John Gelman He was born on a day like today in 1930 in Buenos Aires. He ended up living in exile in Mexico, after leaving Argentina when the military dictatorship was established. He started writing poetry as a child. Later he dropped out of Chemistry to dedicate himself entirely to writing. He won several awards of poetry, from the Nacional in Argentina, the Juan Rulfo, or the Ramón López Velarde Ibero-American Poetry Prize. And in 2007 he was awarded the Cervantes Prize. In his memory, this is a selection of some of his poems.
Juan Gelman - Chosen Poems
Another may
when you spent with your autumn in tow
May through my window
and you made signals with the light
of the final leaves
What did you want to tell me mayo?
Why were you sad or sweet in your sadness?
I never knew but always
there was a man alone among the golds of the street
but i was that child
behind the window
when you spent may
like sheltering my eyes
and the man would be me
Now that I remember
A woman and a man carried away by life ...
A woman and a man carried away by life,
a woman and a man face to face
They dwell in the night, they overflow from their hands,
they can be heard coming up free in the shade,
their heads rest in a beautiful childhood
that they created together, full of sun, light,
a woman and a man tied by their lips
fill the slow night with all their memory,
a woman and a man more beautiful in the other
they take their place on earth.
Epitaph
A bird lived in me.
A flower traveled in my blood.
My heart was a violin.
I wanted or didn't want to. But sometimes
they loved me. Also me
they made me happy: spring,
hands together, how happy.
I say man must be!
Here lies a bird.
A flower.
A violin.
Know
The poem swims in a wind and shines.
He does not know who he is until
that drag him here, where
will surely die
in the open with the beasts.
I would like to understand the beasts
to understand my beast. The
it actually makes you moan with animal gasps.
What grace was won in your breath?
None that was not lost.
Suspicion crackles below the soft.
In these hands.
The door
I opened the door / my love
lift / open the door
I have my soul glued to my palate
trembling with terror
the wild boar trampled me
the wild ass chased me
in this midnight of exile
I am a beast myself
Absence of love
How will it be I wonder.
What will it be like to touch you by my side.
I'm crazy through the air
that I walk that I do not walk.
What will it be like to lie down
in your country of breasts so far away.
I walk from poor Christ to your memory
nailed, reclaimed.
It will be as it is.
Maybe my body will explode everything I've hoped for.
Then you will eat me sweetly
piece by piece.
I will be what I should.
Your foot. Your hand.
Love factories
And I built your face.
With divinations of love, I built your face
in the far courtyards of childhood.
Bricklayer with shame,
I hid from the world to carve your image,
to give you the voice,
to put sweetness in your saliva.
How many times did I tremble
barely covered by the summer light
As I described you by my blood
Pure mine,
you are made of how many stations
and your grace descends like how many twilights.
How many of my days did your hands invent?
What an infinite number of kisses against loneliness
sink your steps in the dust.
I officiated you, I recited you on the roads,
I wrote all your names at the bottom of my shadow,
I made a place for you in my bed
I loved you, invisible wake, night after night.
That's how the silences sang.
Years and years I worked to make you
before hearing a single sound from your soul.
Raise your arms ...
Raise your arms
they lock up the night,
unleash it on my thirst,
drum, drum, my fire.
May the night cover us with a bell,
that sounds softly to each stroke of love.
Bury me the shadow, wash me with ash,
Dig me from the pain, clean the air:
I want to love you free.
You destroy the world for this to happen,
you start the world for this to happen.