Four/Four: The Decapitated Generation
This series, posting monthly across four months,
presents four poems by each of four Ecuadorian modernist poets known
collectively as the ‘Decapitated Generation’ (la generación decapitada). That
name, applied posthumously by essayists, references the fact that all four
poets died young, by suicide. Together, their works reflect the social
influence of a time of great change in Ecuador at the turn of the last century,
as well as the literary influence of both Rubén Darío and the ‘cursed’ French
poets (Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Verlaine). Translations are by the California-based
writer Tristan Partridge.
The four central members of the Decapitated Generation are: Medardo Ángel Silva
(1898-1919); Humberto Fierro (1890-1929); Arturo Borja (1892-1912); Ernesto Noboa
y Caamaño (1889- 1927). Their work is scarcely available in
English. Born on the coast and not a member of the country’s elite, only Ángel
Silva grappled directly with the racial, sexual, and class demands of a society
keen to exclude him. Despite their differing backgrounds, however, all four
poets share an acute focus on despair and absurdity, each offering their own
perspectives on beauty, loss, creativity, and death.
Broken wings
In endless orgies we offer our souls and bodies
to the seven wolves of the seven sins:
the vine of Madness with its black clusters
damned mother’s milk squeezed into our mouths.
Hooded ministers, pallid and gaunt,
half-dead clerics with painted cheeks
crowning themselves with our fresh roses
as we bend our knees in this Black Mass…
When the feast is over – still seeking flight
towards the pure Ideal – like wounded gulls
our souls descend beneath the putrid ground,
suffocated by light with our wings broken!
Las alas rotas
En continuas orgías cuerpos y almas servimos
a los siete lobeznos de los siete pecados:
la vid de la Locura de sus negros racimos
exprimió en nuestras bocas los vinos condenados.
Pálidas majestades sombrías y ojerosas,
lánguidos oficiantes de pintadas mejillas
se vieron coronados de nuestras frescas rosas
y en la Misa del Mal doblamos las rodillas...
Y acabado el festín -al ensayar el vuelo
hacia el puro Ideal- como heridas gaviotas
las almas descendieron al putrefacto suelo,
asfixiadas de luz con las alas rotas!
Anitra's dance
She moves light, pale,
exquisite,
as if her soul had wings.
My God, this entrancing
dancer,
she’s going to die, going to
die… she’s dying.
So heavenly, so delicate, so
divine,
impossible to tell if this
is dance or flight;
her body becomes a
glistening wing,
held heavenward by the
breath of God.
Sobbing pearl by crystal
pearl,
the flutes sing ululating
psalms…
The harps and Pushkin lyre
are crying…
Adore our delicate dancer,
because she’s going to die…
because she’s dying!
Danse d´Anitra
Va ligera, va pálida, va fina,
cual si una alada esencia poseyere.
Dios mío, esta adorable danzarina,
se va a morir, va a morir… se muere.
Tan aérea, tan leve, tan divina,
se ignora si danzar o volar quiere;
y se torna su cuerpo un ala fina,
cual si el soplo de Dios la sostuviere.
Sollozan perla a perla cristalina,
las flautas en ambiguo miserere…
Las arpas lloran y la guzla trina..
¡Sostened a la leve danzarina,
porque se va a morir… porque se muere!
The fading day
The fading day takes part of me with it;
the pain of my life is a pain of love;
and as the drizzle whispers, in a dying alley,
I’m beset by an infinite will to weep.
These are childish things, you tell me; those who insist
my empty soul is still immature;
a being of the kingdom of daytime and spring,
of the nightingale singing and April dawning.
Oh, to be naïve, to be pure, to be ecstatic, to be gentle
–
chorus, scent or song, twilight or dawn –
an effortless flower breathing life,
a carefree star brightening our nights!
Se va con algo mío…
Se va con algo mío la tarde que se aleja;
mi dolor de vivir es un dolor de amar;
y al son de la garúa, en la antigua calleja,
me invade un infinito deseo de llorar.
Que son cosas de niño, me dices; quién me diera
tener una perenne inconsciencia infantil;
ser del reino del día y de la primavera,
del ruiseñor que canta y del alba de Abril.
¡Ah, ser pueril, ser puro, ser canoro, ser suave;-
trino, perfume o canto, crepúsculo o aurora-
como la flor que aroma la vida y no lo sabe,
como el astro que alumbra las noches y lo ignora!
The Strange Visit
At night Death visits the
bedrooms
where we rest our base
appetites and,
a shrewd grape-picker, she
plucks out fruits
for her eternal harvest.
Once at my side she appeared
in silence
and, as if she were a close
relative,
she stroked my hands and
kissed my forehead;
and I understood everything…
Since that vigil,
she walks beside me
and she lies in my bed
and her black gaze engulfs
my whole life…
Can’t you tell, from my
mood, how I’m listening out
for the glide of her oars
rowing toward me?
La Extraña Visita
Por la noche la Muerte las
alcobas visita
donde dormimos nuestros apetitos bestiales y,
buen vendimiador, los frutos escogita
de sus vendimias eternales.
Una vez a mi lado llegó calladamente
y, cual si fuera un miembro próximo de la familia,
me acarició las manos y me besó la frente;
y yo comprendí todo...
Y, desde esa vigilia,
ella marcha conmigo
y se acuesta en mi lecho
y su mirar oscuro toda mi vida abarca...
¿No ves, por mi actitud, que estoy como en acecho
del rumor con que boga su misteriosa barca?
Medardo Ángel Silva (1898 - 1919; Guayaquil, Ecuador). Silva earned a reputation as a talented writer during his teenage years. He soon self-published his first book of poetry, “El árbol del bien y del mal” (The tree of good and evil) in 1918. Silva was also a novelist and journalist. In 1919, the year of his death, he serialized a novella, “María Jesús,” in the national newspaper, El Telégrafo. He died aged 21, in what is thought to be a suicide, but which may have been a murder.
image source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Medardoangelsilva.jpg
Tristan Partridge is a writer and artist originally from West Yorkshire, now living in Santa Barbara, California. With a background in social and visual anthropology, and drawing on extensive fieldwork in Ecuador, Tristan’s writing and documentary work address how people engage in diverse struggles to maintain connectedness. Working across disciplines, Tristan has published poetry (Ritual Gratitude), photography (Mingas+Solidarity), text scores (A Year of Deep Listening), and books of critical theory (Burning Diagrams in Anthropology). Tristan also writes for English- and Spanish-language media on issues of Indigenous rights and environmental justice.
