CARTULARIOS MEDIEVALE; Medieval Cartularies; Cartulaires Médiévales, Middle Ages Kopiarbuch

Monday, May 2, 2011

How Good Are Roketa Dune Buggies

After a certain age, my father read newspapers with apprehension, fearing to find news about the death of his friends and acquaintances. Starts to happen the same with websites, the bad news on the Internet are like a virus, nothing stops them.

is how to open "La Jornada of Mexico my first reading on Monday morning, May 2, I hit a headline announcing the death of Raúl Leis at 63 years old, on Saturday 30 April, just two days before the end of the anniversary of the disappearance of Paulo Freire.

As I write these lines there is still nothing on Raul on the website of the Council for Adult Education in Latin America (CEAAL), and ironically a Google search is the first thing on your profile in the " Directory of Panama living writers ." Still alive.

Raul I have not seen it many years, so they trample on the memory of memories, blurred or crisp, brief meetings in Panama, Cuba, Nicaragua or Mexico.

Raúl Leis

Raúl was a sociologist and university professor, prolific writer, journalist, promoter of popular education, human rights defender, citizen political participation. It will be remembered for all these aspects but much more. Along with Carlos Nunez and Oscar Jara Alforja group, Raul was one of the three musketeers of popular education from which we draw so many in Latin America in the 1980 and 1990. He was president of the Center for Social Assistance of Panama (CEASPA), Chairman of CEAAL, driver of the Citizens Alliance for Justice, and candidate for Congress in 1994 by the group Egoró Pope presiding Rubén Blades.

Among his works of short stories, drama and stand trial: Notes on methodology and practice of change, Voices of struggle, Machi: a Kuna in the city, the bow and arrow, The Bridge, Remedies for grief and Do you want me to tell you again?, Bridge, Macuá The Nest, Panama, lights and shadows . Leo won five National Book Award Ricardo Miró.

My memories of that big man with a prematurely bald, deal with events on popular education and communication in which we participate. We were in the assembly of CEAAL in Guanajuato, in November 1987, when Mario Kaplun was coordinator of the Popular Communication Network. On another occasion, in June 1988, we were at a meeting in Cuba, organized with the support of Casa de las Americas in an isolated hotel in Machurrucutú, with participants from throughout Latin America.

Invasion of Panama, in 1989

Kaplún Mario Raúl replaced in the coordination of the People's Communication Network in September 1989 organized the Latin American Meeting of People's Culture and Communication, in Panama City. We met at a retreat in the Chorrillo neighborhood just two months later, on December 20, 1989 (eight days after birthday Raul), the 417 was destroyed by U.S. bombs during the invasion of Panama, under the guise of removing Noriega from power, as now happens in Libya on the pretext of eliminating Gaddafi. Required reading on this subject: "What we really want Uncle Sam" by Noam Chomsky.

remember that meeting in Panama City the fellowship, good humor, optimism (the shirts bore the phrase "Do not worry, ne happy"), and the commitment of all participants, including which was Eduardo Galeano.

Raul fought throughout his life all just causes, and did so with honesty and integrity at all costs.

In his latest column published two days before his death in La Prensa with the title "The heads of the Hydra", Raúl addressed the issue of corruption:

"To the beat Heracles hydra with a sickle, but we need to create a new principle of legitimacy that goes beyond the idea that democracy is only electoral majorities emerged in the heat of election time, for active and everyday citizens guards government leadership that cares about tackling corruption, social deficits, environmental degradation and predation, breach of human rights, with the same care that drives economic growth. "

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Rushing Roulette Game

poetry juice

Leticia Herrera met in early October 2008, he invited me to participate in the XII International Meeting of Writers in Monterrey (Mexico), dedicated this time to the topic " Sexuality and Literature. "I presented some my poetry and a presentation about eroticism and literature, entitled "The Origin of the World" (in homage to Courbet box), which was subsequently published in the journal Bolivia The Feathered Lizard (Fall 2009 ) and the Mexican Replicante (February 2011).

Leticia Herrera Fernando Arrabal

Leticia Herrera was then Director of Arts Council for Culture and Arts of Nuevo León (CONARTE) and had responsibility for several years organizing the event, inviting storytellers and poets of the first order. I had to share these days with the likes of English (living in France), Fernando Arrabal, the Chilean poet Raul Zurita, Ledo Ivo Brazilian, Argentine Rodolfo Alonso, Dolores Castro and Mexico, among others.

Leticia was then that gave me a little book called Living is impossible (2000), where I found Soledad, that captivated me. Three verses as simple as mysterious: " yesterday I went to cut hair / needed someone to touch me / help ." These verses of a poem as soon as infinity were a key to read it. So I found his poetry fresh and crisp to the ear like freshly baked bread.

In 2010 I was asked to write the preface to his "provisional anthology" Just say I was and I accepted welcome the opportunity to present this review early poetry. Any anthology is a balance, in this case one that is half way to close one stage and look ahead.

The book was just released in Mexico (February 2011), published by The Ink in the mirror. In my foreword I go into the stages of the poetry of Leticia Herrera, well represented by the selected poems of several books: Pay per view (1984), Eagle Ridge (1985), Poems to mourn (1985-1990), snail (1996), Living is impossible (2000), needed rain (2002), and For we also come (2006).

Reading Leticia Herrera is a mixture of pleasure, curiosity and shared suffering because in his poetry there are fibers that touch us all somehow feel the same giddiness of being " to match the circumstances s" (of passion and love) "without the parachute reason ".

From Payment to see (1984) Leticia Herrera's poetry exudes eroticism and sensuality, which I think is one of its main attributes. One can not pass with impunity eyes to verses like these: " love your kisses wet / soaked dripping open your lips / your skin is broken / under the blade of my fingers ", written from the experience certainly a sublime experience for the poetic exercise.

In Eagle Ridge (1985), tells us that "A sex that opens / is like a brand new dawn without "and again, the book is crossed by the nerve of desire and pain. Physical love is a way of being alive, but it always entails the pain of loss, which Poems to mourn (1985-1990) becomes a prolonged absences mourning, memories and substitutions.

Poetry is a refuge, a shell to protect against indifference, as in snail (1996), where " was so fragile that mourn / is dehydrating. "Leticia Herrera has that ability to say much with few words, there is nothing left over because his words are like keys that open other ways, such as tracks that one can continue to invest their memory.

Sexuality is an ongoing theme in the poetry of Leticia Herrera. Sometimes appears as if reluctantly, sometimes explosively, as a vindication of women who will not shut up, and that it intends to say everything with all his lyrics in an act of liberation. Thus, there is the least evil to write a poem of a single verse that says: "lame ergo sum", because the catch for the pure pleasure humans is as humanizing as writing poetry, and already told us that beautiful things Octavio Paz.

A delicate eroticism sometimes, and sometimes a stark sexuality emerge breaking the shell of the poems. They are not incompatible " bullet of your hands / where hint / traces of me / sin" and "to most women / ashamed to say / that we like to methamphetamine / but if we like the mess we . " Sexuality appears as in everyday life, in dialogue with other simple, delightfully stirring pleasure these particles released from the body, and some repress and other scattered generously.

Life is full of searches and search poetry is permanent, so that these poems are witness to this woman's journey marked by curiosity. Love and sex are not parallel paths are the same route, so these verses: " if not for the phallus / no men would " or " melancholy is a Aztec dog / biting my vagina . " For the reader, it is refreshing to read poems by women who are not gagged by guilt and are as a response to Mexican machismo.

Leticia Herrera and Alfonso Gumucio, in Monterrey, October 2008

While my favorites are the poems erotic Leticia Herrera discusses other forms of everyday life and does so with the same passion, spontaneity and heartbreaking sincerity. Counterweight to the short poem of a single verse (above), Leticia started the 50 poems of "Living impossible" with the longest, " From nest ", 380 verses describing his memory from age 5 to 14 that begins to suffer the breaking away of adolescence that is passed from girl to woman, without losing the innocence necessary to write many years later .

this anthology would not be complete without also include unpublished poems, that is, those who remain in the shadow poets sometimes modesty and sometimes because they need to rest a while. The unpublished poems Leticia Herrera is a way to tell the reader "here I am today, now." They keep the lines short, witty, That way of playing with words to give them new meanings, and experiential terms is a somewhat skeptical eye on life, on the need to adapt to changing circumstances to survive and cope with the weight: " move the soul skin / and / body tense as the rough / innocent of the evil . "