El proceder de la infancia
Campesinos, panaderos, equilibristas, violeteras, químicos, lectores de agua y hasta buzos, no surgen del repollo del cielo sino de esa mutante paridora de prodigios que es la especie. Ella también provee de poetas al mundo. Motivos tiene. Necesita que imaginen lo aún no sucedido. Que cuiden el almácigo de lo inclasificable. Que impidan toda repetición. También para que la palabra sostenga al día y a la noche. Así, con su soplo verbal, ellos la pasan proponiendo nuevos génesis de recambio. Para estas en apariencia fútiles tareas están los poetas. “Espias de Dios”, según Shakespeare. “Legisladores del mundo”, según Shelley. “Tejedores de palabras”, según Safo.Diagnostica la tradición que “de poeta y de loco, todos tenemos un poco”. Pero no explica porque algunos son muchísimos mas locos que otros y se pasan la vida trabajando gratis como vicarios de la locura y de la poesía públicas. Este es el servicio que los poetas prestan a la sociedad. Y a no quejarse. No es insalubre ni incómodo. Y bien que se los recompensa por ello: cantan, celebran, inventan y salen (y vuelven) del mundo, en formidables aparatos de volar hechos solo con palabras. Para un animal humano no es poca cosa. Que en medio de un país huérfano, como el argentino, unos seres algo inválidos y contra natura, siempre fuera de moda y negados a las pericias básicas (como arreglar un grifo, conducir automóviles o meter la mano en la lata) insistan en imaginar lo que sucede en donde dicen no sucede nada (allí, justo en el camino paralelo al camino) es acontecimiento prodigioso. Lo hagan con agraciadas o desgraciadas voces.Sigue pareciéndome que San Pablo fue un evangelista de la poética al decir de aldea en aldea “Sois como dioses y no os dais cuenta”. A su modo advertía que en cada ser humano hay poeta portátil. Dormido, en ejercicio, o a la espera. Que cada vida es biografía en el sentido de “vida a escribir”. Y que el tiempo que nos queda por vivir es igual al que nos resta por escribir. Siento que “la infancia del procedimiento” contiene la clave misma de la poesía pues el hágase la luz del procedimiento está en la infancia. Y en como recorremos el tiempo del mundo con ella posada intacta en nuestro hombro. Como pájaro que nos da de ver. Y de cantar. En mi caso este asunto es claro y campesino: escribo para vivir. Me siento un ser suelto que tiene en la palabra su cédula de identidad. Fui así desde el arranque. Según mi madre, durante el primer tiempo en la cuna solo dije “yea yea yepa”. Jitanjáfora de tránsito que me acompañó hasta comenzar a escribir. Ya habitante de la cinta sin fin me busqué un idioma hijo. Un sitio donde fuera nuevo vivir. La madraza poesía. La posada y camino a la vez. La jeroglífica por naturaleza. Tierra de todos que se alza con fauna y flora propias entre lo razonado y lo sensible. Intima luz que explora los bordes del sentido. Maga de la que espero me murmure un incierto día (o noche) lo porvenir/me.
Esteban Peicovich / Diciembre ’07
Mi Mujer en Rayos
Un amoroso estudio radiográfico de mi mujer
permite comprobar que la naturaleza
contempló también su belleza interior.
Por ejemplo, esas teselas bizantinas
caídas por el tallo de su guitarra oculta.
Se le ve en su vestido más noche
la desnuda luciérnaga.
Hay ese breve recodo en su columna
y luego la protocolaria curva sonriente
sobre la que descansa el sistema
de su elegancia serenamente náutica.
Hay sus riñones, con ronroneo de Alhambra
y el arco dispensador de sus caderas,
un miriñaque obsceno
ofrecido hasta el fin.
Y hay la Vía Láctea en viaje intercostal
y una rosa que dice si y no, desde un andamio.
También se muestra nítido el esternón
donde suele esperarme.
Estas son apenas las primeras imágenes
de la constelación de mi mujer por dentro.
Dar las de afuera escapa a las angulaciones
y compases de la astronomía.
Sólo se sabe que no tiene término
y que aun dormida ondula,
en pliegues invisibles,
como una buena luz.
(de “La bañera azul”, 1993)
SELECTED POEMS
Translated from the Spanish by Fiona Mackintosh
Esteban Peicovich was born in Argentina in 1930 of an Argentine campesina and a Croatian sailor. Self-taught, his early working life from the ages of 16-28 was spent in a beef refrigeration plant in La Plata, but he has since channelled his energies into the more heated worlds of journalism and literature. Peicovich was for 15 years a correspondent in Madrid (1974-1989) and is currently a regular columnist for La Nación. In his capacity as a journalist he has interviewed Borges, Cela, Cabrera Infante, Bryce Echenique, Vargas Llosa, Onetti, and Roa Bastos, amongst others. He has published significant works on two figures who in their distinct spheres have both been hugely influential on Argentina this century, namely Perón and Borges.
Something of Peicovich’s warmth and sincerity can be gleaned by listening to his late-night radio programme, ‘Los palabristas’ on Buenos Aires’ Radio Municipal. Weekdays at 11pm his genial and resonant tones can be heard, speaking to “oyentes lectores y escritores oyentes” [reading listeners and listening writers] alike. These programmes are devoted to the discussion of Argentine and world literature.
Peicovich’s own contribution to Argentine literature consists of five published books of poetry – Palabra limpia de mí (1960) [My honest word], La vida continúa (1963) [Life goes on], Poemas plagiados (1970) [Plagiarized poems], Instrucciones al pavo real (1993) [Instructions to the peacock] and La bañera azul (1994) [The blue bathtub]. Poemas plagiados is to be re-edited in Valencia, Spain, in October 1999. Peicovich also has one forthcoming book of poems, La pena capital, and is currently working on a collection entitled El zoo portátil.
Despite his extensive media connections, Peicovich has modestly resisted on principle the temptation to promote his own work. This article thus aims to compensate for that reticence by way of promotion in print. Whilst in Buenos Aires for a period of six months’ research, I had the privilege of being introduced to Peicovich by a friend, who suggested to him that I might be able to assist in checking some existing, but as yet unpublished, English translations of his poetry. Checking turned into serious revision and finally led to beginning completely new translations. The versions which follow are a result of this collaboration.
The tone of Peicovich’s poetry has diverse facets. It radiates humour, often makes playful allusions to things metaphysical and Biblical, yet at its core there is a serious desire not to lose human warmth and purpose. Whilst never communicating real despair, there is often a strong hint of post-lapsarian nostalgia. The concept of ‘suceder’, both in the sense of ‘to happen’ and ‘to follow on, successively’ is a key one in his poetry, which also examines the working of poetic language. Finally, Peicovich occasionally uses neologisms, or proper nouns more familiar to an Argentinian reader. Capturing all these elements, and trying to be faithful to his highly personal style poses many challenges to the translator.
Peicovich the journalist and Peicovich the poet overlap in this imaginary interview with Jesus Christ.I have tried to retain the clipped, curriculum vitae-style of the original.
La entrevista
The interview
The main decision made in translating ‘Theory’ was to keep the same verb in English (to make) for both concepts as in the Spanish hacer; although in English one would write a love poem, and to make a love poem perhaps sounds a little unusual, I think it is most important to keep the parallel which underpins the central conceit of the poem.
Teoría
Theory
The major problem in the poem ‘Exercise in Rhetoric’ is the existence in Spanish of two words for humming-bird – picaflor and colibrí – which are synonyms, but the first of which is beautifully descriptive of the action of the bird, darting at the flower with its characteristically long and pointed beak. Peicovich not only coins two new verbs (picaflorear and colibrear) from these names, but also bases the main metaphor of the poem around this suggestive difference. Dissatisfied with my attempts to invent a convincing-sounding synonym for humming-bird which would also suggest the needle-like action of the beak and the consequent assassin metaphor, I took the liberty (approved by Peicovich) of changing the assassin to a thief and coining the synonym honey-bird. This has a nice alliterative connection to humming-bird and also suggests the action of stealing pollen from the flower like a bee taking honey.
Ejercicio de oratoria
Exercise in rhetoric
Inspired by the wonderful tranquility of Buenos Aires’ Jardín botánico, this poem – like several of Peicovich’s – features a proper noun perhaps less familiar to European readers. The ginkgo is a Japanese tree with fan-shaped leaves, and I have therefore inserted the word ‘tree’ for elucidation. The idea of ‘historia natural’ is difficult to capture; obviously it is on the literal level a story about nature, the falling of rose petals, but the symbolic import of this event summing up the entire history of man, with the Biblical connotations of man’s fall, must also be expressed, as must the field of scientific study brought into play by the set phrase ‘natural history’.
Jardín botánico
Botanic garden
Diagnóstico
Diagnostic
Peicovich, we can safely assume, would not be in favour of genetically modified tomatoes.
La bañera azul
The blue bathtub
In ‘Europe’ it was important to get across the image of the seagulls as being like puffed-up old ladies, ridiculous in their aristocratic pretensions. Peicovich settled for the translation ‘great dames’, preferring the overtones of aristocracy in ‘dames’ to the simpler ‘ladies’. We rejected ‘grand dames’ on account of the awkwardness of the repeated ‘d’.
Europa
Europe
The following poem centres around the image of a chaja, which is a bird native to Argentina, about the size of a peacock, and commonly seen in the countryside. On ranches and estancias in the South, it acts as a sentry, giving warning of strangers. It is an inland bird, rarely seen by the sea. Probably the closest equivalent bird familiar to non-Argentinians is the albatross, but this could not be subsituted since it too appears in the poem. An explanatory note thus seems the only solution.
El viaje
The journey
