n
necesaria
(1960) and Elegi?
Trakl - T h e Poet's F ad in g Face- A lb e rto G irri, R afael C ad en as a n d P o s th u m a n is t Latin A m e ric a n P o e try
an
para otra existencia.
El las acogi? a transforma? ndolas
en lo que eran, devolvie? ndolas a su exactitud, ban? a? ndolas en su propio oro,
pues ? que? sabe de su regia condicio? n
lo que se entrega?
Piedras, flores, nubes
renaci? an
en otro silencio
para un distinto transcurrir. (Gestiones 443)
In this poem, things-- stones, flowers, clouds-- are allowed to be
through a practice of silence in which the human being also participates, receiving their presence so that they and he shine in their "propio oro. "
This role involves the voluntary fading of the poetic subject, an example of which Girri discovers in Keats's experience of writing: "despojarse, mientras el poema progresa (esto a expensas de aquello), de los incontables yoes que en e? l conviven, y cuya fase u? ltima, el sentimiento de nulidad, coincidiri? a con la culminacio? n del poema" {Lopropio 71). The human being is not eliminated, but rather reappropriated to his world through his open attention to it, which, Girri and Cadenas advise, is also the necessary condition for writing poetry. Girri's poem "Dormir que hace el poema" further exemplifies the relationship between the work, the reality that inspired it, and the "hacedor"-- the term Girri adopts instead of "poet," as a nod to Borges and a way to eschew certain connotations of the latter word, particularly those stemming from the Romantic tradition and its reformulations:
22
CONFLUENCIA, FALL 2014
El poema, desprendido de la visio? n,
y del que no podri? as explicar, so? lo ofrecerlo,
y ofrecerlo
en homenaje a lo recibido pero no su enigma,
asi? como
un bebedor no penetra en su vino,
themselves
? lo bebe,
pero no sabe que? es,
adema? s de a? spero y seco,
subido de color. (Existenciales 99-100)
In these verses, the poem is described as being "separated" or "disjoined" from the vision that inspired it, having its own existence. The poem is autonomous and ultimately inscrutable; it is not the subjects stage, domain or possession. It is first "received" through the undivided attention of the "hacedor" and then offered back to the world in its homage as a thanking. The "hacedor" partakes of the poetic experience, as writer and then as reader, but renounces all efforts to apprehend the word and world by imposing upon them a determinate order or meaning. These verses are directives for an exercise in observing, inhabiting and attending to the world by adhering to the present with a lucid gaze and detached attention, thus forgoing fixed goals. An epigrammatic poem by Cadenas distills the same message: "Atencio? n/ redoma hechizada,/ ne? ctar de estar presente" (. Memorial 246).
This attention, and the poetry that results, should not be confused with the dominant Latin American poetic trend identified by Ca? rcamo-Huechante and Mazzotti characterized by its "fe en la representacio? n y trascendencia de la poesi? a [que] subyace una cadena estable de identidad y correspondencia entre los componentes de una totalidad universal, donde la poesi? a es capaz de otorgarles una configuracio? n armo? nica de representacio? n y unidad" (12). Unlike this paradigm, Girri and Cadenas are not interested in writing as universal representation, nor do they seek transcendence of the world. Rather, as Girri writes,
En vez de ser edificada con lo recordado, que la escritura, sin memoria y sin yo, se convierta en construccio? n del presente.
Que el escribir sea mecanicidad, estado en el que no se dan li? neas ni de mayor ni de menor resistencia. Como en la reiteracio? n de mantras.
Que el ser siempre lo mismo, el escribir ya no tenga un objetivo, y que de haberlo sea el vaci? o; o el silencio, versio? n ma? s suave de ese vaci? o. (El motivo es el
poema 287)
Girri's and Cadenas' poetry, like Heidegger's thinking, ultimately points to a non-saying that is only possible when the "yo" is reconceived in posthumanist terms, as an open space for language to speak and the world to presence. The poem demands a thoughtful listening that leads one away from a form of speech that seeks to define and apprehend things through language, and back to an area of ambiguity where in the interstices of the verses, things and the subject present themselves through revealing and concealing, in a dynamic relationship in the present moment. This mode of writing challenges the demands and restrictions of the modern episteme, with the human being at its center as the articulator of knowledge and the wielder of language. Naturally, such a position is tenuous and paradoxical, for the "hacedor" must be engaged in his attention but simultaneously abandon the habitual structures of the self; as such, the poem is not of the poet's dominion, but without him, the poem would not come to fruition. This poetry, therefore, exhorts
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1
23
? that it be practiced as an ascetic and meditative exercise that (re)moves and displaces the subject. Cadenas aptly observes that this existential path, however, is rarely chosen, as Man is his own obstacle: "Los hombres esta? n atascados,/ hacen ruido para no escuchar,/ su corazo? n ya no los soporta. / Todo respiray da gracias,! menos ellos" [Gestiones 454). Girri's and Cadenas' poetry, ultimately, is the exploration of such a possibility, an opportunity to give thanks.
In concluding, I would like to briefly touch upon some of the implications of Girri's and Cadenas' poetry with regard to the question of the subject and the methodology pursued in the present essay. First, by formulating my theoretical approach within the immediate resonances of the chosen corpus, I seek to shed light on a posthumanist literary current alternative to canonic readings of Latin American poetry and its central figures in the second half of the 20th century. While recent theoretical vogues may consider it problematic to refer to the works of Heidegger or the most poststructuralist Foucault (as opposed to his later works at the College de France that constitute the foundation for current posthumanist agendas that I discussed earlier), their texts directly and indirectly form the philosophical and discursive backdrop of much of Girri's and Cadenas'writing. 19 Not only are they historically relevant, but they also serve as a starting point to revisit and elucidate the basic question of the subject in relation to Being and epistemic knowledge, which is central to the poets' works.
Second, new iterations of this same question lie at the heart of the poetry of various younger writers such as Mexicans Elsa Cross (1946), Alberto Blanco (1951), Coral Bracho (1951) and Leo? n Plascencia N? ol (1968), Cuban Jose? Kozer (1940), and Peruvian Jose? Watanabe (1945), among others, who also actively explore the displacement of the modern subject. Perhaps it is no coincidence that all of the above writers have been drawn to Asian philosophies and/or religious practices as part of their rethinking, reformulating and experience of the self through their poetry, a connection that must be explored in full as an integral variant ofLatin American Orientalism, and one that has mostly been overlooked by critics. 20 In the case of Girri and Cadenas, both authors engage with Taoist and Zen texts, as well as the writings of J. Krishnamurti, in poems and prose pieces I have not touched on in the present essay for lack of space. Badiou reminds us that a truth inquiry is multiple and potentially infinite, unbound by time, space or culture, and, as many academics have noted, the articulations of the subject in these philosophical frameworks, although fundamentally different from traditional Western approaches to subjectivity, complement
many of Heidegger's posthumanist theories, as discussed here. 21The need to reconsider the intersections of the first current of posthumanism and/or Asian thought and recent Latin American poetry signals the potential limitations of contemporary cultural studies, that privilege the politics of identity and the human body but sometimes underplay the epistemological and ontological conditions of possibility of their enunciating subjects.
Finally, the poetry of Girri, and Cadenas, in its search for a way to speak beyond the constraints of the modern subject, like Heidegger's often tortuous thinking of Being, highlights the inherent conundrum at the heart of their projects: a true eclipse of the subject's speaking must be something Man cannot say. Can such an undertaking be anything but solitary and silent? Girri explicitly identifies this contradictory challenge: "lo ilusorio/ de verse uno mismo so? lo/ como un yo que percibe. / Intentar corregir,
24 CONFLUENCIA, FALL 2014
? corregirnos/ ensayando con la vi? a negativa/ [. . . ]/ no mueren/ los pensamientos cuando callan,/ cesan/ para que aflore, se exponga/ la continuidad del silencio" (A? rbol 303). Or, as Cadenas asks: "? Necesita palabras/un rostro? / ? La flor/ quiere sonidos? / ? Pide vocablos/ el perro, la piedra, el fuego? / ? No se expresan con so? lo estar? " (. Memorial 262). Does the possible incommunicability and experiential nature of their task make for infertile grounds for writing, especially for academic explorations? Cadenas' humble and tentative answer, however, is also worth reproducing: "Soy/ apenas/ un hombre que trata de respirar/ pol- los poros del lenguaje. " (Gestiones 420). It is to this space, between this question and this answer, between the revealed and the concealed, between the present and the absent, that Girri and Cadenas invite us to dwell and from where, perhaps, new paths of thinking can emerge.
Notas
1Ca? rcamo-Huechante and Mazzotti do note that "en los ma? rgenes" of this trend are poets like Jose? Lezama Lima with "poe? ticas de la interrogacio? n y la inestabilidad" (11), and that various important anthologies, such as Pristina y u? ltima piedra: Antologi? a de la poesi? a latinoamericana edited by Ernesto Lumbreras and Eduardo Mila? n, Julio Ortegas Antologi? a de lapoesi? a latinoamericana delsigloXXI, and Medusario: Muestra de
poesi? a latinoamericana edited by Roberto Echavarren, Jose? Kozer and Jacobo Sefami? privilege the idea of "la heterogeneidad e inestabilidad de la representacio? n" (19) of writers from the '60s on.
21will use the term "Man" with the uppercase, as it appears in The Order o f Things, when referring to
the Foucauldian epistemological figure within the context of modernity except when it appears with the lowercase in a quote.
3 The group known as the "Ateneo de la Juventud" was formed by young intellectuals from various disciplines who promoted Western cultural heritage in modern Mexico in the years immediately preceding the Revolution, forming an alliance that criticized and opposed Porfirio Diaz's government, which in turn was heavily influenced by the predominant wave ofEuropean 19thcentury positivism. The groups members were, among others, Antonio Caso, Marti? n Luis Guzma? n, Henri? quez Uren? a, Reyes and Vasconcelos. Their project generated discussion about a "Mexican being" that was later followed by influential thinkers such as Samuel Ramos, and subsequently Octavio Paz in his seminal El laberinto de la soledad (1950).
4 Gerald Martin briefly analyzes Neruda's career after his involvement with the Spanish Republic in the 1930s, in particular during the writers' conference against fascism (in which a young Paz also participated), as a change "towards an explicidy political humanist poetry" (120). Although by "humanist" poetry I do have a similar analysis in mind, I will use the term to refer to the type of poetry that acts as a vehicle for a univocal and transcendental representation of subjectivity, of which Neruda and Paz are key examples. 5Several of these recent studies on contemporary poetry refer to discourses of nationalism, debates on modernity and the role of the poetic subject at the core of national traditions. As examples of this trend,
see Silvia Rosman's Being in Common: Nation, Subject and Community in Latin American Literature and Culture (2003), which includes analyses of the works of Paz and Borges, among others, or Michelle Clayton's monograph Poetry in Pieces: Ce? sar Vallejo and Lyric Modernity (2011).
6Girri was honored with the following accolades, among others: "la faja de Honor de la S. A. D. E. , el Premio 'Leopoldo Lugones', el Premio 'Ce? sar Mermet', el Premio Municipal de Poesi? a, el Premio Nacional de Poesi? a, y premios de la Fundacio? n Argentina para la Poesi? a, la Fundacio? n Lorenzutti y la Fundacio? n Dupuytren.
Ha recibido una Medalla de Oro y ha sido condecorado como Caballero Oficial de la Orden al Me? rito por
el gobierno de Italia" (Slade Pascoe 11). Girri also received two J. S. Guggenheim Fellowships (1964, 1977) and was awarded the Rene? Baron Prize (1982) and the Premio de Poesi? a de la Fundacio? n Fortabat (1985). Rafael Cadenas was awarded the "Premio de Ensayo de CON? AC" (1984), the Venezuelan "Premio Nacional de Literatura" (1985) for his complete works, the "Premio San Juan de la Cruz" (1991), the "Premio Internacional de Poesi? a J. A. Pe? rez Bonalde (1992), the Venezuelan "Premio de la Fundacio? n Mozarteum" (1993), the Mexican "Premio FIL de Literatura (Feria Internacional del Libro)" (2009), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1986) and honorary doctoral degrees from the Universidad de los Andes (2001) and the Universidad Central de Venezuela (2005).
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25
? 7Mari? a Victoria Sua? rez's Alberto Girri: existenciay lo? gicapoe? tica offers a dialectical close reading of his works "dentro de los li? mites de la descripcio? n" (11); Muriel Slade Pascoe also takes a chronological approach in La
poesi? a de Alberto Girri, studying the poet's treatment of time as a vehicle for approaching the relationship between the world and language, as well as the self and his reality. Sergio Cuetos Seis estudios girrianos and Alberto Villanueva's Alberto Girri en elpresentepoe? tico offer excellent thematic analyses of topics ranging from Girri's practice of translation to his writing about painting. In the case of Cadenas, Luis Miguel Isava Bricen? o's Voz de amante offers the most complete analysis, tracing chronologically the dialectics between the self and the "you" in his poetry, while simultaneously reconstructing the "intellectual biography" (12) o f the author's sources, readings and affinities. Ilis Alfonzo Perdomo's Rafael Cadenas, o, La poesi? a como existencia. Ejercicio de aproximacio? n a Los cuadernos del destierro, Falsas maniobras, Intemperiey Memorial is less methodical in its approach, focusing on the relationship of the self and the "other," the notion of emptiness and the role of memory. Finally, Lapoesi? a, la vida. En torno a Rafael Cadenas, compiled and edited by Omar Astorga, is a helpful resource that gathers articles and reviews originally appearing in diverse publications. 8Alberto Villanueva sees a disjuncture between Girri's and Heidegger's discussions of the figure of the
poet. Villanueva reduces Heidegger's vision of the poet as a sacred protagonist and deems it inapplicable
to Girri's works {Alberto Girri en elpresentepoe? tico 50-1). This may be due to the fact that Villanueva does not examine Heidegger's nuanced discussion of the poem or language itself in many of his later essays such as On the Way to Language (1959) and those collected in Poetry, Language, Thought, that meditate on the preeminence of the word and the humble, but integral position of the human being.
9 In the case of Girri, Maria Kodama's division of Girri's work is typical, signaling the publication of his Antologi? a tema? tica (1969) as a turning point. Alberto Villanueva and Horacio Castillo, on the other hand, have studied his poetic production in three phases (Villanueva En idiomas 67). In her monograph covering Girri's literary production until 1985, Muriel Slade Pascoe also examines the poet's treatment of time in three periods: denunciation and testimony (1946-1955), solutions (1956-1963) and lucidity (1964-1985). Although I have chosen to read Girri's production as a two-part movement-- all divisions being arbitrary to some degree-- Slade Pascoe's observations are useful in understanding the position of Girri's poetic subject, in what I refer to here as his first movement.
10Girri's books published between 1946 and 1962 are: Playa sola (1946), Coronacio? n de la espera (1947),
Trecepoemas (1949), El tiempo que destruye (1951), Esca? ndaloy soledades (1952), Li? nea de la vida (1955), Examen de nuestra causa (1956), La penitencia y el me? rito (1957), Propiedades de la magia (1959), La condicio?
n necesaria (1960) and Elegi? as italianas (1962). His later works are: El ojo (1963), Envi? os (1967), Casa de la mente (1970), Valores diarios (1970), En la letra, ambigua selva (1972), Diario de un libro (1972, prose), Poesi? a de la observacio? n (1973), Quien habla no esta? muerto (1975), El motivo es elpoema (1976), Arbol de la estirpe humana (1978), Lo propio, lo de todos (1980), Homenaje a W. C. Williams (1981), Li? rica de percepciones (1983), Monodias (1985), Existenciales (1986), Tramas de conflictos (1988), and 1989/1990 (1990).
11Girri coincides chronologically with the Argentinean "generacio? n del 40," that poet and critic Ce? sar Ferna? ndez Moreno catalogues as including: Daniel Devoto, Roberto Paine, Basilio Uribe, Carlos Latorre, Carlos Alberto Alvarez, Alfonso Sola Gonza? lez, Ana Maria Chouhy Aguirre, Eduardo Jonquie? res, Juan Rodolfo Wilcock, Alberto Ponce de Leo? n, E? dgar Bayley, Olga Orozco, Jose? Mari? a Castin? eira, Vicente Barbieri, Silvina Ocampo, Juan Ferreyra Basso, Enrique Molina, Miguel Angel Go? mez, Leo? n Benaro? s
and Miguel Etchebarne (225). Greatly influenced by Federico Garcia Lorca, Rainer Maria Rilke, Neruda's Residencia en la tierra and French poetic tradition, the confluence of neo-romanticism and surrealism is the dominant shared parentage of their poetry, manifested in the their expressions of melancholy, pessimism, rebellion and longing for infinitude (Ferna? ndez Moreno 227). With their romantic tone and turbulent, grandiloquent first-person poetic subject, Girri's earliest books-- Playa sola (1946) and Coronacio? n de la espera (1947), in particular-- coincide with this aesthetic trend, but these characteristics fade in his following collections.
12Cadenas is associated with the Venezuelan "generacio? n del 60" whose most prominent poets--Alfredo Silva Estrada, Guillermo Sucre, Luis Garcia Morales, Alfredo Chaco? n, Rafael Jose? Mun? oz, Juan Calzadilla, Caupolica? n Ovalles, Vi? ctor Valera Mora, Gustavo Pereira, Hesnor Rivera, Amoldo Acosta Bello, Francisco Pe? rez Perdomo and Jose? Barroeta-- generally follow one or more of these four poetic lines: 1) linguistic and political subversion; 2) surrealist and oneiric experimentation; 3) telluric expression; and 4) formalist/ textualist/ transcendentalist approaches (Miranda 103-4). These poets also formed several important groups-- Cantaclaro, Sardio, El Techo de la Ballena, Tro? pico Uno and Tabla Redonda-- that produced collective manifestos and magazines. Cadenas was a founding member of the leftist Tabla Redonda
26 CONFLUENCIA, FALL 2014
? group (1959-61), affiliated with the Communist party, which was founded to "1. Denunciar con voz revolucionaria la realidad venezolana. 2. Oponerse a las tendencias intelectualistas de algunos grupos literarios. 3. Defender la libertad del creador" (Vera 43). Cadenas later renounced his political affiliations, and his publications from Falsas maiobras (1966) on approach poetry as an ascetic search for individual authenticity.
13 Chronologically, Cadenas' poetic oeuvre is composed of: Cantos iniciales (1946), Una isla (1958), Los cuadernos del destierro (1960, 2001), Derrota (1966), Falsas maniobras (1966), Intemperie (1977), Memorial (1977), Amante (1983), Dichos (1992), Gestiones (1992), and Obra entera. Poesi? ay prosa (Editorial Pre- Textos, 2007; Fondo de Cultura Econo? mica, 2000, 2010).
14For an analysis of Foucault's critique of humanism and the concept of Man as it relates to the Latin American tradition and particularly to Borges, see Zavala.
15 Foucault describes the construction of Man through three doublets, or binary oppositions that structure humanistic thought: 1) an empirico-transcendental doublet; 2) the cogito and the unthought; 3) the retreat and return of the origin. Dreyfus and Rabinow elaborate on these categories: "(1) as a fact among other facts to be studied empirically, and yet as the transcendental condition of the possibility of all knowledge; (2) as surrounded by what he cannot get clear about (the unthought), and yet as a potentially lucid cogito, source of all intelligibility; and (3) as the product of a long history whose beginning he can never reach and yet, paradoxically as the source of that very history" (31).
16All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.
17Heidegger attempts to ask the question of Being explicitly, not in terms of beings themselves (the ontic), or a conceptualization of Being in terms of a highest being. In his earlier works, Heidegger seeks a meaning of Being, but then reformulates his question in the 1930s as an inquiry into the truth of Being. Truth (aletheia) is understood as the way in which the world is opened up, or in other words, the process whereby the horizon within which beings appear is produced. This process and horizon, Heidegger specifies, is historically conditioned, and epochal: "There is Being only in this or that particular historical character: physis, logos, en, idea, energeia, Substantiality, Objectivity, Subjectivity, the Will, the Will to Power, the Will to Will. [. . . ] The manner in which it, Being, gives itself, is itself determined by the way in which it clears itself" (Identity and Difference 66-67). This part of Heideggers thought-- a historical, as opposed to a transcendental approach to Being-- is not far from Foucault's epistemological periodization of knowledge. 18Heidegger's quaternary description of the world, whose terms originate from a poem by Holderlin, has often been criticized by scholars as a flight of poetic fancy in its description of the interrelatedness of things. Graham Harman, however, evocatively suggests that the "fourfold"-- instead of an arbitrary number of categories to classify the things of the world-- is a means to describe the "structure of reality itself" (176) in which "earth" and "sky" are the respective terms for the universal processes of revealing and concealing, and "divinities" and "mortals" are terms that capture how this dualism operates at the ontic level (see Chapter Two, "Beyond Being and Time," particularly section 18 "The Fourfold"). Both understandings of the fourfold, however, are useful in approaching Girri's and Cadenas' poetry.
19I would like to highlight, following Alain Badiou, that the field of cultural studies is possible because of its grounding in a particular humanism of Man that emanates from the hegemonic logic of late capitalism (Ethics 4--5) that, in his view, neutralizes alternative philosophical inquiries. As Foucault suggests, true thinking today is only possible within "the void left by man's disappearance" (The Order o f Things 343). See also Badiou's discussion of the disappearance of Man and God in Le Siecle (243-51).
20 Many studies test Edward Said's classic model of Orientalism in the Hispanic context, concluding that most Latin American authors do not partake in the power dynamics, cultural representations and political doctrines that constitute Said's definition. See: Tinajero (2004) and Kushigian (1991). Few critics have examined in a systematic fashion the appropriation and adaptation of Eastern philosophical concepts by
Latin American authors.
21 See the following books that explore the connections between Heidegger and Eastern philosophies and religious traditions: May (1996) and Parkes (1990).
Works Cited
Alfonzo Perdomo, Ilis M. Rafael Cadenas, o, La poesi? a como existencia. Ejercicio de aproximacio? n a Los cuadernos del destierro, Falsas maniobras, Intemperiey Memorial. Caracas: Contexto Editores, 1996. Print.
VOLUME 30, NUMBER 1 27
? Astorga, Omar, ed. La poesi? a, la vida. En torno a Rafael Cadenas. Caracas: Fondo Editorial de la Facultad de Humanidades y Educacio? n Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1999. Print.
Balza, Jose? . "El presente como epifani? a. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). Rafael Cadenas. Mexico, D. F. : FCE, 2000. 7-13. Print.
Badiou, Alain. Ethics: A n Essay on the Understanding o f Evil. Trans. Peter Hallward. New York: Verso, 2001. Print.
--------- . Handbook o fInaesthetics. Trans. Alberto Toscano. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2005. Print.
Blanchot, Maurice. Le livre h venir. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1959. Print.
Cadenas, Rafael. "Anotaciones. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1977. Mexico, D. F. : FCE, 2000.
529-63. Print.
--------- . "Los cuadernos del destierro. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1959. Mexico, D. F. : FCE,
2000. 61-103. Print.
--------- . "Gestiones. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1977. Mexico, D. F. : FCE, 2000. 385--463.
Print.
--------- . "Intemperie. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1977. Mexico, D. F. : FCE, 2000. 141-57.
Print.
--------- . "Memorial. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1977. Mexico, D. F. : FCE, 2000. 161-325.
Print.
--------- . "Realidady literatura. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1972. Mexico, D. F. : Fondo de
Cultura Econo? mica, 2000. 465-528. Print.
Ca? rcamo-Huechante, Luis and Jose? Antonio Mazzotti. "Presentacio? n: Dislocamientos de la poesi? a
latinoamericana en la escena global. " Revista de Cri? tica Literaria Latinoamericana XXIX. 58 (2003):
9--19. Print.
Clayton, Michelle. Poetry in Pieces: Ce? sar Vallejo and Lyric Modernity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of
California P, 2011. Print.
Cobussen, Marcel. Thresholds. Rethinking Spirituality Through Music. Hampshire, England: Ashgate
Publishing Limited, 2008. Print.
Crespo de Arnaud, Ba? rbara. "Pro?
para otra existencia.
El las acogi? a transforma? ndolas
en lo que eran, devolvie? ndolas a su exactitud, ban? a? ndolas en su propio oro,
pues ? que? sabe de su regia condicio? n
lo que se entrega?
Piedras, flores, nubes
renaci? an
en otro silencio
para un distinto transcurrir. (Gestiones 443)
In this poem, things-- stones, flowers, clouds-- are allowed to be
through a practice of silence in which the human being also participates, receiving their presence so that they and he shine in their "propio oro. "
This role involves the voluntary fading of the poetic subject, an example of which Girri discovers in Keats's experience of writing: "despojarse, mientras el poema progresa (esto a expensas de aquello), de los incontables yoes que en e? l conviven, y cuya fase u? ltima, el sentimiento de nulidad, coincidiri? a con la culminacio? n del poema" {Lopropio 71). The human being is not eliminated, but rather reappropriated to his world through his open attention to it, which, Girri and Cadenas advise, is also the necessary condition for writing poetry. Girri's poem "Dormir que hace el poema" further exemplifies the relationship between the work, the reality that inspired it, and the "hacedor"-- the term Girri adopts instead of "poet," as a nod to Borges and a way to eschew certain connotations of the latter word, particularly those stemming from the Romantic tradition and its reformulations:
22
CONFLUENCIA, FALL 2014
El poema, desprendido de la visio? n,
y del que no podri? as explicar, so? lo ofrecerlo,
y ofrecerlo
en homenaje a lo recibido pero no su enigma,
asi? como
un bebedor no penetra en su vino,
themselves
? lo bebe,
pero no sabe que? es,
adema? s de a? spero y seco,
subido de color. (Existenciales 99-100)
In these verses, the poem is described as being "separated" or "disjoined" from the vision that inspired it, having its own existence. The poem is autonomous and ultimately inscrutable; it is not the subjects stage, domain or possession. It is first "received" through the undivided attention of the "hacedor" and then offered back to the world in its homage as a thanking. The "hacedor" partakes of the poetic experience, as writer and then as reader, but renounces all efforts to apprehend the word and world by imposing upon them a determinate order or meaning. These verses are directives for an exercise in observing, inhabiting and attending to the world by adhering to the present with a lucid gaze and detached attention, thus forgoing fixed goals. An epigrammatic poem by Cadenas distills the same message: "Atencio? n/ redoma hechizada,/ ne? ctar de estar presente" (. Memorial 246).
This attention, and the poetry that results, should not be confused with the dominant Latin American poetic trend identified by Ca? rcamo-Huechante and Mazzotti characterized by its "fe en la representacio? n y trascendencia de la poesi? a [que] subyace una cadena estable de identidad y correspondencia entre los componentes de una totalidad universal, donde la poesi? a es capaz de otorgarles una configuracio? n armo? nica de representacio? n y unidad" (12). Unlike this paradigm, Girri and Cadenas are not interested in writing as universal representation, nor do they seek transcendence of the world. Rather, as Girri writes,
En vez de ser edificada con lo recordado, que la escritura, sin memoria y sin yo, se convierta en construccio? n del presente.
Que el escribir sea mecanicidad, estado en el que no se dan li? neas ni de mayor ni de menor resistencia. Como en la reiteracio? n de mantras.
Que el ser siempre lo mismo, el escribir ya no tenga un objetivo, y que de haberlo sea el vaci? o; o el silencio, versio? n ma? s suave de ese vaci? o. (El motivo es el
poema 287)
Girri's and Cadenas' poetry, like Heidegger's thinking, ultimately points to a non-saying that is only possible when the "yo" is reconceived in posthumanist terms, as an open space for language to speak and the world to presence. The poem demands a thoughtful listening that leads one away from a form of speech that seeks to define and apprehend things through language, and back to an area of ambiguity where in the interstices of the verses, things and the subject present themselves through revealing and concealing, in a dynamic relationship in the present moment. This mode of writing challenges the demands and restrictions of the modern episteme, with the human being at its center as the articulator of knowledge and the wielder of language. Naturally, such a position is tenuous and paradoxical, for the "hacedor" must be engaged in his attention but simultaneously abandon the habitual structures of the self; as such, the poem is not of the poet's dominion, but without him, the poem would not come to fruition. This poetry, therefore, exhorts
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? that it be practiced as an ascetic and meditative exercise that (re)moves and displaces the subject. Cadenas aptly observes that this existential path, however, is rarely chosen, as Man is his own obstacle: "Los hombres esta? n atascados,/ hacen ruido para no escuchar,/ su corazo? n ya no los soporta. / Todo respiray da gracias,! menos ellos" [Gestiones 454). Girri's and Cadenas' poetry, ultimately, is the exploration of such a possibility, an opportunity to give thanks.
In concluding, I would like to briefly touch upon some of the implications of Girri's and Cadenas' poetry with regard to the question of the subject and the methodology pursued in the present essay. First, by formulating my theoretical approach within the immediate resonances of the chosen corpus, I seek to shed light on a posthumanist literary current alternative to canonic readings of Latin American poetry and its central figures in the second half of the 20th century. While recent theoretical vogues may consider it problematic to refer to the works of Heidegger or the most poststructuralist Foucault (as opposed to his later works at the College de France that constitute the foundation for current posthumanist agendas that I discussed earlier), their texts directly and indirectly form the philosophical and discursive backdrop of much of Girri's and Cadenas'writing. 19 Not only are they historically relevant, but they also serve as a starting point to revisit and elucidate the basic question of the subject in relation to Being and epistemic knowledge, which is central to the poets' works.
Second, new iterations of this same question lie at the heart of the poetry of various younger writers such as Mexicans Elsa Cross (1946), Alberto Blanco (1951), Coral Bracho (1951) and Leo? n Plascencia N? ol (1968), Cuban Jose? Kozer (1940), and Peruvian Jose? Watanabe (1945), among others, who also actively explore the displacement of the modern subject. Perhaps it is no coincidence that all of the above writers have been drawn to Asian philosophies and/or religious practices as part of their rethinking, reformulating and experience of the self through their poetry, a connection that must be explored in full as an integral variant ofLatin American Orientalism, and one that has mostly been overlooked by critics. 20 In the case of Girri and Cadenas, both authors engage with Taoist and Zen texts, as well as the writings of J. Krishnamurti, in poems and prose pieces I have not touched on in the present essay for lack of space. Badiou reminds us that a truth inquiry is multiple and potentially infinite, unbound by time, space or culture, and, as many academics have noted, the articulations of the subject in these philosophical frameworks, although fundamentally different from traditional Western approaches to subjectivity, complement
many of Heidegger's posthumanist theories, as discussed here. 21The need to reconsider the intersections of the first current of posthumanism and/or Asian thought and recent Latin American poetry signals the potential limitations of contemporary cultural studies, that privilege the politics of identity and the human body but sometimes underplay the epistemological and ontological conditions of possibility of their enunciating subjects.
Finally, the poetry of Girri, and Cadenas, in its search for a way to speak beyond the constraints of the modern subject, like Heidegger's often tortuous thinking of Being, highlights the inherent conundrum at the heart of their projects: a true eclipse of the subject's speaking must be something Man cannot say. Can such an undertaking be anything but solitary and silent? Girri explicitly identifies this contradictory challenge: "lo ilusorio/ de verse uno mismo so? lo/ como un yo que percibe. / Intentar corregir,
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? corregirnos/ ensayando con la vi? a negativa/ [. . . ]/ no mueren/ los pensamientos cuando callan,/ cesan/ para que aflore, se exponga/ la continuidad del silencio" (A? rbol 303). Or, as Cadenas asks: "? Necesita palabras/un rostro? / ? La flor/ quiere sonidos? / ? Pide vocablos/ el perro, la piedra, el fuego? / ? No se expresan con so? lo estar? " (. Memorial 262). Does the possible incommunicability and experiential nature of their task make for infertile grounds for writing, especially for academic explorations? Cadenas' humble and tentative answer, however, is also worth reproducing: "Soy/ apenas/ un hombre que trata de respirar/ pol- los poros del lenguaje. " (Gestiones 420). It is to this space, between this question and this answer, between the revealed and the concealed, between the present and the absent, that Girri and Cadenas invite us to dwell and from where, perhaps, new paths of thinking can emerge.
Notas
1Ca? rcamo-Huechante and Mazzotti do note that "en los ma? rgenes" of this trend are poets like Jose? Lezama Lima with "poe? ticas de la interrogacio? n y la inestabilidad" (11), and that various important anthologies, such as Pristina y u? ltima piedra: Antologi? a de la poesi? a latinoamericana edited by Ernesto Lumbreras and Eduardo Mila? n, Julio Ortegas Antologi? a de lapoesi? a latinoamericana delsigloXXI, and Medusario: Muestra de
poesi? a latinoamericana edited by Roberto Echavarren, Jose? Kozer and Jacobo Sefami? privilege the idea of "la heterogeneidad e inestabilidad de la representacio? n" (19) of writers from the '60s on.
21will use the term "Man" with the uppercase, as it appears in The Order o f Things, when referring to
the Foucauldian epistemological figure within the context of modernity except when it appears with the lowercase in a quote.
3 The group known as the "Ateneo de la Juventud" was formed by young intellectuals from various disciplines who promoted Western cultural heritage in modern Mexico in the years immediately preceding the Revolution, forming an alliance that criticized and opposed Porfirio Diaz's government, which in turn was heavily influenced by the predominant wave ofEuropean 19thcentury positivism. The groups members were, among others, Antonio Caso, Marti? n Luis Guzma? n, Henri? quez Uren? a, Reyes and Vasconcelos. Their project generated discussion about a "Mexican being" that was later followed by influential thinkers such as Samuel Ramos, and subsequently Octavio Paz in his seminal El laberinto de la soledad (1950).
4 Gerald Martin briefly analyzes Neruda's career after his involvement with the Spanish Republic in the 1930s, in particular during the writers' conference against fascism (in which a young Paz also participated), as a change "towards an explicidy political humanist poetry" (120). Although by "humanist" poetry I do have a similar analysis in mind, I will use the term to refer to the type of poetry that acts as a vehicle for a univocal and transcendental representation of subjectivity, of which Neruda and Paz are key examples. 5Several of these recent studies on contemporary poetry refer to discourses of nationalism, debates on modernity and the role of the poetic subject at the core of national traditions. As examples of this trend,
see Silvia Rosman's Being in Common: Nation, Subject and Community in Latin American Literature and Culture (2003), which includes analyses of the works of Paz and Borges, among others, or Michelle Clayton's monograph Poetry in Pieces: Ce? sar Vallejo and Lyric Modernity (2011).
6Girri was honored with the following accolades, among others: "la faja de Honor de la S. A. D. E. , el Premio 'Leopoldo Lugones', el Premio 'Ce? sar Mermet', el Premio Municipal de Poesi? a, el Premio Nacional de Poesi? a, y premios de la Fundacio? n Argentina para la Poesi? a, la Fundacio? n Lorenzutti y la Fundacio? n Dupuytren.
Ha recibido una Medalla de Oro y ha sido condecorado como Caballero Oficial de la Orden al Me? rito por
el gobierno de Italia" (Slade Pascoe 11). Girri also received two J. S. Guggenheim Fellowships (1964, 1977) and was awarded the Rene? Baron Prize (1982) and the Premio de Poesi? a de la Fundacio? n Fortabat (1985). Rafael Cadenas was awarded the "Premio de Ensayo de CON? AC" (1984), the Venezuelan "Premio Nacional de Literatura" (1985) for his complete works, the "Premio San Juan de la Cruz" (1991), the "Premio Internacional de Poesi? a J. A. Pe? rez Bonalde (1992), the Venezuelan "Premio de la Fundacio? n Mozarteum" (1993), the Mexican "Premio FIL de Literatura (Feria Internacional del Libro)" (2009), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1986) and honorary doctoral degrees from the Universidad de los Andes (2001) and the Universidad Central de Venezuela (2005).
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? 7Mari? a Victoria Sua? rez's Alberto Girri: existenciay lo? gicapoe? tica offers a dialectical close reading of his works "dentro de los li? mites de la descripcio? n" (11); Muriel Slade Pascoe also takes a chronological approach in La
poesi? a de Alberto Girri, studying the poet's treatment of time as a vehicle for approaching the relationship between the world and language, as well as the self and his reality. Sergio Cuetos Seis estudios girrianos and Alberto Villanueva's Alberto Girri en elpresentepoe? tico offer excellent thematic analyses of topics ranging from Girri's practice of translation to his writing about painting. In the case of Cadenas, Luis Miguel Isava Bricen? o's Voz de amante offers the most complete analysis, tracing chronologically the dialectics between the self and the "you" in his poetry, while simultaneously reconstructing the "intellectual biography" (12) o f the author's sources, readings and affinities. Ilis Alfonzo Perdomo's Rafael Cadenas, o, La poesi? a como existencia. Ejercicio de aproximacio? n a Los cuadernos del destierro, Falsas maniobras, Intemperiey Memorial is less methodical in its approach, focusing on the relationship of the self and the "other," the notion of emptiness and the role of memory. Finally, Lapoesi? a, la vida. En torno a Rafael Cadenas, compiled and edited by Omar Astorga, is a helpful resource that gathers articles and reviews originally appearing in diverse publications. 8Alberto Villanueva sees a disjuncture between Girri's and Heidegger's discussions of the figure of the
poet. Villanueva reduces Heidegger's vision of the poet as a sacred protagonist and deems it inapplicable
to Girri's works {Alberto Girri en elpresentepoe? tico 50-1). This may be due to the fact that Villanueva does not examine Heidegger's nuanced discussion of the poem or language itself in many of his later essays such as On the Way to Language (1959) and those collected in Poetry, Language, Thought, that meditate on the preeminence of the word and the humble, but integral position of the human being.
9 In the case of Girri, Maria Kodama's division of Girri's work is typical, signaling the publication of his Antologi? a tema? tica (1969) as a turning point. Alberto Villanueva and Horacio Castillo, on the other hand, have studied his poetic production in three phases (Villanueva En idiomas 67). In her monograph covering Girri's literary production until 1985, Muriel Slade Pascoe also examines the poet's treatment of time in three periods: denunciation and testimony (1946-1955), solutions (1956-1963) and lucidity (1964-1985). Although I have chosen to read Girri's production as a two-part movement-- all divisions being arbitrary to some degree-- Slade Pascoe's observations are useful in understanding the position of Girri's poetic subject, in what I refer to here as his first movement.
10Girri's books published between 1946 and 1962 are: Playa sola (1946), Coronacio? n de la espera (1947),
Trecepoemas (1949), El tiempo que destruye (1951), Esca? ndaloy soledades (1952), Li? nea de la vida (1955), Examen de nuestra causa (1956), La penitencia y el me? rito (1957), Propiedades de la magia (1959), La condicio?
n necesaria (1960) and Elegi? as italianas (1962). His later works are: El ojo (1963), Envi? os (1967), Casa de la mente (1970), Valores diarios (1970), En la letra, ambigua selva (1972), Diario de un libro (1972, prose), Poesi? a de la observacio? n (1973), Quien habla no esta? muerto (1975), El motivo es elpoema (1976), Arbol de la estirpe humana (1978), Lo propio, lo de todos (1980), Homenaje a W. C. Williams (1981), Li? rica de percepciones (1983), Monodias (1985), Existenciales (1986), Tramas de conflictos (1988), and 1989/1990 (1990).
11Girri coincides chronologically with the Argentinean "generacio? n del 40," that poet and critic Ce? sar Ferna? ndez Moreno catalogues as including: Daniel Devoto, Roberto Paine, Basilio Uribe, Carlos Latorre, Carlos Alberto Alvarez, Alfonso Sola Gonza? lez, Ana Maria Chouhy Aguirre, Eduardo Jonquie? res, Juan Rodolfo Wilcock, Alberto Ponce de Leo? n, E? dgar Bayley, Olga Orozco, Jose? Mari? a Castin? eira, Vicente Barbieri, Silvina Ocampo, Juan Ferreyra Basso, Enrique Molina, Miguel Angel Go? mez, Leo? n Benaro? s
and Miguel Etchebarne (225). Greatly influenced by Federico Garcia Lorca, Rainer Maria Rilke, Neruda's Residencia en la tierra and French poetic tradition, the confluence of neo-romanticism and surrealism is the dominant shared parentage of their poetry, manifested in the their expressions of melancholy, pessimism, rebellion and longing for infinitude (Ferna? ndez Moreno 227). With their romantic tone and turbulent, grandiloquent first-person poetic subject, Girri's earliest books-- Playa sola (1946) and Coronacio? n de la espera (1947), in particular-- coincide with this aesthetic trend, but these characteristics fade in his following collections.
12Cadenas is associated with the Venezuelan "generacio? n del 60" whose most prominent poets--Alfredo Silva Estrada, Guillermo Sucre, Luis Garcia Morales, Alfredo Chaco? n, Rafael Jose? Mun? oz, Juan Calzadilla, Caupolica? n Ovalles, Vi? ctor Valera Mora, Gustavo Pereira, Hesnor Rivera, Amoldo Acosta Bello, Francisco Pe? rez Perdomo and Jose? Barroeta-- generally follow one or more of these four poetic lines: 1) linguistic and political subversion; 2) surrealist and oneiric experimentation; 3) telluric expression; and 4) formalist/ textualist/ transcendentalist approaches (Miranda 103-4). These poets also formed several important groups-- Cantaclaro, Sardio, El Techo de la Ballena, Tro? pico Uno and Tabla Redonda-- that produced collective manifestos and magazines. Cadenas was a founding member of the leftist Tabla Redonda
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? group (1959-61), affiliated with the Communist party, which was founded to "1. Denunciar con voz revolucionaria la realidad venezolana. 2. Oponerse a las tendencias intelectualistas de algunos grupos literarios. 3. Defender la libertad del creador" (Vera 43). Cadenas later renounced his political affiliations, and his publications from Falsas maiobras (1966) on approach poetry as an ascetic search for individual authenticity.
13 Chronologically, Cadenas' poetic oeuvre is composed of: Cantos iniciales (1946), Una isla (1958), Los cuadernos del destierro (1960, 2001), Derrota (1966), Falsas maniobras (1966), Intemperie (1977), Memorial (1977), Amante (1983), Dichos (1992), Gestiones (1992), and Obra entera. Poesi? ay prosa (Editorial Pre- Textos, 2007; Fondo de Cultura Econo? mica, 2000, 2010).
14For an analysis of Foucault's critique of humanism and the concept of Man as it relates to the Latin American tradition and particularly to Borges, see Zavala.
15 Foucault describes the construction of Man through three doublets, or binary oppositions that structure humanistic thought: 1) an empirico-transcendental doublet; 2) the cogito and the unthought; 3) the retreat and return of the origin. Dreyfus and Rabinow elaborate on these categories: "(1) as a fact among other facts to be studied empirically, and yet as the transcendental condition of the possibility of all knowledge; (2) as surrounded by what he cannot get clear about (the unthought), and yet as a potentially lucid cogito, source of all intelligibility; and (3) as the product of a long history whose beginning he can never reach and yet, paradoxically as the source of that very history" (31).
16All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.
17Heidegger attempts to ask the question of Being explicitly, not in terms of beings themselves (the ontic), or a conceptualization of Being in terms of a highest being. In his earlier works, Heidegger seeks a meaning of Being, but then reformulates his question in the 1930s as an inquiry into the truth of Being. Truth (aletheia) is understood as the way in which the world is opened up, or in other words, the process whereby the horizon within which beings appear is produced. This process and horizon, Heidegger specifies, is historically conditioned, and epochal: "There is Being only in this or that particular historical character: physis, logos, en, idea, energeia, Substantiality, Objectivity, Subjectivity, the Will, the Will to Power, the Will to Will. [. . . ] The manner in which it, Being, gives itself, is itself determined by the way in which it clears itself" (Identity and Difference 66-67). This part of Heideggers thought-- a historical, as opposed to a transcendental approach to Being-- is not far from Foucault's epistemological periodization of knowledge. 18Heidegger's quaternary description of the world, whose terms originate from a poem by Holderlin, has often been criticized by scholars as a flight of poetic fancy in its description of the interrelatedness of things. Graham Harman, however, evocatively suggests that the "fourfold"-- instead of an arbitrary number of categories to classify the things of the world-- is a means to describe the "structure of reality itself" (176) in which "earth" and "sky" are the respective terms for the universal processes of revealing and concealing, and "divinities" and "mortals" are terms that capture how this dualism operates at the ontic level (see Chapter Two, "Beyond Being and Time," particularly section 18 "The Fourfold"). Both understandings of the fourfold, however, are useful in approaching Girri's and Cadenas' poetry.
19I would like to highlight, following Alain Badiou, that the field of cultural studies is possible because of its grounding in a particular humanism of Man that emanates from the hegemonic logic of late capitalism (Ethics 4--5) that, in his view, neutralizes alternative philosophical inquiries. As Foucault suggests, true thinking today is only possible within "the void left by man's disappearance" (The Order o f Things 343). See also Badiou's discussion of the disappearance of Man and God in Le Siecle (243-51).
20 Many studies test Edward Said's classic model of Orientalism in the Hispanic context, concluding that most Latin American authors do not partake in the power dynamics, cultural representations and political doctrines that constitute Said's definition. See: Tinajero (2004) and Kushigian (1991). Few critics have examined in a systematic fashion the appropriation and adaptation of Eastern philosophical concepts by
Latin American authors.
21 See the following books that explore the connections between Heidegger and Eastern philosophies and religious traditions: May (1996) and Parkes (1990).
Works Cited
Alfonzo Perdomo, Ilis M. Rafael Cadenas, o, La poesi? a como existencia. Ejercicio de aproximacio? n a Los cuadernos del destierro, Falsas maniobras, Intemperiey Memorial. Caracas: Contexto Editores, 1996. Print.
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? Astorga, Omar, ed. La poesi? a, la vida. En torno a Rafael Cadenas. Caracas: Fondo Editorial de la Facultad de Humanidades y Educacio? n Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1999. Print.
Balza, Jose? . "El presente como epifani? a. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). Rafael Cadenas. Mexico, D. F. : FCE, 2000. 7-13. Print.
Badiou, Alain. Ethics: A n Essay on the Understanding o f Evil. Trans. Peter Hallward. New York: Verso, 2001. Print.
--------- . Handbook o fInaesthetics. Trans. Alberto Toscano. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2005. Print.
Blanchot, Maurice. Le livre h venir. Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1959. Print.
Cadenas, Rafael. "Anotaciones. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1977. Mexico, D. F. : FCE, 2000.
529-63. Print.
--------- . "Los cuadernos del destierro. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1959. Mexico, D. F. : FCE,
2000. 61-103. Print.
--------- . "Gestiones. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1977. Mexico, D. F. : FCE, 2000. 385--463.
Print.
--------- . "Intemperie. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1977. Mexico, D. F. : FCE, 2000. 141-57.
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--------- . "Memorial. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1977. Mexico, D. F. : FCE, 2000. 161-325.
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--------- . "Realidady literatura. " Obra entera: Poesi? ay prosa (1958-1995). 1972. Mexico, D. F. : Fondo de
Cultura Econo? mica, 2000. 465-528. Print.
Ca? rcamo-Huechante, Luis and Jose? Antonio Mazzotti. "Presentacio? n: Dislocamientos de la poesi? a
latinoamericana en la escena global. " Revista de Cri? tica Literaria Latinoamericana XXIX. 58 (2003):
9--19. Print.
Clayton, Michelle. Poetry in Pieces: Ce? sar Vallejo and Lyric Modernity. Berkeley and Los Angeles: U of
California P, 2011. Print.
Cobussen, Marcel. Thresholds. Rethinking Spirituality Through Music. Hampshire, England: Ashgate
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Crespo de Arnaud, Ba? rbara. "Pro?
