 |
| Martín Gambarotta |
Martín Gambarotta was born in Buenos Aires in 1968. The last Argentinian dictatorship (1976-1983) meant that he spent part of his youth in England. As well as being a poet, he is also political editor of the English-language Buenos Aires Herald.
Gambarotta debuted
in 1996 with his work Punctum, a long narrative poem which has become emblematic for Argentinian poetry
of the 1990s. In thirty-nine fragments, the poem maps out the Argentina of
President Carlos Menem (1989-1999); years of corruption, hyper-inflation and
far-reaching privatisation, but also of a ‘pacification policy’ related to
recent history, motivated by (economic) pragmatism, which in practice came down
to a politics of impunity and selective historical amnesia.
The poet himself once described Punctum as “situational analysis in verse form” yet his poetry is impossible to see as a versified form of journalistic commentary. On the contrary, a characteristic of the poetics of the Nineties generation is actually the absence of a lyrical subject interpreting the world for the reader. In Gambarotta’s case, this leads to heterogeneous, polyphonic compositions in which frequent use is made of readymades. These are quotes from song lyrics, for example, advertising or political slogans but also, as in the case of Relapso+Angola, absurd lines taken from an automatic translation website. They are all pieces of the social mirror the poet holds up to us.
More generally, one could argue that the political meaning of Gambarotta’s work is not primarily referential in nature (it is not poetry about politics), but rather can be found in the way he uses language, the language of politics and the politics of language. One obvious example is the untitled poem from Seudo(2000) in which the imperative nature of the linking verb ‘is’ is problematized, as is the way language reduces us to our productive capacities:
The poet himself once described Punctum as “situational analysis in verse form” yet his poetry is impossible to see as a versified form of journalistic commentary. On the contrary, a characteristic of the poetics of the Nineties generation is actually the absence of a lyrical subject interpreting the world for the reader. In Gambarotta’s case, this leads to heterogeneous, polyphonic compositions in which frequent use is made of readymades. These are quotes from song lyrics, for example, advertising or political slogans but also, as in the case of Relapso+Angola, absurd lines taken from an automatic translation website. They are all pieces of the social mirror the poet holds up to us.
More generally, one could argue that the political meaning of Gambarotta’s work is not primarily referential in nature (it is not poetry about politics), but rather can be found in the way he uses language, the language of politics and the politics of language. One obvious example is the untitled poem from Seudo(2000) in which the imperative nature of the linking verb ‘is’ is problematized, as is the way language reduces us to our productive capacities:
To start with
an electrician is not an electrician
but a man who works as an electrician
an electrician is not an electrician
but a man who works as an electrician
This principle is a leitmotif in his work: in every line of verse both the poet and his characters appear to be forced to redefine the relationship between words and things. The exciting thing about Martín Gambarotta’s work is that this means he is also constantly searching for a poetic language with which to reconfigure that relationship.
© Bodik Kok (Translated
by Michele Hutchison)
Some of his poems
To start with
an electrician is not an electrician
but a man who works as an electrician
even if at night he thinks
that his veins are cables
that transmit the residual wattage
of his daily work.
an electrician is not an electrician
but a man who works as an electrician
even if at night he thinks
that his veins are cables
that transmit the residual wattage
of his daily work.
To start with
an electrician is not an electrician
but a man who works as an electrician
even if at night he thinks
that his veins are cables
that transmit the residual wattage
of his daily work.
an electrician is not an electrician
but a man who works as an electrician
even if at night he thinks
that his veins are cables
that transmit the residual wattage
of his daily work.
There isn’t, there won’t be, there wasn’t
there wasn’t, no, there isn’t, there won’t be,
nor would there’ve been if; there wasn’t,
there isn’t, there won’t be, there
wasn’t, ever, nor is there, nor can
there be, there isn’t, nor should there have
been, there isn’t, there wasn’t,
there won’t be any lines out of place
in the skull, the perfect curve
of the frontal bones,
there wasn’t, there isn’t, a better series than Kojak,
nor a more solid mask
than this solderer’s faceguard
to pass the pruning of the
neutral night, there wasn’t, a
neutral or clear night, there isn’t a hammer that’s
neutral or heavy, no, that hammers,
grabbing the handle of the hammer
to hammer with the hammer
the wood of the facts, there wasn’t,
there isn’t: Kojak sold his flat-tyred car
to some jackals, handed back his badge and gun
to the Greek Captain, the blacks threaten
to burn down a newspaper stand and don’t;
there won’t be, Cadáver, real
earthy coloured mornings
to pull the trigger, a sad trigger,
tense, that resists being triggered
at an enemy target,
there isn’t, there wasn’t, nor should there have been,
chalk to chalk round
the outline of the victim lying
face down on the hard ground;
there won’t be, charcoal
lines in the sky,
lines of a tense and inflated calibre
black lines that cross other lines, at an oblique angle
forming creepers with other lines
that grow into lines
that get lost in the distance
striped with other curved lines, there wasn’t,
there isn’t, there wasn’t no, there won’t be, there wasn’t,
nor was there to have been, there isn’t, no.
there wasn’t, no, there isn’t, there won’t be,
nor would there’ve been if; there wasn’t,
there isn’t, there won’t be, there
wasn’t, ever, nor is there, nor can
there be, there isn’t, nor should there have
been, there isn’t, there wasn’t,
there won’t be any lines out of place
in the skull, the perfect curve
of the frontal bones,
there wasn’t, there isn’t, a better series than Kojak,
nor a more solid mask
than this solderer’s faceguard
to pass the pruning of the
neutral night, there wasn’t, a
neutral or clear night, there isn’t a hammer that’s
neutral or heavy, no, that hammers,
grabbing the handle of the hammer
to hammer with the hammer
the wood of the facts, there wasn’t,
there isn’t: Kojak sold his flat-tyred car
to some jackals, handed back his badge and gun
to the Greek Captain, the blacks threaten
to burn down a newspaper stand and don’t;
there won’t be, Cadáver, real
earthy coloured mornings
to pull the trigger, a sad trigger,
tense, that resists being triggered
at an enemy target,
there isn’t, there wasn’t, nor should there have been,
chalk to chalk round
the outline of the victim lying
face down on the hard ground;
there won’t be, charcoal
lines in the sky,
lines of a tense and inflated calibre
black lines that cross other lines, at an oblique angle
forming creepers with other lines
that grow into lines
that get lost in the distance
striped with other curved lines, there wasn’t,
there isn’t, there wasn’t no, there won’t be, there wasn’t,
nor was there to have been, there isn’t, no.
© 2011, Martín Gambarotta
From: Punctum
Publisher: Mansalva/Vox, Buenos Aires, 2011
From: Punctum
Publisher: Mansalva/Vox, Buenos Aires, 2011
This was said before (already)
was said, even, in pop songs;
that the night goes crash, it was said
before, said since before,
said that the sedated animal
wanders round the house and before
was said that there were no damaged nerves
in the anxious organism, that flesh
without nerves is annoying it was said
and also it was said that you
shouldn’t jump on the bed
and anyway this was said
and from the place where it was said
one thing is clear: I can’t read.
The paragraph I start and restart
stops, I’m blocked at the first e.
The first e is the skinhead telephone guide
delivery boy who makes me stop reading.
From the skinhead swastika tattooist
I understand everything I’ve learnt up to now
and is useless.
Before finishing off
this paragraph it’s useless,
and sterile too, in this black land,
to carry on with another paragraph
where the block to reading
would be, for example, a comma.
Words in the book mean nothing,
when read they’re charged with electricity, jump from the page
but don’t mean anything. I try to solve this
by taking something, putting drops in my eyes,
which blur my sight,
leave vision watery. With a drop
of medication in the eye
one sees colours not forms, placing
according to the instructions in the leaflet
a drop in the tear duct, that would be
the corner of the eye,
I see colours and not forms
just what I said before and formerly
must have been, I think, said many times before (already).
I blink, shut them so they dry,
so the bloodshot eyes go back to white,
waiting for the liquid movement I see,
the black stains, the white cubes
and what seems to be a big fish
swimming shadelessly in the deep of the sea,
go back to being what, in reality, they are:
an Alsatian tied to a washing machine.
The blood: pacified
more serum, in reality, than blood.
Peaceful serum times blood
equals pacified blood;
blood plus serum that annuls
the real blood. The respiratory
system: pacified;
the fish: pacified; the occipital bones,
also pacified. The hard cement,
that by definition is hard, of the state’s
buildings: pacified. Pacified, also,
the pupil dilated by
an eye drop.
Blinking in a stupor
aids the general process of
pacifying the body. The lungs:
peaceful. Water and sand to make cement:
pacified, the muscles of the face:
pacified. The steel foundations:
pacified; the Zapla Steelworks:
pacified; rest in peace the drills
with special tips for piercing rock,
the electric soldering irons, the metal polishers
and other tools.
was said, even, in pop songs;
that the night goes crash, it was said
before, said since before,
said that the sedated animal
wanders round the house and before
was said that there were no damaged nerves
in the anxious organism, that flesh
without nerves is annoying it was said
and also it was said that you
shouldn’t jump on the bed
and anyway this was said
and from the place where it was said
one thing is clear: I can’t read.
The paragraph I start and restart
stops, I’m blocked at the first e.
The first e is the skinhead telephone guide
delivery boy who makes me stop reading.
From the skinhead swastika tattooist
I understand everything I’ve learnt up to now
and is useless.
Before finishing off
this paragraph it’s useless,
and sterile too, in this black land,
to carry on with another paragraph
where the block to reading
would be, for example, a comma.
Words in the book mean nothing,
when read they’re charged with electricity, jump from the page
but don’t mean anything. I try to solve this
by taking something, putting drops in my eyes,
which blur my sight,
leave vision watery. With a drop
of medication in the eye
one sees colours not forms, placing
according to the instructions in the leaflet
a drop in the tear duct, that would be
the corner of the eye,
I see colours and not forms
just what I said before and formerly
must have been, I think, said many times before (already).
I blink, shut them so they dry,
so the bloodshot eyes go back to white,
waiting for the liquid movement I see,
the black stains, the white cubes
and what seems to be a big fish
swimming shadelessly in the deep of the sea,
go back to being what, in reality, they are:
an Alsatian tied to a washing machine.
The blood: pacified
more serum, in reality, than blood.
Peaceful serum times blood
equals pacified blood;
blood plus serum that annuls
the real blood. The respiratory
system: pacified;
the fish: pacified; the occipital bones,
also pacified. The hard cement,
that by definition is hard, of the state’s
buildings: pacified. Pacified, also,
the pupil dilated by
an eye drop.
Blinking in a stupor
aids the general process of
pacifying the body. The lungs:
peaceful. Water and sand to make cement:
pacified, the muscles of the face:
pacified. The steel foundations:
pacified; the Zapla Steelworks:
pacified; rest in peace the drills
with special tips for piercing rock,
the electric soldering irons, the metal polishers
and other tools.
© 2011, Martín Gambarotta
From: Punctum
Publisher: Mansalva/Vox, Buenos Aires, 2011
From: Punctum
Publisher: Mansalva/Vox, Buenos Aires, 2011
A body reacts when something infects it
the external situation rules the internal situation
book + eye = doctrine
any bed is clinical
the apron accepts blood
doctrine – mentor = soap powder
gymnastics is not grammar
the system affects language
republic – doctrine = floor mop
grammar is gymnastics
an anthem must sound stupid
rooster + machete = stew
be pneumonia
eradicate the Y
rice + steel bowl = plan
the first symptom of panic is ill-disciplined syntax
you don’t kill the plague by buying ambulances
flag = butcher’s apron
sectarianism supports any adjective
resentment is fuel
Rodríguez + oil + diamonds + iron
+ phosphates + copper + gold + uranium = Angola.
© 2004, Martín Gambarotta
From: Relapso+Angola
Publisher: Vox, Buenos Aires, 2004
From: Relapso+Angola
Publisher: Vox, Buenos Aires, 2004
No comments:
Post a Comment