IV.
(musiklexicon)
Vous cherchez trop à comprendre ce qui se passe, cher Monsieur.
C’est un grave défaut.
—Jean Cocteau
into certain kisses
as winter arises
better not enter
you see too much
or too little
do you know who I am?
yes an idea a leafy prison
a big black wolf
what kind of wolf?
my little sun of that place
those fogs
that’s how it is
everything has its shadow
its half-finished
body
once upon a time a time
a time
anybody there?
a little girl
from here to there
from there to here
never beyond
between what doesn’t happen and what you can’t
even hope for
everything and nothing
the absolute demand
of life
into certain chills
certain loose shadowed kisses
better not enter
there’s nothing to say
no way not to mention
what’s missing
once upon a time
there was a here
there was a here
there
do you know who I am?
yes the history of the word never
spark of one night rubbing against another
what kind of night?
a betrayal of childhood
that’s how it is
everything has its basket
of red signifiers
those fogs
where grief embroiders
the poem’s motionless trek
and Desire sings
far away
so far
the unfinished body
of existence
V
(accidentien)
Buenos Aires is not
the city of lovers
on their way
arrows grow absent-minded
autumn
arrives at the wrong place
or doesn’t arrive
the ships
like little flotillas
between one word and another
drink wind hatred
the sad sexual rose
hard to match
the riddle of self
naturally
the perplexity of living in a body
never emigrates
at worst
Buenos Aires dies
like a sloping city
the ships are afraid
they won’t be able to leave
won’t want to leave
the obscene cage of language
actually
nothing has begun yet
nothing can ever begin
while we search for the absolute
and find only absent-minded
arrows
it’s like this
not so temporary (jail)
not so temporary the cadaver
of the sexual rose
to get out you have to go in
not from the left
but from the left
the ships lie when they write
lie when they don’t write
decisions take on an air
slightly
tragic
besides that
little birds sing
there are worse things in the world
than the word death
Anna Karenina for instance
Oh Socrates
make music
a riot
in the home of fear
doesn’t solve the riddle
of fear of home
at worst
like those arrows that arrive
and never existed
words
die as they should
light blocked out
city I will fail to write
Anne Twitty has translated the work of the Cuban poet Magali Alabau and other Latin American writers. Her translations of María Negroni’s poetry include Night Journey (Princeton University Press, 2002) and Islandia (Station Hill Press, 2001), which received the PEN Prize for Poetry in Translation.
—María Negroni was born in Argentina. Her work as a poet includes six collections of poems, including Islandia (Monte Avila Editores, Caracas 1994), El viaje de la noche (Editorial Lumen, Barcelona 1994; Argentine National Book Award, 1997), Camera delle Meraviglie (Quaderni della Valle, Italy 2002), and La ineptitud (Editorial Alción, Córdoba 2002). She has also written two books of essays (Ciudad Gótica, Ediciones Bajo la Luna Nueva, Buenos Aires 1994; Argentine National Book Award, 1996, and Museo Negro, Grupo Editorial Norma, Buenos Aires 1999), and a novel, El sueño de Ursula (Seix-Barral Biblioteca Breve, Buenos Aires 1998; first runner-up, Planeta Prize, 1997). Her poems, essays, and translations have been widely published in literary magazines internationally. Negroni received a Guggenheim fellowship for poetry in 1994 and the Fundación Octavio Paz fellowship for poetry (Mexico 2001–2002). She codirects Abyssinia: A Review on Poetry and Poetics, published by University of Buenos Aires Press. She presently teaches Latin American poetry at Sarah Lawrence College.
Staging historical justice in Hernán Ronsino’s Glaxo
“A writer worried about reception is cooking a dead book. A writer’s job is to produce the best possible book in absolute freedom, so the category ‘acceptable’ does not play in the process at all.”
From the train I could look out onto the infinite blue of the sea. I was still exhausted, wakeful from the overnight transatlantic flight to Rome, but looking out at the sea, that Mediterranean sea that was so infinite and so blue, made me forget it all, even myself. I don’t know why.
Originally published in
Featuring interviews with Sol Lewitt, Vera Lutter and Peter Wollen, Rikki Ducornet and Laura Mullen, Edward St. Aubyn and Patrick McGrath & Maria Aitken, Jon Robin Baitz and Stephen Gaghan, Gina Gershon and Dave Stewart, EL-P and Matthew Shipp, and Suzanne Farrell.
We need our own space to think and digest what we see. And we also have to trust the viewer and trust the power of the object. And the power is in simple things. I like the kind of clarity that that brings to thought. It keeps thought from being opaque.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
