A Pair of Poems by Two Great Literary Figures: Borges and Pessoa

THROWBACK THURSDAY

I owe my discovery of the influential Argentine writer Borges to a late 1960's edition of Antioch Review. Or was it an audio book with its mind-blowing story, The Garden of Forking Paths?

I owe my discovery of Pessoa, the enigmatic Portuguese literary figure, to an economics professor from Brazil. Or was it an artist from Lisbon who introduced his writings to me?

Each has produced a body of work that is wholly original, that continuously surprises. Here are a pair of examples, the first by Fernando Pessoa.

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There's no one who loves me.

Hold on, yes there is;

But it's hard to feel certain

About what you don't believe in.

It isn't out of disbelief

That I don't believe, for I know

I'm well liked. It's my nature

Not to believe, and not to change.

There's no one who loves me.

For this poem to exist

I have no choice

But to suffer this grief.

How sad not to be loved!

My poor, forlorn heart!

Et cetera, and that's the end

Of this poem I thought up.

What I feel is another matter...

                      December 25, 1930

From A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe, Selected Poems of Fernando Pessoa

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I owe a great debt to Jorge Luis Borges, the Argentine author who unveiled for me the possibilities of fiction. I read, and savored, every story.

In addition to being a writer of stories, he was also an essayist and a poet. Here is a poem that takes you to a different sort of place and reveals the nature of his thought.

The Watcher

The light enters and I remember who I am; he is there.
He begins by telling me his name which (it should now be clear) is mine.
I revert to the servitude which has lasted more than seven times ten years.
He saddles me with his rememberings.
He saddles me with the miseries of every day, the human condition.
I am his old nurse; he requires me to wash his feet.
He spies on me in mirrors, in mahogany, in shop windows.
One or another woman has rejected him, and I must share his anguish.
He dictates to me now this poem, which I do not like.
He insists I apprentice myself tentatively to the stubborn Anglo-Saxon.
He has won me over to the hero worship of dead soldiers, people with whom I could
scarcely exchange a single word.
On the last flight of stairs, I feel him at my side.
He is in my footsteps, in my voice.
Down to the last detail, I abhor him.
I am gratified to remark that he can hardly see.
I am in a circular cell and the infinite wall is closing in.
Neither of the two deceives the other, but we both lie.
We know each other too well, inseparable brother.
You drink the water from my cup and you wolf down my bread.
The door to suicide is open, but theologians assert that, in the subsequent shadows of the other kingdom, there will I be, waiting for myself.

Spanish; trans. Alastair Reid

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Borges was famous for his labyrinthian stories which circle about recurring themes, so it is not surprising to find a short reflection called Borges and I, which elucidates the same notion. And then there is his story The Other, in which he as an older man meets his younger self in a quirked jag of time.

Learn more about this remarkably innovative and influential man whose profound perspectives continue to awaken minds to the possibilities of fiction.

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"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."
--Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen, R.I.P.

I have two friends who saw him perform within the past year. Both said the concerts were amazing. Even at 82, his emotional performances were three hours in length, and left no one unmoved.

I was introduced to his music in 1970, my first year at Ohio U., by a close friend who had been to Woodstock. When we listened to "Avalanche" together I was floored. This was no ordinary songwriter. Like Dylan, even before he'd become "famous" Cohen was massively influential amongst his peers. His transcendent lyrics found expression in others' mouths in ways that Dylan's song flowed through the hallways and corridors of our age even before we knew him. Check in and see how many different versions of his "Hallelujah" have been performed by other artists.  And then, of course, there is "Suzanne."

The old man had style. You could see it in the fierce angle at which he cocked his fedora, the manner in which he wielded his walking stick, the way he wore his face... and the grit in his voice.

Cohen was a Canadian who became part of the New York music scene -- like Neil Young, like the Hawks (who became Dylan's backing band when he went electric), like Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell and other familiar names and voices of the era, songwriters all. Must be something in the water, or perhaps the bitter winters.

This obit begins by citing a pair of labels he's been called: "the high priest of pathos" and the "godfather of gloom" Expectingrain.com today lists no less than 25 links to obituaries and articles by publications and writers offering last respects, acknowledging his influence and significance. Perhaps anticipating his departure this, his latest album release, received a career-honoring overview from The New Yorker: Leonard Cohen Makes It Darker.

This is but a brief acknowledgement that another bird has flown.

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Read the Rolling Stone obituary: Leonard Cohen Deat At 82.

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Photo source: Wikipedia

Throwback Thursday: Kazui Ishiguro on Dylan

Like most avid readers I read when I can, and never as much as I'd like. A lot of my reading occurs in snippets during my lunch hours. This week I carried around with me a borrowed Spring 2008 edition of The Paris Review, chiefly with the purpose of reading a fascinating interview with Kazuo Ishiguro, author of Remains of the Day which I recently wrote about here.

In this excerpt Ishiguro speaks of his early influences.

INTERVIEWER
What was your next obsession, after detective stories?

ISHIGURO
Rock music. After Sherlock Holmes, I stopped reading until my early twenties. But I’d played the piano since I was five. I started playing the guitar when I was fifteen, and I started listening to pop records—pretty awful pop records—when I was about eleven. I thought they were wonderful. The first record that I really liked was Tom Jones singing “The Green, Green Grass of Home.” Tom Jones is a Welshman, but “The Green, Green Grass of Home” is a cowboy song. He was singing songs about the cowboy world I knew from TV.

I had a miniature Sony reel-to-reel that my father brought me from Japan, and I would tape directly from the speaker of the radio, an early form of downloading music. I would try to work out the words from this very bad recording with buzzes. Then when I was thirteen, I bought John Wesley Harding, which was my first Dylan album, right when it came out.

INTERVIEWER
What did you like about it?

ISHIGURO
The words. Bob Dylan was a great lyricist, I knew that straightaway. Two things that I was always confident about, even in those days, were what was a good lyric and what was a good cowboy film. With Dylan, I suppose it was my first contact with stream-of-consciousness or surreal lyrics. And I discovered Leonard Cohen, who had a literary approach to lyrics. He had published two novels and a few volumes of poetry. For a Jewish guy, his imagery was very Catholic. Lot of saints and Madonnas. He was like a French chanteur. I liked the idea that a musician could be utterly self-sufficient. You write the songs yourself, sing them yourself, orchestrate them yourself. I found this appealing, and I began to write songs.

INTERVIEWER
What was your first song?

ISHIGURO
It was like a Leonard Cohen song. I think the opening line was, “Will your eyes never reopen, on the shore where we once lived and played.”

INTERVIEWER
Was it a love song?

ISHIGURO
Part of the appeal of Dylan and Cohen was that you didn’t know what the songs were about. You’re struggling to express yourself, but you’re always being confronted with things you don’t fully understand and you have to pretend to understand them. That’s what life is like a lot of the time when you’re young, and you’re ashamed to admit it. Somehow, their lyrics seem to embody this state.

The Paris Review
The Art of Fiction No. 196
Issue 184, Spring 2008

The rest of the interview is a good read, though I don't believe you can find it in its entirety online. Once your appetite has been whetted you'll have to make a purchase to get the rest.

In the meantime, if you were being interviewed today and were asked about your own early influences and interests, what would you say?

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This post originally appeared in June 2010 here at Ennyman's Territory and is included in Volume 1 of my collection of Dylan blog posts currently available for take out at the Duluth Public Library.