the deserted yellow beaches / las disiertas playas amarillas (Blas de Otero)

Passing by the second-hand bookstall on the Playa del Cura in Torrevieja, during our recent travels, I found this selected Verso y prosa by Blas de Otero (1916 - 1979): I managed to get through the introductory material but not much more. Now back home, I happened to pick up another book from my shelves that I'd never got round to reading, and I discovered Blas de Otero here too: Vredgade vittnen (Angry witnesses), a 1966 showcase of six Spanish poets, translated by Francisco J. Uríz and Artur Lundkvist. 

So, translating partly from the original Spanish and partly from their Swedish, here's one of Blas de Otero's poems, published in Que trata de España (Paris, 1964; it was only available in censored form in Spain until 1977). 

Swimming and writing diagonally

To write in Spain is to speak in order not to remain silent

about what happens in the street, it's to say in half-words

whole cathedrals of simple truths

forgotten or concealed and endured deep down,

to write is to smile with a dagger stuck in your neck,

words that open up like the mouldered gates

of a cemetery, photo albums

of a Spanish family : the child,

the mother, and the future that awaits you

if you don't exchange the coloured marbles,

the rubber stamps and the fake postage stamps,

and learn to write twisted

and to walk right up to the illuminated threshold,

sweetness albums that one day will turn your life bitter

if you don't keep them in the depths of the sea

along with the keys to the deserted yellow beaches,

I remember childhood as the corpse of a child beside the shore,

now it's late and I'm afraid that no words will do

to save the past, no matter how tirelessly they labour

towards another shore where the wind doesn´t batter down the coloured sunshades.

Blas de Otero (1916 - 1979)

[Image source: https://victormazzihuaycucho.blogspot.com/2012_06_01_archive.html .]

Nadando y escribiendo en diagonal

Escribir en España es hablar por no callar

lo que ocurre en la calle, es decir a medias palabras

catedrales enteras de sencillas verdades

olvidadas o calladas y sufridas a fondo,

escribir es sonreír con un puñal hincado en el cuello,

palabras que se abren como verjas enmohecidas

de cementerio, álbumes

de familia española : el niño,

la madre, y el porvenir que te espera

si no cambias las canicas de colores,

las estampinas y los sellos falsos,

y aprendes a escribir torcido

y a caminar derecho hasta el umbral iluminado,

dulces álbumes que algún día te amargarán la vida

si no los guardas en el fondo del mar

donde están las llaves de las disiertas playas amarillas,

yo recuerdo la niñez como un cadáver de niño junto a la orilla,

ahora ya es tarde y temo que las palabras no sirvan

para salvar el pasado por más que braceen incansablemente

hacia otra orilla donde la brisa no derribe los toldos de colores.

Translation into Swedish by Artur Lundkvist and Francisco J. Uríz :

Simma och skriva på sned

Att skriva i Spanien är att tala för att inte förtiga

vad som händer på gatan, det är att halvvägs utsäga

hela katedraler uppfyllda av enkla sanningar,

glömda eller nedtystade, och djupt "genomlidna",

att skriva är att le med en dolk nedstucken i halsen,

orden öppnar sig som låsta grindar

till kyrkogårdar, album

över spanska familjer : barnet,

modern, och framtiden som väntar dig

om du inte byter de färgade kulorna,

stämplarna och de falsa frimärkena,

och lär dig att skriva förvridet

och gå rakt mot den upplysta dörrtröskeln,

ljuvliga album so en dag kommer att förbittra ditt liv

om du inte gömmer dem på havets botten

där nycklarna till de ödsliga, gula stränderna vilar,

jag minns barndomen som ett barnlik vid stranden,

nu är det sent och jag fruktar att inga ord ska duga

för att rädda det förflutna, också om de outtröttligt kämpar

för att nå en annan strand där vinden inte slår omkull de färgrika soltälten. 

Artur Lundkvist

[Image source: https://pippoetry.blogspot.com/2008/12/artur-lundkvit.html .]

Gabriel García Márquez, Francisco J. Uríz and Artur Lundkvist in December 1982.

[Image source: https://pazestereo.com/como-de-lejos-estoy-del-nobel/  (Archive of Francisco J. Uríz). Márquez had come to Stockholm to collect his Nobel Prize for Literature. Uríz (b. Zaragoza, 1932) is a long time resident of Stockholm (he normally translates from Swedish to Spanish, and also writes about Nordic culture and history). Lundkvist became a member of the Swedish Academy in 1968.]

*

Blas de Otero was born in Bilbao. His mother's family came from the nearby village of Orozco, set in a typical Basque valley among the mountains. 

Orozco

                       Heuskara, ialgi adi canpora! Heus-

                       kara, habil mundu guzira!

                                                               Etxepare'k *

The valley

lies at the foot of the Gorbea,

winds its way round

Santa Marina,

goes up

to Barambio, and down

to the railway line

in Llodio,

a valley characterized

by incessant light rain,

impressing, in the mud,

the slow wheels of carts

drawn by red oxen, 

behind them the black or striped smock

of the peasant with his beret,

my little homeland,

sky of cream

above the green ferns,

the hairy bramble,

the sombre oak tree, the chestnuts'

frowning shade, 

the steep heights of pinewoods.

Here is the bridge

by the town-hall square ;

stones in the river

that my thirteen-year-old feet

crossed over, pelota-court

where every day I stretched

my youthful muscles,

songs from the fields

and the sound of the tambourine,

                                                      twilights

of the traditional romerías

of Ibarra, Murueta,

Luyando, midday

in the garden

of my grandmother, 

August light iridescing the cherry trees,

painting the apple trees, polishing

the fresh pear tree,

my little homeland,

I am writing beside the Kremlin,

I hold back the tears and, despite all

I have suffered and lived,

I am happy.

* Bernard Etxepare, whose  Linguae vasconum primitiae (1545) was the first printed book in the Basque language (Euskara). 

Translation:  Euskara, go forth! Euskara, walk the world at large! 

Town Hall at Orozko

[Image source: Wikipedia . Photo by Zarateman, taken 28th March 2020.]

*

You can find a lot of the poems in Que trata de España (in the original Spanish) here:  

https://elfarodeferia.wordpress.com/portfolio/que-trata-de-espana/