Carlos A. Pittella: on the unreliable safety of forms

 

 

 

 

footnotes after Lorca (above/ground press, 2024) is written in memoriam Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian immigrant killed by police in the aftermath of the 2005 London subway bombings. It is a chapbook-length poem, or a series of footnote-poems that challenge a “main” narrative, i.e., the official account of the death of Jean Charles.

Having lived as an immigrant in multiple countries, my body has always reacted viscerally to the tragedy of Jean Charles... A lingering basic unsafety, a migraine-like awareness of the fragility of my condition: here’s an accented resident who pays taxes but isn’t “permanent,” who must constantly file new forms to exist but could easily be misstamped, therefore erased. Could I ever exorcise this feeling of precarity?

In 2022, during a poetry workshop at Concordia, the brilliant Stephanie Bolster challenged us participants to write an imitation of a poet we love. I jumped at the opportunity to imitate Federico García Lorca’s ballads, some of which I carry by heart. I began translating, from Spanish to English, “Muerte de Antoñito El Camborio,” an ambush Lorca recounts with both seriousness and tenderness—Lorca himself erupting mid-poem to chat with the title character!

But I wanted to go beyond translation and tell the story, not of the death of Antoñito, but of the killing of Jean Charles through Antoñito’s. I wanted to complicate the story of Jean Charles in a way that honoured his memory, questioned my own position as his storyteller, and recognised the agency he had been denied. How to fray the threads of a story pre-told?

The “main” poem of my chapbook became an Erín-Moure-style adaptation (Moure would call it trans[e]lation as opposed to translation) of Lorca. It borrows the rhythm, rhymes, and arc of the Spanish original to tell the story of Jean Charles. When I shared my first draft in the safe space of the workshop, my colleagues urged me to complicate the imitation, forgoing the safety of a single account.

I then wrote 10 footnotes using a variety of forms, from persona poems to collages, to reclaim authority over the “main” narrative. I wanted to indict the “neutrality” (another perceived “safety”) of forms and, at the same time, implicate the positionality of the speakers ensconced by those very forms.

A final content warning: this chapbook contains images and discussions of a police killing. I hope you can allow yourself the unsafety of poetry to meditate on how precious feeling safe is.

 

 

 

 

 

Carlos A. Pittella (he/him) is a Latinx poet & the recipient of a Frontier 2022 Global Poetry Prize. Born on traditional lands of the Tupi & Goitacá (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), he lives in Montréal/Tiohtià:ke. While completing his MA in English/Creative Writing at Concordia University, he co-edited Headlight Anthology with the team who won the 2023 Forces AVENIR award. His writing is haunted by borders, having appeared in places such as Shō, Jacket2, Glyphöria, & The Capilano Review. footnotes after Lorca is his first chapbook in English.

Photo credit: Steph & Moema Leite

Carlos A. Pittella will be launching footnotes after Lorca on August 10 as part of the above/ground press 31st anniversary reading, alongside Mahaila Smith, Gil McElroy, Chris Banks, Pearl Pirie and Shane Rhodes; tickets available here.