o "entre-lugar" ...

"Entre o sacrifício e o jogo, entre a prisão e a transgressão, entre a submissão ao código e a agressão, entre a obediência e a rebelião, entre a assimilação e a expressão, - ali, nesse lugar aparentemente vazio, seu templo e seu lugar de clandestinidade, ali, se realiza o ritual antropofágico da literatura-latino americana."

(Silviano Santiago, "O entre-lugar do discurso latino-americano")

a new (counter)stance ...

"Subconsciously, we see an attack on ourselves and our beliefs as a threat and we attempt to block with a counterstance.

But it is not enough to stand on the opposite river bank, shouting questions, challenging patriarchal, white conventions. A counterstance locks one into a duel of oppressor and oppressed; locked in mortal combat, like the cop and the criminal, both are reduced to a common denominator of violence. The counterstance refutes the dominant culture’s views and beliefs, and, for this, it is proudly defiant. All reaction is limited by, and dependent on, what it is reacting against. Because the counterstance stems from a problem with authority—outer as well as inner—it’s a step towards liberation from cultural domination. But it is not a way of life. At some point, on our way to a new consciousness, we will have to leave he opposite bank, the split between the two mortal combatants somehow healed so that we are on both shores at once and, at once, see through serpent and eagle eyes. Or perhaps we will decide to disengage from the dominant culture, write it off altogether as a lost cause, and cross the border into a wholly new and separate territory. Or we might go another route. The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react."

"The struggle is inner ... our psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner, and is played out in outer terrains. Awareness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the 'real' world unless it first happens in the images in our heads."

(Gloria Anzaldúa,  “La conciencia de la mestiza/Towards a New Consciousness," in Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza)

new (mestiza) consciousness ...

"From this racial, ideological, cultural and biological cross-pollinization, an 'alien' consciousness is presently in the making – a new mestiza consciousness, una conciencia de mujer. It is a consciousness of the Borderlands."

"The ambivalence from the clash of voices results in mental and emotional states of perplexity. Internal strife results in insecurity and indecisiveness. The mestiza’s dual or multiple personality is plagued by psychic restlessness.

In a constant state of mental nepantilism, an Aztec word meaning torn between ways, la mestiza is a product of the transfer of the cultural and spiritual values of one group to another. Being tricultural, monolingual, bilingual or multilingual, speaking a patois, and in a state of perpetual transition, the mestiza faces the dilemma of the mixed breed ....

El choque de un alma atrapado entre el mundo del espiritu y el mundo de la tecnica a veces la deja entullada. Cradled in one culture, sandwiched between two cultures, straddling all three cultures ad their value systems, la mestiza undergoes a struggle of flesh, a struggle of borders, an inner war. Like all people, we perceive the version of reality that our culture communicates. Like others having or living in more than one culture, we get multiple, often opposing messages. The coming together of two self-consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference causes un choque, a cultural collision."

"These numerous possibilities leave la mestiza floundering in uncharted seas .... La mestiza constantly has to shift out of habitual formations; from convergent thinking, analytical reasoning that tends to use rationality to move toward a single goal (a Western mode), to divergent thinking, characterized by movement away from set patterns and goals and toward a more whole perspective, one that includes rather than excludes.

The new mestiza copes by developing a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity .... In attempting to work out a synthesis, the self has added a third element which is greater than the sum of its severed parts. That third element is a new consciousness–a mestiza consciousness–and though it is a source of intense pain, its energy comes from continual creative motion that keeps from breaking down the unitary aspect of each new paradigm.

En unas pocas centurias, the future will belong to the mestiza. Because the future depends on the breaking down of two paradigms, it depends on the straddling of two or more cultures. By creating a new mythos–that is, a change in the way we perceive reality, the way we see ourselves, and the ways we behave–la mestiza creates a new consciousness."

(Gloria Anzaldúa,  “La conciencia de la mestiza/Towards a New Consciousness," in Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza)

RESERVA + PALAVRA 14/11

Laura Liuzzi+
GringoCarioca+
Alan Sommer+
mic aberto

prod.: Pedro Rocha

dia 14 > quarta > 18h

FRANCA ENTRADA

Reserva+
av Francisco Otaviano 67, Arpoador, RJ

Detective Poems ...

Rodrigo Garcia Lopes

 

 

POLICE ROMANCE

The dead man bathed in the moon's flashlight.
For the detective, no insight
Except the dark swamp, the fallen corpse,
The thick blood, and the report
By the mean faced policeman
That was now holding a lantern
While he interrogated the black eyed blonde
Who worked for a Greek restaurant
About the money and the strange notes in the car,
About the strange grimace of a smile, about the blood on her scarf.
And before the song on the radio is over
He says: "Only a miracle can save her".
In his hands, the torn letter, a bottle of whiskey.
But a verdict is still a little too risky.
Nothing was clear in the statements, of how this broad
Was found on a full moon by the side of the road:
"You gotta pay for what you cannot say",
She said, right as he turned away
From a kiss that would have been fatal.
The moon enhanced her crystals.
And then a moment of silence
As the crickets punctuated a sign.
She said: "The clues are everywhere
In your diary, on the sixteenth, in red, on the calendar".
While the detective searched the night
The blonde poured something white
Into his bottle. "In this profession, you need time
To solve this almost perfect crime".
She said nothing, or almost nothing, only heard
As the truth was revealed in every word.
At this point, everything seemed so clear,
And he said: "Have a drink, now, my dear!"

-- Rodrigo Garcia Lopes

*Translated from the Portuguese by Marco Alexandre de Oliveira



THE DETECTIVE DOGS

The detective dogs
in their black capes
never give up —
they sniff dunes, in pairs,
take the beach by surprise
telepathic crabs

the detective dogs
bite the fog of the sea-breeze
investigate
suicidal seagulls
sinister fish hatcheries
forests that meditate
the sea and its mantra
the crash of the waves
always different

they elucidate my
footprints on the sand
terrorist waves
suspect surfers
other dogs
throughout the afternoon
in search of clues

the detective dogs spy on
the beige silex of the dunes
the vertical, kamikaze fall
and splash
and never let themselves be misled
they are tramp detective dogs
they unleash clues that the waves hide
when they explode

stray dogs, detectives,
they make their rounds on the beach
and also know how to be sly
barking their enigmas
pressuring victims
hidden in the shoal
or disguised as humans

the detective dogs place themselves
in the skin of their prey
and don’t give up on the crabs
they find their alibis
in the lips of the waves
the only evidence
the beach and its necklace of pearls
the sea is a witness

they also have fun
with the southern wind
ears
between their paws
eyes wide shut
when by day they retrace the footprints
the black dogs detect
the truth, rotten fish,
get up and keep on
until the afternoon turns itself in.

-- Rodrigo Garcia Lopes

*Translated from the Portuguese by Marco Alexandre de Oliveira



THE LAST JOURNEY

He stepped on the beach
for the first time
in ages -
Seagulls watched him.
Aroma of algae.
The burning, saline Southern wind.
Odysseus came down
from the raft murmuring
something to himself
in an almost extinct dialect.
He put up the oars, a few fish,
to the music of a loudspeaker
versus a salmon sunset.
Afterwards, he saw the weak lights
flickering in the town houses.
A sea-breeze of marijuana reached his nostrils.
Funk.
Roaring laughter.
None of the fishermen recognized him.
Penelope had never existed.
That was not his legend.
Ithaca had never existed.
Odysseus turned to the beach without history
and said nothing:
he lit a cigarette and contemplated
the absurd dark blue of the nocturnal sea
versus the untiring white lines
of the breaking of the waves.

-- Rodrigo Garcia Lopes

*Translated from the Portuguese by Marco Alexandre de Oliveira



ROMANCE POLICIAL

A lanterna da lua banhava o morto.
No rosto do detetive, nenhum sopro
A não ser o ar pesado do mangue, o corpo
Caído, espesso sangue, e o pouco
Dito pelo policial com cara de mau
Que agora segurava um castiçal
Interrogando a loira de olhos negros
Que trabalhava para um restaurante grego
Da grana e dos bilhetes estranhos no porta-luvas,
Do estranho esgar de sorriso, do sangue em sua luva.
E antes que a canção no rádio acabe
Ele diz: "Para salvá-la, só um milagre".
Nas mãos, a carta rasgada ao meio, garrafa de uísque
Pela metade. Mas ainda é cedo para que ele se arrisque.
Nada ficou claro nos depoimentos, de como essa sereia
Foi encontrada pela estrada à lua cheia:
"Do que não se pode falar, deve se calar",
Ela disse, bem no momento dele virar
E ser beijado por seus lábios fatais.
A lua aumentava seus cristais.
Seguiu-se um minuto de silêncio
E os grilos pontuavam um indício. Ela disse:
"As pistas estão em toda parte, em seu diário,
No dia dezesseis em vermelho no calendário".
Enquanto o detetive revistava a lua
A loira derramou uma poção branca na sua
Garrafinha de uísque. "Nessa profissão, é preciso jeito
Para resolver este quase crime perfeito".
Ela não dizia nada, ou quase nada, só o olhava
Sabendo que a verdade estava em cada palavra.
A esta altura, tudo parecia bem nítido
E agora ele a forçava a beber o líquido.

-- Rodrigo Garcia Lopes



OS CÃES DETETIVES

Os cães detetives
em seus capotes negros
nunca desistem —
farejam dunas, em dupla,
pegam a praia de surpresa
siris telepatas

os cães detetives
mordem a neblina da maresia
investigam
gaivotas suicidas
pesqueiros sinistros
matas que meditam
o mar e seu mantra
o estrondo das ondas
sempre outras

elucidam minhas
pegadas na areia
ondas terroristas
surfistas suspeitos
outros cães
por toda a tarde
em busca de pistas

os cães detetives espreitam
o bege sílex das dunas
a queda kamikaze, vertical
dos mergulhões
e nunca se deixam enganar
são cães detetives caiçaras
soltam pistas que as ondas ocultam
quando explodem

cães sem dono, detetives,
dão seu batente na praia
e sabem ser sacanas também
latindo seus enigmas
pressionando vítimas
ocultos pela restinga
ou disfarçados de humanos

os cães detetives se colocam
na pele de sua presa
e não desistem dos siris
acham seus álibis
nos lábios das ondas
única evidência
a praia e seu colar de pérolas
o mar é testemunha

também se divertem
com o vento sul
orelhas
entre as patas
olhos cerrados de espera
quando do dia retraçam as pegadas
os cães negros detectam
a verdade, peixe podre,
se levantam e seguem
até que a tarde se entregue.

-- Rodrigo Garcia Lopes



A ÚLTIMA VIAGEM

Pisou na praia
pela primeira vez
em séculos —
Gaivotas o vigiavam.
Olor de algas.
O vento salino, ardente e Sul.
Odisseu desceu
da balsa murmurando
alguma coisa para si
num dialeto quase extinto.
Arrumou os remos, poucos peixes,
sob a música de um alto-falante
contra um por de sol salmão.
Depois, viu as lâmpadas frouxas
piscando nas casas do povoado.
Maresia de maconha alcançou suas narinas.
Funk.
Risadas altas.
Nenhum pescador o reconheceu.
Penélope nunca existira.
Aquela não era sua lenda.
Ítaca nunca existira.
Odisseu virou-se para a praia sem história
e nada disse:
acendeu um cigarro e contemplou
o azul escuro absurdo do mar noturno
contra as linhas brancas incansáveis
da arrebentação.

-- Rodrigo Garcia Lopes

 

 

"boralá" ... CEP 20.000

SÓ INDO SÓ VENDO OUVINDO VIVENDO

os poetas crescrerem

centro de experimentação poética -
22 anos -
poesia / música / perforformance

farani cinco três
movimento cidades (in)visíveis
matilde campilho
joão velho
ana chagas
pedro lage
cláudio baltar
tavinho paes
diego lemos - voz e violão
ana beatriz ferreira batista
ismar tirelli neto
gringo carioca
léo gonçalves
renato negrão
paulo scott
josé henrique calazans

Faulkner's formula ...

"Ninety-nine percent talent . . . ninety-nine percent discipline . . . ninety-nine percent work. He [the writer] must never be satisfied with what he does. It never is as good as it can be done. Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. An artist is a creature driven by demons. He don't know why they choose him and he's usually too busy to wonder why. He is completely amoral in that he will rob, borrow, beg, or steal from anybody and everybody to get the work done."

-- William Faulkner, Interview in the Paris Review No. 12, 1956

a volta do gringocarioca ...

"prazer"

"origens"

"poeta"

"poor trait of an artist"

"casa de areia"

"o q passa?"

*apresentação durante a celebração dos 22 anos do CEP 20.000, gravado no 30 de agosto de 2012, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil

"double-consciousness"

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his twoness ... two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one ... body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."

-- W.E.B. DU BOIS, The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

lonesome blues ...

     "Ain't got nobody in all this world,
       Ain't got nobody but ma self.
       I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
       And put ma troubles on the shelf."

(Langston Hughes, from "Weary Blues")

22 anos do CEP 20.000

CEP 20.000
espaço cultural sérgio porto
rua humaitá, 163/fundos / tel: 2535 3846. festa de 22 anos.
quinta feira / dia 30 de agosto / 20:30 / 5,00.
 
"é chegado o viségimo segundo ano e o centro de experimentação poética canta. mundo desencanta e o cep vinte mil, irredutível, sonha. sonha com chinas e chicos se tirando para dançar ainabalável balada dos que acreditam. o cep faz vinte dois e ergue um brinde à loucura, à dose necessária de delírio diário para tirar a vida do sério e dançar. boralá!"

20:30: batalha do passinho: vídeo.
20:45: chacal.
20:50: farani cinco três.
21:10: ana schlimovich.
21:15: tiago malta.
21:20: madame kaos. beatriz provasi. marcela gianinni. juliana holanda.
21:30: arnaldo brandão. fausto fawcett. tavinho paes.
21:45: gringo carioca.
21:50: caio paiva.
21:55: ítala ísis.
22:00: marilene vieira.
22:05: tereza seiblitz e rosa douat
22:15: mariano marovato. augusto guimaraens. lucas viriato.
22:25: cristina flores.
22:30: estrondo. alice sant’anna. gregório duvivier. marília garcia. chacal.
22:40: marcelo montenegro. fábio brum.
22:50: luana vignon.
22:55: falapalavra.
23:05: botika. bubu. daniel
23:20: macumbaião. pedro rocha. bernardo palmeira.
23:30: fim.
--

Damn it!

“There is nothing sacred about literature, it is damned from one end to the other. There is nothing in literature but change and change is mockery. I'll write whatever I damn please, whenever I damn please and as I damn please and it'll be good if the authentic spirit of change is on it.”

― William Carlos Williams, Prologue to Kora in Hell: Improvisations 

word(s) of the day ...

"If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word."

(T.S. Eliot, From "Ash-Wednesday")

the saying and the (un)said ...

"It may be that, like things which speak to themselves in their language of things, language does not speak of things or of the world: it may speak only of itself and to itself .... Certain realities cannot be expressed, but, and here I quote from memory, 'they are what is manifested in language without language saying it.' They are what language does not say and hence says. (What is embodied in language is not silence, which by definition says nothing, nor is it what silence would say if it were to speak. If it were to cease to be silence, and instead be ...) What is said in language without language saying it is saying (that is to say?): what is really said (that which makes its appearance between one phrase and another, in that crack that is neither silence nor a voice) is what language leaves unsaid ...."

(Octavio Paz, The Monkey Grammarian. Trans. Helen R. Lane)

night

a red rose, in the full moon light ...

... a broken heart, on a starless night

Copyright © 2012 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

message

I wanted to write you a message,
but I had nothing to say.
I felt so sad,
I felt so bad,
but I wanted to write you a message,
so I wrote something anyway ...

Copyright © 2012 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

monumovementality*

Copyright © 2012 Marco Alexandre de Oliveira

*excluded from esque, Issue 3 (REVOLUTIONESQUE)

http://www.esquemag.org/

crisis ...

"Languages are imperfect because multiple; the supreme language is missing. Inasmuch as thought consists of writing without pen and paper, without whispering even, without the sound of the immortal Word, the diversity of languages on earth means that no one can utter words which would bear the miraculous stamp of Truth Herself Incarnate .... But then, esthetically, I am disappointed when I consider how impossible it is for language to express things by means of certain keys which would reproduce their brilliance and aura -- keys which do exist as a part of the instrument of the human voice, or among languages, or sometimes even in one language  .... We dream of words brilliant at once in meaning and sound, or darkening in meaning and so in sound, luminously and elementally self-succeeding. But, let us remember that if our dream were fulfilled, verse would not exist -- verse which, in all its wisdom, atones for the sins of languages, comes nobly to their aid."

(Stéphane Mallarmé, "Crisis in Poetry." Trans. Bradford Cook)