WEBVTT NOTE Created by CaptionSync from Automatic Sync Technologies www.automaticsync.com 00:00:00.716 --> 00:00:04.586 align:middle >> I'm very glad to be here and I thank all of you for being with me. 00:00:05.106 --> 00:00:07.596 align:middle I want to thank the people sponsoring this event. 00:00:08.396 --> 00:00:14.146 align:middle I want to thank Gail Browne from the Poetry Center for the invitation 00:00:14.146 --> 00:00:20.186 align:middle and for the hospitality that she's shown -- She's shown Álvaro and I, all these days. 00:00:20.396 --> 00:00:23.676 align:middle Sorry. My voice is very lowsome, is that better? 00:00:23.876 --> 00:00:28.316 align:middle Yeah? And I want to thank Lisa Bowden and I especially want to thank Wendy Burk, 00:00:28.316 --> 00:00:32.456 align:middle who I've been working with on the translation of these poems for the last few years. 00:00:33.196 --> 00:00:37.086 align:middle I've decided to read one poem from the collection that's published in Kore Press 00:00:37.826 --> 00:00:41.836 align:middle and then the rest of the poems come from the selected poems that Wendy has been working on. 00:00:42.156 --> 00:00:47.976 align:middle I'm going to read seven poems of -- If it becomes too long, I'll exclude one of the poems. 00:00:48.886 --> 00:00:51.906 align:middle The first one I'm going to start with is called Snow, Nieve, 00:00:52.306 --> 00:00:55.006 align:middle and it comes from the book published by Kore Press. 00:00:55.786 --> 00:00:59.176 align:middle This poem is a poem about snow but, in a larger sense, 00:00:59.416 --> 00:01:03.806 align:middle it's a poem about imagining an experience and then living the experience. 00:01:04.456 --> 00:01:07.866 align:middle And the experience here is about snow and literary snow. 00:01:08.416 --> 00:01:13.886 align:middle There's a Cuban poet called José Lezama Lima who is the poet that I mention in this poem 00:01:13.886 --> 00:01:19.446 align:middle and this Cuban poet never left Cuba, never traveled and of course he never saw snow. 00:01:19.826 --> 00:01:21.756 align:middle And, as you know, in Cuba, it never snows. 00:01:22.366 --> 00:01:26.496 align:middle And his poetry is filled with images of snow. 00:01:26.496 --> 00:01:32.556 align:middle So this book is about that kind of life where you live, where you live in metaphor 00:01:32.556 --> 00:01:36.696 align:middle and you don't necessarily live in life and it's called Nieve. 00:01:38.096 --> 00:01:42.386 align:middle Sorry. I'm going to put on my glasses which I just bought. 00:01:42.386 --> 00:01:47.046 align:middle Nieve. Lo más extraño de la nieve es no haberla visto, 00:01:47.246 --> 00:01:52.676 align:middle pero convocarla como un hábito del asombro o una condición de ciertas palabras. 00:01:53.826 --> 00:01:56.476 align:middle La nieve solícita de Lezama, por ejemplo. 00:01:57.346 --> 00:02:04.106 align:middle Su nieve perpleja en el trigo, su festón enhebrado de nieve, su pulpa cortesana, 00:02:04.786 --> 00:02:12.706 align:middle sus insectos ciegos a pique por el flanco frío, sus nieves declamadas, sus nieves invitadas, 00:02:13.256 --> 00:02:18.976 align:middle sus nieves que escrutan gamos en el bosque y follajes cubiertos por la red de una luz, 00:02:18.976 --> 00:02:27.216 align:middle tan tenue como la falacia del invierno fijo en las palmeras que se deshace con el primer golpe 00:02:27.216 --> 00:02:32.686 align:middle de sol, su rastro de arena y la brisa canicular pintada de verde. 00:02:32.856 --> 00:02:36.736 align:middle ¿Qué es esa nieve retenida por sus paradojas? 00:02:37.606 --> 00:02:42.676 align:middle La nieve de alguien íntima e intransmisible o la nieve del mundo? 00:02:43.526 --> 00:02:45.246 align:middle Una analogía redundante. 00:02:46.046 --> 00:02:49.556 align:middle Si el mármol es parásito de la nieve, no a la inversa, 00:02:50.116 --> 00:02:56.436 align:middle la cercanía blanca es tan absoluta que entonces se cancela y no hay conocimiento, 00:02:57.116 --> 00:03:03.386 align:middle pero con otras formas, con otros hechos, el símil puede tener la consistencia de un acto. 00:03:04.426 --> 00:03:07.646 align:middle Nunca he visto el muérdago, su amarilla natividad, 00:03:08.376 --> 00:03:13.046 align:middle sus bayas pálidas en el roble, su contorno suelto y sin corona. 00:03:14.246 --> 00:03:20.426 align:middle Sé que hay umbrales precisos donde impone la costumbre de un beso o épocas en medio del 00:03:20.426 --> 00:03:26.836 align:middle verano próximas a la sequía en que arde en una fogata por sacrificio o por memoria. 00:03:28.156 --> 00:03:31.296 align:middle Según los druidas, que para mi son como la nieve, 00:03:31.826 --> 00:03:35.396 align:middle el muérdago lo cura todo, es sabio e inmortal. 00:03:36.366 --> 00:03:39.616 align:middle Lo mismo puede decirse de cualquier cosa que se desconoce. 00:03:40.506 --> 00:03:44.886 align:middle El tojo en el medio día de un monte quemado, 00:03:44.926 --> 00:03:49.836 align:middle el baobab en la tórrida planicie o los tisanuros en un hoyo distante del viento. 00:03:50.846 --> 00:03:55.406 align:middle La nieve, a veces, no tiene linderos, redime castas, fechas, 00:03:55.976 --> 00:04:00.846 align:middle hace ritos en la tierra que invierten la simetría de lo que buscan los ojos. 00:04:01.956 --> 00:04:05.206 align:middle Entonces las quimeras ya no se miran tras la reja como antes. 00:04:05.206 --> 00:04:07.876 align:middle Y así ocurre de repente. 00:04:08.776 --> 00:04:13.366 align:middle Cuando descubrí la nieve de verdad, la nieve sola, ya no importaba. 00:04:29.046 --> 00:04:29.526 align:middle >> Can you hear me? 00:04:32.196 --> 00:04:41.076 align:middle Snow. The strangest thing about snow is not having seen it, to summon it as a habit 00:04:41.266 --> 00:04:44.376 align:middle of astonishment or a condition of certain words. 00:04:45.096 --> 00:04:51.206 align:middle Lezama's solicitous snow, for example, his snow perplexed on the wheat. 00:04:52.266 --> 00:04:56.536 align:middle His braided festoon of snow, its courtesan flesh. 00:04:56.816 --> 00:04:59.776 align:middle His flying insects sinking into the cold flank. 00:05:00.776 --> 00:05:04.726 align:middle His recited snow, his invited snow. 00:05:05.446 --> 00:05:11.686 align:middle His snow that scrutinizes bucks in the forest and the foliage covered by a network of light, 00:05:12.086 --> 00:05:17.776 align:middle as tenuous as the fallacy of winter fixed among the palms which dissolves 00:05:18.066 --> 00:05:24.056 align:middle with the sun's first shock, its trail of sand and the sultry breeze painted green. 00:05:25.176 --> 00:05:28.656 align:middle What is that snow held together by its paradox. 00:05:29.616 --> 00:05:33.356 align:middle Is it someone's snow, intimate and intransmissible? 00:05:33.896 --> 00:05:36.006 align:middle Or is it the snow of the world? 00:05:36.536 --> 00:05:43.516 align:middle A redundant analogy, if marble is snow's parasite and not the other way around, 00:05:44.146 --> 00:05:50.446 align:middle the white proximity is so absolute, it negates itself and there is no knowledge. 00:05:51.576 --> 00:05:59.696 align:middle But with other forms, with other facts, the simile may have the consistency of an act. 00:05:59.786 --> 00:06:02.756 align:middle I have never seen mistletoe, its yellow nativity, 00:06:03.106 --> 00:06:07.166 align:middle its berries pale on the oak, its loose, groundless form. 00:06:08.036 --> 00:06:13.276 align:middle I know there are certain thresholds where it seals the tradition of a kiss, where at times, 00:06:13.276 --> 00:06:18.746 align:middle at midsummer, close to drought when it blazes out of sacrifice or memory. 00:06:19.736 --> 00:06:23.636 align:middle The Druids believed--for me, they too are like snow-- 00:06:24.286 --> 00:06:28.056 align:middle that mistletoe cures everything is wise and immortal. 00:06:29.036 --> 00:06:32.876 align:middle You could say the same for anything unknown. 00:06:32.936 --> 00:06:37.946 align:middle Gorse bush at noon, on the burned mountain, baobab of torrid plains 00:06:38.516 --> 00:06:43.486 align:middle or silverfish in a distant hole of wind. 00:06:43.696 --> 00:06:45.316 align:middle Sometimes snow has no borders. 00:06:45.766 --> 00:06:49.626 align:middle It redeems castes, dates, creates rites on Earth 00:06:49.626 --> 00:06:52.726 align:middle to invert the symmetry of what our eyes seek. 00:06:53.696 --> 00:06:57.636 align:middle Then the chimeras are not seen from behind the fence as they were. 00:06:57.636 --> 00:07:02.006 align:middle And that's how suddenly it happens, when I discovered the true snow, 00:07:02.686 --> 00:07:05.746 align:middle the snow itself, it didn't matter anymore. 00:07:20.056 --> 00:07:21.986 align:middle >> I've already seen mistletoe. 00:07:22.036 --> 00:07:24.176 align:middle Thanks for coming to Tucson. 00:07:24.306 --> 00:07:25.916 align:middle Some years ago. 00:07:25.916 --> 00:07:26.996 align:middle So that poem's life. 00:07:27.736 --> 00:07:34.526 align:middle But I -- And just a few days ago, Álvaro and I went to the Grand Canyon and we were snowed in. 00:07:34.526 --> 00:07:36.126 align:middle It was really grounded by snow. 00:07:36.126 --> 00:07:42.486 align:middle So that's why I read this poem because it's a poem that makes sense and doesn't make sense, 00:07:42.546 --> 00:07:47.736 align:middle in a way, because my own experience has made it, has made it more of a metaphor of its own. 00:07:47.856 --> 00:07:49.926 align:middle So it's a metaphor of a metaphor now.