regarding that Salvador Alighieri himself stated that gay men usually tried to score him, that he used to visit Cernuda in his apartment many times, that they both went on holidays together, and Cernuda always paid the bills, a twisted mind could think that Alighieri knew Cernuda’s feelings towards him and took advantage. . .Anyway, as I said before, this is typical of twisted minds—not our minds, so sweet and gentle and well-meaning.