#Raúl Zurita

[loneberry]

I have written from a body that is bent over, that has become stiff under the effects of Parkinson’s, that trembles, that goes forward and falls, and I have found my infirmity to be beautiful, I have felt that my tremors are lovely, that the challenge of holding up these pieces of paper that I now read is lovely. I have written about that body, about the pains that I myself have caused others and that I have inflicted on myself, I have recorded my poems on its skin. I have come to believe that only the sick, the weak, the wounded are capable of giving beauty to those ruins, that debris. Such beauty is intolerable and at the same time is the light of the world. When all of humanity bows down weeping before La Pietá, the world will have come to its end. Meanwhile, all we have are our ruins, our tiny misfortunes, our great loves, our horror, our deaths. --Raúl Zurita 

[las-microfisuras]

I

Las ciudades de agua en tus ojos

a PW

.

Un hombre que agoniza te ha soñado, un hombre

que agoniza te ha seguido. Uno que quiso morir

contigo cuando tú quisiste morir.

Allí está mi cuerpo estrellado contra los arrecifes

cuando ahogándome te vi emerger y eternamente

cerca y eternamente lejos eras tú la inalcanzable playa.

Todo en ti es doloroso.

Te saludo entonces y saludo a lo eterno que vive

en la derrota, a lo irremediablemente destruido,

al infinito que se levanta desde los naufragios,

porque si agua fueron nuestras vidas, piedras

fueron las desgracias.

No soy yo, son mis patrias las que te hablan: el

sonido de océano que describo, las estrellas de

la recortada noche.

Iluminada de la noche tu cara sube cubriendo

el amanecer. Abres los párpados, entre ellos

millones de hombres dejan el sueño, toman sus

autobuses, salen,

                              las ciudades de agua en tus ojos

_  Raúl Zurita, de Las ciudades de agua  (2007).

[the1stranger]

A las inmaculadas llanuras, poema de Raúl Zurita

i. Dejemos pasar el infinito del desierto de Atacama

ii. Dejemos pasar la esterilidad de estos desiertos

Para que desde las piernas abiertas de mi madre se

levante una Plegaria que se cruce con el infinito del

Desierto de Atacama y mi madre no sea entonces sino

un punto de encuentro en el camino

iii. Yo mismo seré entonces una Plegaria encontrada

en el camino

iv. Yo mismo seré las piernas abiertas de mi madre

Para que cuando vean alzarse ante sus ojos los desolados

paisajes del Desierto de Atacama mi madre se concentre

en gotas de agua y sea la primera lluvia del desierto

v. Entonces veremos aparecer el Infinito del Desierto

vi. Dado vuelta desde sí mismo hasta dar con las piernas

de mi madre

vii. Entonces sobre el vacío del mundo se abrirá

completamente el verdor infinito del Desierto de

Atacama

[viecome]

Reflexión. Raúl Zurita

Todo lo que escuchamos y decimos es la grandiosa reinterpretación que los vivos hacen de la sinfonía que han ejecutado los muertos. La música de un idioma es eso.

[cesarcortesvega]

Prensa de entrega del “Reconocimiento a la Excelencia en Letras y Humanidad” al poeta chileno Raúl Zurita

[melissande]

pinche poema todo precioso

[magnoliaison]

Extraordinary skies, days, dreams sinking into the silver whirlpools of waves, I heard the silver mouths of fish devouring unfinished goodbyes. I heard immense plains of love saying that no more. Angels, musical scores of love saying no more.

— Raúl Zurita, from 'The Sea'.

[firstfullmoon]

Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish: ‘We can’t begin to comprehend the loss of art’

“Poetry has been the colossal record of violence and. . . the colossal record of compassion,” the Chilean poet Raúl Zurita wrote in the foreword to Exhausted on the Cross [Najwan Darwish’s latest collection], and it’s a duty that the poet takes seriously.

[soracities]

Raúl Zurita (trans. Frances Simán), foreword to Najwan Darwish's Exhausted on the Cross (trans. Kareem James Abu-Zeid) [ID'd]

[neoyorzapoteca]

Translation, which has been so critical in blowing up my ideas about what poetry is. I wrote about the Colombian poet Raúl Gómez Jattin and Syrian-Jewish Anglo-Egyptian surrealist Joyce Mansour; I’m finishing a piece on Amelia Roselli, the twentieth-century Italian poet of war and sleep. I’m thinking about Alice Notley. About what it means for a woman poet to be warlike. About what decades are. I’m thinking of translation as katabatic transit into dark places where power can be reversed, like a drain. My models are poets I know through Action Books, like Raúl Zurita, who said we need to make art that pushes back with the force of the coup. There’s a case for art and poetry not withdrawing but staying on the scene and refusing to evacuate, even in moments of the darkest human behavior.

BOMB Magazine | Joyelle McSweeney by Gabriela Denise Frank

[loneberry]

I have believed that there is no before and no after in poetry, that all poems are being written simultaneously, and that they are answers to questions that even now have not been formulated. The central theme of poetry is time, and that one of those times, just one of them, is what we call history. Poetry is the most vast and desperate effort to say with words from this world things that no longer make up this world. We die there, in that radical defeat and failure, because the work never was to write poems or paint pictures; the work was to make of the world something decent, and the pulverized remains of that work cover the world as if they were the debris of a battle atrociously lost. --Raúl Zurita (interview)

[roohfully]

raúl zurita

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Several actresses who are part of Follies Of God fed me, in restaurants and in their homes. Kim Hunter was a great hostess, and she made a good effort to prepare for me a lot of what’s in her autobiography/cookbook “Loose in the Kitchen.”  If you find it online, buy it. I’m in the mood for this recipe, so I’m prepping it for tomorrow night.

[Follies Of God]

* * * *

You can hear whole days sinking, strange sunny mornings, unfinished loves, goodbyes cut short that sink into the sea. You can hear surprising baits that rain with sunny days stuck to them, loves cut short, goodbyes that not anymore. Baits are told of, that rain for the fish in the sea. Raúl Zurita, from “The Sea,” Inri (New York Review Books, 2018)

[rice-pudding-slaps]

are you researching about pinochet's dictatorship in general, or a specific topic? It makes me sad but I'm thinking about also researching about it

Hi anon! I'm doing my thesis on Retablo de Yumbel, a play by Isidora Aguirre that talks about the Laja Massacre on 1973 under Pinochet's dictatorship. Sadly most of my sources are in Spanish, but the Rememberance and Human Rights Museum in Chile has an english page with first hand testimony and research on the topic from the 60s to present time.

If you want sources as in books, I can recommend Gabriel Salazar's books on the more historical side. But I am a literature major, and the topics that I have a special interest in are the remembrance and narratives around it, so my recommendations go more by that side

In books that are more "tellings" or fictions "Tengo miedo, Torero" (I'm afraid, my bullfighter) by Pedro Lemebel not only sheds light on the dictatorship by itself, but also on queer issues. Isabel Allende's "House of spirits" is absolutely translated and you *should* read her books. Nona Fernández's "La dimensión desconocida" (Unkown dimension) and "Space Invaders" are two of the more recognized modern books on the topic, which are fairly recent and are translated! So give them a read

If you want outright testimony "Tejas Verdes: diario de un campo de concentración en Chile" (Tejas Verdes: Diary of a concentration camp in Chile) by Hernán Valdés tells his own experience in the detention camp. Is the first testimony book about the time published in Chile and you'll find a lot of important stuff in there. Also books like "Amor, te sigo esperando" (My love, I still wait for you) is a new one about mothers and widows that are still looking for their loved ones who disappeared.

If you want theatre, Retablo de Yumbel is one of my favorite plays ever, but also "Los que van quedando en el camino" (The ones that were left behind on the road) also from Isidora Aguirre. Nona Fernández's "Liceo de Niñas" (Girl's High School), Ariel Dorfman's "La muerte y la doncella" (The death and the lady) (This one is noy only tranlsated but presented around the world. You can absolutely find a copy), and Marco Antonio de la Parra's "La puta madre" (Mother whore) are good reads, but I don't know if they're translated. Also I can recommend Juan Radrigán's work, and Jorge Díaz's.

If you want poetry, Raúl Zurita, Damiela Eltit, Nicanor Parra and Víctor Jara. I'm not much of a poetry guy, but I bet you can find a lot of their work translated.

If you look for art, the obligatory one is Miguel Lawner's "Venceremos!: Dos años en los campod de concentración de Chile" (We will win!: Two years in the concentration camps in Chile) which I know for a fact is translated to at least english and portuguese; those are the drawings that represent different scenes on Dawson Island and other camps were Lawner was. You can also look at the Rememberance and Human Rights museum in Chile with a pretty complete collection of art, both in the recognized art world and clandestine and domestic world.

If you're looking for movies, I think "NO" by Pablo Larraín is a very good watch that talks about the end of the dictatorship. Also "1976" by Manuella Martelli. Honorary mention to "Bear Story" by Gabriel Osorio for being a short film with no dialogue that also tackles the topic.

Also shot out to the series "Los 80" (The 80s), which is a chilean soap opera about a middle class family living through the dictatorship and everything that ensues. It's on Amazon Prime, tho I don't know if it's translated.

If you're looking for documentaries, I think "Colonia dignidad: Una secta alemana en el sur de Chile" (Dignidad Colony: A german cult in the south of Chile) is a very good watch. It's on Netflix and completely in english. Also "ReMastered: Massacre in the National Stadium", also on Netflix, talks about the murder of Víctor Jara (Tho there's new developments on the case). But the ultimate ones are everything that Patricio Guzmán ever did. "La Batalla de Chile" (Chile's battle) a series of 3 documentaries that tell the story of the country between 1972 and 1973 on the historical front. In the remembrance front he has "El botón de nácar" (The nacre button) about Villa Grimaldi and the Death Flights and "Nostalgia for the Light" about the Atacama desert, the concentration camp there and other searchings that were done there.

I hope this helps a bit to start. Sorry if I went a little bit overboard, and I do wish you the best researching the topic. These are all off the top of my head so I definitely forgot some important ones lol

[viecome]

Crítica: "Ensayos reunidos". Raúl Zurita

[bandini7u7]

T A Q U I C A R D I A

***

"Toda declaración de amor es urgente porque vamos a morirnos."

Raúl Zurita

***

Exactamente 10 minutos me duró el Marlboro.

Casi periodistico, casi literario.

Dos hermosas taquicardias, muy exactamente.

Y luego casi nada...

Un poquito medio vivo, por curioso.

Un poquito medio muerto, por sincero.

¿Qué dirán de nuestro amor los matutinos?

Que nos quemó los labios la última calada.

Que las cenizas se esfumaron tras el fuego.

Que en el umbral de nuestra histeria se mataron dos palabras,

las tres sílabas que nos aguardan,

en cualquier otro momento.

Que nos bendiga lo que sea,

de madrugada.

Que nos bendiga lo que sea,

por la mañana.

Que se derrita el sol en nuestra cara.

Y se diga entre susurros

lo tanto que nos quisimos.

Para no querernos casi nada.

***

(CDMX-2022)