LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

Reading some poetry by the brand-new Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Anne Carson, I was reminded of Guillermo de Torre, the Spanish ultraist poet, and of how Julio Casares took him to task in an article titled   «Hélices, por Guillermo de Torre» . Casares discusses ultraist poetry with considerable humor and a good deal of sarcasm. The article dates from 1920, 106 years before Carson won the Nobel Prize. Yet the two poets have something in common that is worth pointing out. Casares quotes a poem by de Torre entitled «Fotogenia»: Rostros, Muecas, Visajes Acordes faciales de la emoción iluminada Gestos dardeantes... Now consider these lines by Anne Carson: It's good to be neuter. I want to have meaningless legs. There are things unbearable. ................................................. It is curious how poetry repeats itself. A century separates these two writers, yet both seem to challenge our expectations of what a poem should say, and how it should say it. One was ridiculed ...

  You may have noticed that I am fond of the poetry of Billy Collins , Poet Laureate from 2001-2003 (he loves saying that!), and last night I was once again on YouTube listening to one of his readings. In "After the funeral" he mocks, in his very kind way, a language tic or crutch that is used often to emphasize something. After the funeral, Billy goes with a friend, a friend friend, not just an acquaintance, to a bar, a bar bar, a real bar, to have a cocktail cocktail, a proper one. And he goes on doubling the word. Spanish uses this also, "un amigo amigo", "María es una mujer mujer", and John lives in a "casa casa", a real home. This reinforces my conceit that both languages have more in common than meets the eye.

People do not seem to read or write poetry any more, and yet a good poem can save our day and lift our spirits when emotional darkness envelops us. A poem by Keats, Donne, Frost,  Emily Dickinson, Shakespeare... can bring joy to our despair, solace to our loneliness. Poetry uses metaphors: comparisons between two things that are not alike but which we  pair . For example: Ruby lips (labios de rubí.) Kisses are the flowers of love. Laughter is the music of the soul. Words are the weapons with which we wound. We are all shadows on the wall of time. I was lost in a sea of nameless faces. Life is a walking shadow.  What do you think? Are you poetically inclined? In Spanish, would-be poets wrote about "dientes de perlas", "labios de rubí" and "tu boca es como dos pétalos de rosa." But such is the metaphor. I belong to a generation that was forced at school to learn poetry by heart. I can recite poems in English, Spanish and F...