I, IX
Quizás sólo nos falte
ser algo menos jóvenes, sentir en otro tono
más distante la vida
sin abusos
con nuestra inevitable humanidad.
De nuevo el paraíso.
Otra vez en la suerte de una casa
no demasiado grande, bajo el sol de los viernes,
un refugio sincero en la colina
donde mirar la tierra con forma de caricia,
mientras marzo se va y abril levanta
la frente de los campos heredados,
a dos horas de viaje.
Junto al cristal dolido de la puerta,
me gusta comprobar que te desean
las raíces por mí, cuando se ciñen
con sus dedos salvajes a tu cuerpo,
a tus enormes días de pezones pequeños,
como sombras de olivo.
Igual que lo hace un sueño, bajas por la pendiente
para dormir conmigo,
incendiando
el encubierto reino de la luz retirada,
que no calla los pleitos de la carne
ni le pone distancia
al ruido mundanal de su vocabulario,
heredado también con estas piedras.
Aunque es más blanco el humo de los leños
y flota en son de paz
sobre el envejecido silencio de estos montes,
aunque los himnos de atardecer
debilitan las voces, acercándolas,
no conozco la senda que me aparte
de un cuerpo al que pedirle dignidad,
un cuerpo no invitado a sus aniversarios, ese calor litúrgico
de los antepasados
y los bailes antiguos
con los hombros desnudos
parecidos al mar.
Es imposible retirarse a tiempo.
Es imposible,
mientras yo me aventuro a sorprendernos,
decirte, conocerte,
tener un privilegio.
Y de nada nos sirven esas horas
que no son de tu edad ni de la mía.
I, XIII
Los pinos han alzado su frente pensativa.
Tu soledad, tan mal documentada,
ignora que va un poco más desnuda
la gente por la calle
y que la piel se abre con el cielo
de azul tumultuoso,
mitad canción, mitad moneda falsa.
Más que sobre los campos,
volvió la primavera
bajo la transparencia de un vestido
o en el jardín ambiguo
que se apoya
—alarmado de mirlos y vencejos—
con más vida en el muro de la casa.
Sólo en ti, como sombras, se levantan
los cuerpos intuidos,
la huella inacabada de los pájaros,
lo que tienen de ajeno
sus juegos en el aire navegable.
Y los miras surgir,
o desaparecidos,
intrigando en las ramas donde el amor intriga
para escribir los versos
que de nosotros nacen
como del mar los restos de un naufragio.
Dos cosas representas:
tristeza y hermosura,
limitación
y alas para un sueño.
I, XX
Se descalzan los días
para pasar de largo sin que nos demos cuenta.
Son casi despedidas, casi encuentros
—felices pero incómodos—
de cuerpos que se miran
y que aplazan la cita.
Aunque detrás,
suelen quedarnos huellas que no son los recuerdos.
De aquel jardín inculto yo conservo
el hombre que venía a desearte,
a caminar sin ti,
silvestre y solo.
Porque de ti le hablaban las adelfas,
con sus ramas difíciles como muchachas jóvenes,
y las palmeras altas igual que tu desnudo,
y aquel cielo corrido
que buscaba
la luz con que el amor te distingue los ojos.
No envejecemos nunca. Tal vez no envejecemos.
Y ahora puedo decírtelo,
cuando tú me recuerdas las adelfas,
y tu desnudo en arco dibuja una palmera,
y los ojos se nublan
sobre el jardín silvestre de los enamorados.
Tal vez no envejecemos. O es acaso que el tiempo
se quitó los tacones para no molestarnos.
O es acaso el deseo
que camina en los labios todavía descalzo.
de Diario cómplice
Luis García Montero
Listen to I, XX read in the original Spanish by Alice McAdams:
Luis García Montero is one of the leaders of a poetry movement in Spain known as poesía de la experiencia or Poetry of Experience. While the social poets of the 1950s envisioned poetry as a wholly utilitarian genre to criticize political repression and the novísimos of the 1970s sought to reclaim poetry as a highly aesthetic, intellectual form, poesía de la experiencia is primarily concerned with locating emotional profundity within the experience of the common man in daily life. García Montero emphasizes the importance of employing a shared, quotidian language; his use of urban spaces mirrors this dedication to communal experience. His poetic voice is one that constantly seeks to minimize its own primacy in an effort to dissolve the barriers between the poet and the wider world.
In many ways, my translation methodology fits neatly with García Montero's poetic ethos. Just as the poet places a heavy emphasis on collaboration and endeavors to combat all forms of isolation, so too my translations rely on a dialogue of shared influence between English and Spanish. I follow Lawrence Venuti's criticism of a fluent strategy, in which the translation is disguised as a work originally produced in the target language, and endorse what I term a foreign strategy, in which the translator deliberately retains syntactical nuances and cultural markers of the source language. By allowing English to be impacted by the structure and style of Spanish, my goal is to challenge an Anglocentric approach to literature in the English-speaking world and depart from the traditionally imperialistic practices of translators.
Yet while my methodology and García Montero's motivations run thematically parallel, I encounter certain obstacles in translating his aesthetic. He has written that "poetry is not the invention of an extravagant language but the personal and rigorous treatment of the language of society." Conversely, I find that a foreign strategy necessarily produces a strangeness of language; to strive for a purely commonplace expression in the target language is to obscure any influence of the source language. Ultimately, I have had to consider what the most ethical meaning of "fidelity" is in poetry translation, at times adhering more closely to the particularities of Spanish than to García Montero's stated intentions.
In many ways, my translation methodology fits neatly with García Montero's poetic ethos. Just as the poet places a heavy emphasis on collaboration and endeavors to combat all forms of isolation, so too my translations rely on a dialogue of shared influence between English and Spanish. I follow Lawrence Venuti's criticism of a fluent strategy, in which the translation is disguised as a work originally produced in the target language, and endorse what I term a foreign strategy, in which the translator deliberately retains syntactical nuances and cultural markers of the source language. By allowing English to be impacted by the structure and style of Spanish, my goal is to challenge an Anglocentric approach to literature in the English-speaking world and depart from the traditionally imperialistic practices of translators.
Yet while my methodology and García Montero's motivations run thematically parallel, I encounter certain obstacles in translating his aesthetic. He has written that "poetry is not the invention of an extravagant language but the personal and rigorous treatment of the language of society." Conversely, I find that a foreign strategy necessarily produces a strangeness of language; to strive for a purely commonplace expression in the target language is to obscure any influence of the source language. Ultimately, I have had to consider what the most ethical meaning of "fidelity" is in poetry translation, at times adhering more closely to the particularities of Spanish than to García Montero's stated intentions.
Luis García Montero is widely considered to be Spain's most prominent contemporary poet. He has written over forty books of poetry, novels, and essays, and is the recipient of the Adonáis Prize, the Loewe Prize, the Spanish National Literature Prize, and the Spanish National Critics Prize. Along with his active work in the literary sphere, he is a prominent voice of Spain's political left and recently helped found the party Open Left (Izquierda Abierta). He has been writing and publishing in Granada for over three decades.
Alice McAdams is a current master's student at Middlebury College in Madrid and will begin a PhD in Spanish literature at the University of Michigan this fall. She began studying and translating García Montero as part of her senior thesis at Oberlin College. Her translations of García Montero's poetry have been published in Typo and are forthcoming in Circumference and Mid-American Review. When not in Spain, she lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
