Wednesday, November 18, 2020

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)





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




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:  








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