Selected Poetry of Delmira Agustini Read online

  CAcere

  Poetry

  sSe

  “Selected Poetry of Delmira Agustini: Poetics of

  l

  Eros provides a masterful introduction to the life and e

  Selected

  works of Delmira Agustini. Even more importantly,

  ct

  through its thoughtfully executed translations, the

  e

  English-speaking public is afforded, for the first time,

  d

  access to the complex and sophisticated poetry that

  P

  Poetry of

  turned Agustini into a celebrity during her lifetime

  o

  and a role model for generations to come.”—Cathy

  e

  L. Jrade, author of Modernismo, Modernity, and the

  tr

  Delmira

  Development of Spanish American Literature

  y o

  This graceful translation and bilingual edition is

  f

  the first to bring English readers a representative

  D

  Agustini

  sampling of the poetry Delmira Agustini published

  e

  before her untimely death in 1914 at the age of

  l

  twenty-seven. Translated by native Uruguayan

  m

  Alejandro Cáceres and including work from each of

  ir

  Agustini’s four published books, this collection is a

  A

  response to a resurgent interest not just in the poems

  A

  but in the passionate and daring woman behind them.

  gu

  s

  Alejandro Cáceres, an associate

  tini

  áceres

  professor of Spanish in the

  Department of Foreign Languages

  ello C

  and Literatures at Southern

  •

  e M

  Illinois University Carbondale,

  ol D

  was born in Montevideo, Uruguay,

  Po

  aría SM

  and has lived in the United States

  e

  since 1977. He is the editor of the definitive critical

  ti

  edition of the complete poems of Delmira Agustini,

  c

  published in Uruguay by Ediciones de la Plaza.

  s

  (Poetics of Eros

  Edited and Translated by Alejandro Cáceres

  With a Foreword by Willis Barnstone

  of

  ericam

  Eros

  A Bilingual Edition

  Southern Illinois

  Af

  University Press

  $15.95 USD

  1915 University Press Drive

  ISBN 0-8093-2868-2

  tates o

  ISBN 978-0-8093-2868-0

  Mail Code 6806

  U

  so

  nited S

  ni u

  v

  Carbondale, IL 62901

  e

  t

  r

  h

  he U

  e

  s

  r

  i

  n t

  t

  n

  y

  I

  www.siu.edu/~siupress

  P

  l

  r

  li

  e

  n

  s

  o

  s

  is

  Printed i

  Caceres-NIP-Poetics of Eros.indd1 1

  6/4/08 8:35:13 AM

  Selected Poetry of Delmira Agustini

  Contents / i

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  1

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  Contents / ii

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  2

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  Selected Poetry of

  Delmira Agustini

  [ Poetics of Eros edited and translated byAlejandro Cácereswith a foreword byWillis Barnstone southern illinois university press ⁄ carbondale

  Contents / iii

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  3

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  Copyright © 2003 by the Board of Trustees,

  Southern Illinois University

  Paperback edition 2008

  Foreword copyright © 2003 by Willis Barnstone

  All rights reserved

  Printed in the United States of America

  11 10 09 08

  4 3 2 1

  Frontispiece: Delmira Agustini ca. 1907. Courtesy of the National Library of Uruguay, Raúl Vallarino, Director. Photo of image by Daniel Mesa.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Agustini, Delmira, 1886–1914.

  [Poems. English & Spanish. Selections]

  Selected poetry of Delmira Agustini : poetics of Eros /

  edited and translated by Alejandro Cáceres ; with a foreword by Willis Barnstone.

  p. cm.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  1. Agustini, Delmira, 1886–1914—Translations into English.

  I. Cáceres, Alejandro. II. Title.

  pq8519.a5a23 2003

  861´.62—dc21

  isbn-13: 978-0-8093-2537-5 (cloth : alk. paper) 2003050394

  isbn-10: 0-8093-2537-3 (cloth : alk. paper)

  isbn-13: 978-0-8093-2868-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  isbn-10: 0-8093-2868-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  Printed on recycled paper.

  The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-1992.

  Contents / iv

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  4

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  Contents / v

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  5

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  To my mother, Carmen Ana,

  in memoriam

  Contents / vi

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  6

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  i Contents

  Foreword: A Poet of Life Who Prefigures the Future in Poetry Denied Her by Two Bullets Willis Barnstone xiii

  Preface xvii

  Acknowledgments xxi

  Introduction 1

  De El libro blanco (Frágil) (1907)

  From The White Book (Fragile) (1907)

  El poeta leva el ancla 34

  The Poet Weighs the Anchor

  La estatua 36

  The Statue

  Una chispa 38

  A Spark

  Misterio: Ven . . . 40

  Mystery: Come . . .

  Intima 42

  Intimate

  Explosión 46

  Explosion

  Amor 48

  Love

  El intruso 50

  The Intruder

  La copa del amor 52

  The Love Cup

  Mi aurora 56

  My Dawn

  Desde lejos 58

  From Far Away

  Contents / vii

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  7

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  De Cantos de la mañana (1910)

  From Morning Songs (1910)

  De “Elegías dulces” 62

  From “Sweet Elegies”

  El vampiro 66

  The Vampire

  (La noche entró en la sala adormecida) 68

  The night entered in the sleeping room

  (La
intensa realidad de un sueño lúgubre) 70

  The intense reality of a dismal dream

  La ruptura 72

  The Rupture

  Lo inefable 74

  The Ineffable

  Las coronas 76

  The Crowns

  Las alas 78

  The Wings

  El nudo 82

  The Knot

  Fue al pasar 84

  Passing By

  Tú dormías . . . 86

  You Were Sleeping . . .

  Los relicarios dulces 88

  The Sweet Reliquaries

  El raudal 90

  Torrent

  Los retratos 92

  The Portraits

  Contents / viii

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  8

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  De Los cálices vacíos (1913)

  From The Empty Chalices (1913)

  (Debout sur mon orgueil je veux montrer au soir) 96

  (De pie, sobre mi orgullo, quiero mostrarte, ¡oh noche!)

  Standing, on my pride, I want to show you, O night!

  A Eros 98

  To Eros

  Tu boca 100

  Your Mouth

  Oh tú! 102

  Oh You!

  Día nuestro 106

  Our Day

  Visión 108

  Vision

  Con tu retrato 112

  With Your Portrait

  Otra estirpe 114

  Another Lineage

  El surtidor de oro 116

  The Golden Fountain

  Fiera de amor 118

  Fierce of Love

  Ceguera 120

  Blindness

  Inextinguible . . . 122

  Inextinguishable . . .

  Nocturno 124

  Nocturnal

  El cisne 126

  The Swan

  Plegaria 130

  Entreaty

  A lo lejos . . . 134

  At a Distance . . .

  Contents / ix

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  9

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  De Los astros del abismo (1924)

  From The Stars of the Abyss (1924)

  Mis amores 138

  My Loves

  (Tu amor, esclavo, es como un sol muy fuerte) 144

  Your love, slave, is like a burning sun

  El arroyo 146

  The Stream

  Por tu musa 148

  To your Muse

  Diario espiritual 150

  Spiritual Diary

  La cita 154

  The Encounter

  Anillo 156

  Ring

  Serpentina 158

  Serpentine

  Sobre una tumba cándida 160

  On a White Tomb

  Mi plinto 162

  My Plinth

  El dios duerme 166

  The God Sleeps

  En el camino 168

  On the Road

  Boca a boca 170

  Mouth to Mouth

  Selene 174

  Selene

  Tus ojos, esclavos moros 176

  Your Eyes, Moorish Slaves

  Las voces laudatorias 178

  The Laudatory Voices

  Contents / x

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  10

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  El rosario de Eros

  The Rosary of Eros

  Cuentas de mármol 182

  Beads of Marble

  Cuentas de sombra 184

  Beads of Shadow

  Cuentas de fuego 186

  Beads of Fire

  Cuentas de luz 188

  Beads of Light

  Cuentas falsas 190

  False Beads

  Contents / xi

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  11

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  Contents / xii

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  12

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  Foreword: A Poet of Life Who Prefigures the Future in i Poetry Denied Her by Two Bullets

  The twentieth century has seen so many of its major poets find early death as a result of suicide, or by execution in totalitarian regimes. At age thirty-two, Hart Crane jumped from the Mexican ship Orizaba on his return to the States, Sylvia Plath turned on the gas in London, Miguel Hernández died in his prison cell of tuberculosis contracted in Franco’s prisons. Hernández’s death followed that of Federico García Lorca, executed at the Well of Tears outside Granada in the first days of the Spanish civil war. In Paris the leading postwar poet in the German language, Paul Celan, waded into the Seine in despair and madness. One of the great French surrealists, Robert Desnos, died of typhus at Buchenwald one day after its liberation. The inventor of surrealism, Guillaume Apollinaire, the day after Armistice Day, 1918, succumbed to a head wound he had suffered earlier in battle. In Moscow, alerted to a gang of jeerers who were to invade his reading, Vladmir Mayakovsky played Russian roulette until he lost. Earlier, Sergey Yesenin wrote his suicide note in his own blood. In internal exile in Elabuga, harassed and destitute, Marina Tsvetayeva hanged herself. In the same circle of the silenced Akhamatova and Pasternak, the great classical poet of silences, Osip Mandelshtam, disappeared in 1938 in the snows of a Soviet concentration camp. In Italy the searing novelist and poet Cesare Pavese put a pistol to his head. It would seem that suicide and execution have decimated the poetic talent of our (twentieth) century.

  In the apparently unique case of Delmira Agustini, the lords of the detective mystery intervened to remove her from her genius by domestic murder, a bullet from her husband’s revolver. She was only twenty-seven.

  Her life and poetry had been as daring and outrageous as her film noir death.

  Absurd seconds of who-knows-what awful fate determined that she would foreshadow the history of Latin American poetry but be deprived of a long life of poetic development. Only Albert Camus’s absurd death—in a car accident in which he was merely a passenger—seems as unnecessary and tragic as was that of Delmira Agustini.

  What was the life in poetry she had? She tells us through her diamond-cutting diction: “Fantasy / Wears a rare gown filled with precious stones”

  (“The Poet Weighs the Anchor”). Her pathos is revealed, even when she pities Contents / xiii

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  13

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  an inert but very much alive statue, with words that are a battle of oppositions:

  “Poorer than a worm, forever calm!” (“The Statue”). Here, as did Baudelaire, she sees the noble in the miserable, in this instance, a statute deprived of consciousness.

  When Agustini speaks of love, she leaves no question about the sexual fire she dares make explicit—in her time almost unthinkable: “your golden key sang in my lock” (“The Intruder”). On the pillow, she writes, “Your impudence fascinated me and I adored your madness” (“The Intruder”).

  There is no passive woman here, waiting for her lover’s announcements. She is her own person and writes what she feels, what she knows, what she wants to tell the world. And how beautifully she does so. In poem after poem, we find mysterious lines of interior illumination as in “Your figure was a stain of light and whiteness” (“The Intruder”).

  Delmira Agustini fell silent in 1914. Already Braque and Picasso had invented cubism in Collioure in the winter of 1909–10), but throughout Europe and America the modern diction, in poetry of the twentieth century had not taken hold. It begins in young Antonio Machado, in Jules Laforgue, in early William Carlos Williams. Only in Apollinaire in France and Constantine Cavafy in Alexandria do we find full-blown modernity in enduring maturity.

  In Agustini we see a transition figure. She has the swans of marble but also the candor of the pillow. Her mythological references are predictably of her time, yet almost always subverted by a lexicon that will wander astonishingly elsewhere. She wrote with the love speech of an Edna St. Vincent Millay, with similar candor and courage, but Millay nev
er changed. In the case of Agustini, I think it indisputable that she would have been charged by later twentieth-century innovations, as were Elizabeth Bishop and Marianne Moore, whose lives mark a history of modern American poetry. But she Delmira is what we have: her fragile white book, her morning songs, her empty chalices, and her stars in the abyss. Even so, she had time to experiment with prose poems and a lexicon of steel emotions that only find a precursor in seventeenth-century Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. That is a lot and allows us to sharpen our gaze on this substantial spring and winter of a young poet. We need not look through thousands of pages to find black pearls. In her pages they shine with rays of darkness. Yet we must be careful. With a single line from her brief life, like a Contents

  Foreword // xiv

  xiv

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  14

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  fated Russian heroine, she can destroy us: “With one kiss we became old”

  (At a Distance . . .”).

  Alejandro Cáceres has made a fine selection and enlightened translation of Agustini’s oeuvre and, in addition, presents us with the key details of her life along with a profound and scholarly discourse on the significance of her work in the context of contemporary literary movements. His devotion to detail and concept is revealed on each page. His study is essential in making this introduction of Agustini to the reader in English felicitous.

  — Willis Barnstone

  oakland

  Contents

  Foreword // xv

  xv

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  15

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  Contents / xvi

  00 Caceres i-xxiv

  16

  6/5/08, 12:42 PM

  i Preface

  My critical edition of Delmira Agustini’s complete poetry was published in 1999. This project started during the early 1980s, when I was still a student at Indiana University in Bloomington, where I had taken a course in which we analyzed, among other works, the poetry of “the five great ones of the south”: María Eugenia Vaz Ferreira (Uruguay, 1880–1925), Delmira Agustini (Uruguay, 1886–1914), Gabriela Mistral (Chile, 1889–1957), Alfonsina Storni (Argentina, 1892–1938), and Juana de Ibarbourou (Uruguay, 1895–1979).

  Delmira Agustini, in particular, attracted my attention for her sensuous poetic voice and daring message. Of course, her poetry was not new to me at the time, but that new reading of the poet left a mark on me. During the following summer, I started collecting a bibliography and organizing a file on her. And this I continued to do for a number of years whenever I had some time to devote to this project. In the meantime, I became very involved with the writing of my dissertation on another author, and therefore the project was suspended for over two years. When I had the opportunity in 1992 to live in Montevideo for over a year and a half, however, I started working at the Agustini archives, at the Biblioteca Nacional del Uruguay; my in-depth research on the poet’s work grew to fill not only that year and a half but also the following five summers. The result was a critical edition that included a detailed monograph on each work she wrote and a study of the most relevant criticism written on Agustini since 1914.