Charting the Pluriverse

Abstract

Page 12 American Book Review Charting the Pluriverse Joseph D. Haske This ambitious collection highlights over fiftyfive years of obras maestras from “Nicaragua’s preeminent poet after Rubén Darío,” and one of Latin America’s most well-known and accomplished poets throughout America and Europe; Ernesto Cardenal has been published in over twenty languages, and his life’s work has certainly warranted his place of distinction in LatinAmerican letters. Aworthy tribute to this living legend, Pluriverse boasts the English translations of some of Cardenal’s best verse in four unique sections, arranged in chronological order. The collection begins with Zero Hour, poetry from 1949–59. The initial works of this section evoke the turbulent events of Nicaragua’s history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and often refer to historical figures like William Walker in poems like “With Walker in Nicaraugua.” In these poems, Cardenal employs vivid imagery to convey messages of an often overtly political nature. Editor Jonathan Cohen states that this time period reflects a crucial turning point in Cardenal’s poetic style, as the poet, during his time at Columbia University in New York, “immersed himself in the work of US poets.” Cardenal’s burgeoning concern for the sociopolitical situation in his home country coupled with the influence ofAmerican poets, particularly modernists such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams, allow the poet to convey local concerns, past and present, in a uniquely universal manner, while remaining grounded in the roots of the subject matter and its personal impact. “With Walker in Nicaragua” displays the subtle influence of early-twentieth-century American imagist poetry embedded in wistful Whitmanesque diatribes: What scenes return to my memory now! A grey wave that comes blotting out the hills and a muffled sound of flood waters rushing through the jungle and the howls of monkeys on the opposite bank and the heavy, metallic beating of raindrops on the tin roofs and the people running to take in the clothes from the ranch porches and later the grey wave and the muffled sound moving off and once again the silence…. The best such work in this section sustains an intense emotional reaction to the deadly serious subject matter through such lucid nature imagery and concise diction. Near the end of the section, Cardenal’s “Epigrams ” marks an abrupt stylistic and thematic shift from the previous poems. Cardenal employs raw, passionate language and stark, candid description that skillfully evokes simultaneous pain and pleasure, as the speaker explores the complexity of human relationships and boasts the power of the pen: I give you these verses, Claudia, because they belong to you. I’ve written them plainly so you can understand them. They’re just for you, but if they bore you, maybe one day they’ll spread, all through Spanish America… and if you also scorn the love that wrote them, other women will dream of this love that is not meant for them. And, perhaps you’ll see, Claudia, that these poems (written to court you) inspire in other living couples who read them the kisses that the poet did not inspire in you. The brief, almost lyrical verses of “Epigrams” demonstrate some of the typically subtle distinctions between Cardenal and American contemporaries with similar influences, such as his classmate at Columbia University,Allen Ginsberg; while the modernist movement in the US and Britain essentially mandated the absence of romantic elements in verse, especially for the willing acolytes of Pound, aspects of the romantic have often lingered on in Latin American poetry. Even among self-proclaimed modernistas, the seemingly contradictory amalgamation of hope and despair has surfaced with some frequency both stylistically and through thematic concerns. All that is known to humanity is in a state of decline, the world fragmented, yet somehow, a sense of hope lingers on; this sense of optimism is often manifested in LatinAmerican verse through elements of the spiritual, a connection to a higher power that transcends all human concerns and can be revealed through the works of poets such as Cardenal. In this regard, Cardenal skillfully incorporates the best of the likes of Pound and Williams into his work while upholding a certain “tradition” of...