WOODCUTS FROM REUBEN'S PHOENIX FANDANGOS

LAT AM POETRY WKSHP @ BEYOND BAROQUE

If you haven't heard, Beyond Baroque is offering a FREE Latin American Poetry Workshop on Mondays from 7-9 in the Beyond Baroque bookstore. Last night, we covered the atmospheric poetry of Uruguayan Mario Benedetti. Next week we will be discussing the poetry of Mistral and Storni, which might be a stretch given the differences in voice and tone exemplified by these poetesses.

TRANSLATION OF "ESTADOS DE ANIMO" (1974)

Moods by Mario Benedetti from "Poemas de Otros" (1974).
Translated by Yago Cura

Moods
by Mario Benedetti


Sometimes I feel
like a poor hill
and other times
like a mountain
of repeating peaks

sometimes I feel
like a cliff
and other times a sky
blue but far

sometimes one is
a geyser between rocks
and other times a tree
with its last leaves

but today I barely feel
like an insomniac lagoon
like a pier bereft of boats

a green lagoon
immobile and patient
happy with its algae
its moss and its fish

serene in my confidences
confident that one afternoon
you will come closer and look at yourself
and see yourself in your looking at me.

CHRISTMAS BONUS (1950) BY BENEDETTI

"Christmas Bonus by Mario Benedetti, originally from Office Poems (1950). Translated in 2000 by Harry Morales and published by Host Publications in 2006.

Christmas Bonus
by Mario Benedetti


I've already added up my bills
and I'm not paying
anyone.

Not the tailor who made these lapels for me
like cock pigeon wings
or the poor grocer
who doesn't sell me sugar
or the bank that hangs me
or the bookseller who complains
or destiny that surely doesn't collect
the tender prayers
that I pay cash on delivery.

I've already added up my bills
and I'm not paying
anyone.

I'll collect the Christmas bonus in one dollar bills
and I'll go walking along Dieciocho
whistling a bitter tango
like another careless person.

THE DAY I GOT MY KEYS FOR THE BB BOOKSTORE TO CONDUCT MY LAT AM POETRY WKSHP

ROSA ESTELA VS ESTELA ROSA

Ma Dukes is currently moving at 600 mph above the Gulf of Mexico or possibly the sad, stringent plains of central Texas. Touchdown in 2 hrs. and 30 mins. at L.A.X. Panda and I definitely more psyched about this than 'Linnsters. The last two weeks a sort of marathon of stressed breaths and clenched invectives since we were counting on her being here two weeks earlier.

New Sunday chore: buying a harness for 'Linnsters so Ma Dukes can keep up with our fidgety midget. If we're lucky there will be a sale on toddler harnesses and we can gladiator with other parents about which designer toddler harness is ergonomically more appropriate for our child, while said children hoist poop kibble out of their pampers. What does one wear to a harness fitting at Toys R' Us.

On Friday when I called to buy her ticket, I gave the agent the birthday we celebrate and not the birthday registered on her license. So, there I am buying her ticket and I'm about as salty as Tom Hanks at a desolate Sandals and the operator asks me my mother's birthday. Naturally, I hesitate because I remember a similar fiasco the last time I was relegated to travel agent cum son. And despite all my best intentions, I gave her incorrect name and incorrect date and birth, and the agent totally laughed at me for not knowing my mother's date of birth.

Naturally, this slight is not taken for granted. I tear into the agent and explain that my poor old ma' was born at a time when it took sometimes two months to plan and travel to the nearest civil registry. Since it was a purely clerical procedure, most people planned accordingly and did not enter the orbit of this obligation for some time, sometimes months. The way it stood with my moms, she was born born on the __ of _________ember but was not registered at the civil registry until a good two days after the year had turned in 19__.

She's has always been Estela to my sisters and I, middle name Rosa. And, we have always thought Rosa to be like a champion carrot for a slow horse: nice, but also very cliche and groncho. So, we always knew Ma Dukes as Estela Rosa, but Rosa Estela is that second skin hanging in her bureau of bones; and, there is no way that you can get rid of that coat once you've decided to lug it around your life, like paperbacks you've grown out of, etc.

MORE BANNERS FOR HINCHAS #6

ABELITO'S THIRD POSTCARD

This is Abel's third postcard. I hope he ripped the image he used in his postcard off of some of Mathew Brady's Civil War photography . Truth be told the cabaret dancer's leg coming out of that general's groin is an apt tangent, especially if you take into consideration how military garb and feminine hosiery are both very ostentatious (dare I say flamboyant and fabulous) styles of clothing. According to Brady's Wikipedia article, Brady is the father of photojournalism. Perusing a bit, I caught some content that made me a little reflective: "During the war, Brady spent over $100,000 to create over 10,000 plates. He expected the U.S. government to buy the photographs when the war ended, but when the government refused to do so he was forced to sell his New York City studio and go into bankruptcy" and "His first popular photographs of the conflict were at the First Battle of Bull Run, in which he got so close to the action that he barely avoided capture."