Fable
Benito Del Pliego
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Benito del Pliego's Fable is a book (actually there are two books in one in its first edition and here too, although in a somewhat different way), as one could say without indulging in critical baloney, with three voices: that of the poet, and that of the renowned Chilean illustrator Pedro Núñez, who, more than illustrating, engages in a dialogue with the texts or, if I may say so, elevates them to quasi-iconic figures. I would even add a fourth voice, if we consider that at their core the writing body corresponds to a reissue of the book which originally appeared in Badajoz, Spain as Fábula in 2012 by Aristas Martínez publisher. The latter immediately invites an interested reader to want to do a comparative reading, but that is not the case for this review, which, for the moment, takes this poetic/ekphrastic work as if it had just been published, and in many ways it has, and not only because it comes to us translated into English. That is the third voice, that of the silent translator, but present in his interlinguistic art. Clearly, this is an impeccable work of translation, always alert to contributing its share of lyricism without betraying the source, as one would say in the old-fashion theoretical jargon currently used regarding the subject matter. Just one example, whose subtlety only serves to highlight the scene described by Del Pliego:
La sangre del guerrero la borra la saliva del poeta; la del sumiso nadie la enjuaga: se extiende en la conciencia y desde la conciencia mata. |
This is the poem “The Lamb” (page or plate XIV) –incidentally, we are dealing with poetic texts that renounce short verse and adopt the long verse structure, close to prose and with a significative history in universal poetry–, in which, apart from the Christian/Christ-like resonance, the translator executes a magical passage of the verb, where the poet had separated the “poet” (himself) from the “warrior”, the translator reunites them into a single entity, which was surely the first poetic intuition, the desire of one and the other, and in this way one better understands the defeat of both that is posed in the second clause and that has much to do with the fabling of the speaking “consciousness” that we are. I refer the reader, if they need to delve deeper into this and the thought that arises here, to the allegorical passage “The Hat” (p. or p. XLV), whose accompanying image is also that of the book’s cover, in which I see no coincidence.
This entire section, or Fable itself, is generically a kind of bestiary, although there are a few poems that could be questioned within this category, such as, for example, “The leak” or “The scissors”, but if we pay due attention we will see that the same principle operates in them: the animated world (for us, through our word[s] elevated to Verb stature in religions and poetry) in all its directions, with which the poet breaks an almost sacred division between the biological and the objectual, something that, among others, Julio Cortázar also attempted in his 1951 work. None of this is a coincidence either because it is very much in line with what is “hidden underground” in this book in its two sections and in much of the author's work, the question about the (intelligent) artificiality of language, which in a compensatory manner takes refuge in an illustrated natural history, as if (ours or God's) words and images gave an account of the reality of the world that, unfortunately, we will never know—and this last point should not be taken as a negative moral lesson from the reviewer alone, but rather as an act of freedom, even if it means passing through the murky river of melancholy.
Then, on these pages of Del Pliego, The Voice of Hearing appears, which constitutes the second book or section of this one, and whose scriptural format is given by the replica of an abacedarium, where everything signifies this genre model, the images of Núñez that, in addition to accompanying each text by the verbal poet, are presented, after the usual dedication and epigraphs, as a visual table of contents. Moreover, each page is numbered with the corresponding letter at the bottom right. Not everything is exhausted in the material description of the book, of a suggestive whiteness, which is interrupted by the black writing as it is and has been customary, thus accomplishing the status of the infinity’s light or a pseudo- or neo-mystical vision of poetic order, that is, considering the legacy of the 20th century, a mournful exaltation regarding language, the confirmation of its deception with respect to allowing us access to the reality of the world... In short, everything we so loosely call metapoetics—not to be confused, although it bears some relation, with the meta of later virtuality, more typical of the 21st century. So, if we read this section from its epigraph, which comes from “Self-reliance” (1841) by Emerson, we will understand an entire century that somehow began halfway into the previous one:
This entire section, or Fable itself, is generically a kind of bestiary, although there are a few poems that could be questioned within this category, such as, for example, “The leak” or “The scissors”, but if we pay due attention we will see that the same principle operates in them: the animated world (for us, through our word[s] elevated to Verb stature in religions and poetry) in all its directions, with which the poet breaks an almost sacred division between the biological and the objectual, something that, among others, Julio Cortázar also attempted in his 1951 work. None of this is a coincidence either because it is very much in line with what is “hidden underground” in this book in its two sections and in much of the author's work, the question about the (intelligent) artificiality of language, which in a compensatory manner takes refuge in an illustrated natural history, as if (ours or God's) words and images gave an account of the reality of the world that, unfortunately, we will never know—and this last point should not be taken as a negative moral lesson from the reviewer alone, but rather as an act of freedom, even if it means passing through the murky river of melancholy.
Then, on these pages of Del Pliego, The Voice of Hearing appears, which constitutes the second book or section of this one, and whose scriptural format is given by the replica of an abacedarium, where everything signifies this genre model, the images of Núñez that, in addition to accompanying each text by the verbal poet, are presented, after the usual dedication and epigraphs, as a visual table of contents. Moreover, each page is numbered with the corresponding letter at the bottom right. Not everything is exhausted in the material description of the book, of a suggestive whiteness, which is interrupted by the black writing as it is and has been customary, thus accomplishing the status of the infinity’s light or a pseudo- or neo-mystical vision of poetic order, that is, considering the legacy of the 20th century, a mournful exaltation regarding language, the confirmation of its deception with respect to allowing us access to the reality of the world... In short, everything we so loosely call metapoetics—not to be confused, although it bears some relation, with the meta of later virtuality, more typical of the 21st century. So, if we read this section from its epigraph, which comes from “Self-reliance” (1841) by Emerson, we will understand an entire century that somehow began halfway into the previous one:
... but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.
R. W. Emerson
Without entering into a detailed and lengthy analysis, as the poet deserves, here we find, as is to be expected from any well-chosen epigraph, a general poetics of Del Pliego's work, and in the particular case of this section a sign, if we understand it in connection with a defense of the voice and the authentic being in a state of pre-contact with the world. A signaling towards the internal self-reflection of these poems turned, as appropriate and expected, upon themselves. And this is precisely what happens to a child, and then to a poet, not exactly when they enter the world, which would be a topic of observation and meditation for another occasion, but when they enter the discipline of language, of acquiring a language, given to them by their parents—this must not be forgotten—and with it, evidently, their alphabet, the building blocks of the game—inter/hypertextual in a pre-digital mode, if one wants to reach that level/contemporaneity—which, even though it may be a new one in Núñez's and Del Pliego’s hands, is still what it is as a cognitive/cultural template. Several passages could be chosen from this aphoristic writing, a paradoxical tone in itself given the dismantling of the presuppositions/tenents of language, all of which is the poet's mortal challenge. Perhaps one of the most revealing is the one that appears under letter and plate/page D/d:
—Words without content, plain word; in it fits what remains of the knowledge that in the said there isn’t anything.
Do you hear the simplicity of what speaks?
Therein lies the burning question: human’s multifaceted effort to achieve knowledge is still to accept (somehow, we already know it) that in what we say since we began to speak, there is nothing. Nothing, but our own imagery, which, despite the most daring illocutionary verbal/visual acting, has no correlation with the existence of the world. There is nothing, and we do not know how to deal with that pain. This is what Del Pliego does; he confronts us, sometimes with a certain orientalist drift, with that "struggle" of the human condition "speaking against meaning," where the latter remains an empty space of which we [will] know nothing (p. q).
The whole book comes, with a certain pedagogical touch, accompanied by final appendices that, on the one hand, provide information (about the images) to the reader, including one that appeals to the referential transparency of writing, revealing its sources, its occasional inspirations, particularly of Fable. An ingenious gesture, because through it one can trace networks, origins, meanings, in addition to being a table of recognition and gratitude as well, and, of course, demands of readers, especially if they hear these texts live. On the other hand, one of these appendices dedicates itself to explaining to the readers “On the Various Methods of Consultation”, where the author proposes “an oracular reading of this work”, an “interpretation of certain signs” (verbal and visual in a triangular relationship with the reader), before which questions are asked and answered in the manner, for example, not so much of the I Ching, but rather of the initiation traditions and stories of Zen tales (koans) or poems, Sufi tales, and those of India and China. The work is even proposed as a “horoscope-type reading”, a game of chance and predetermination; and The Voice of Hearing as a collection of “message[s] left [in her mailbox] for the reader by each of its voices”. All of which demonstrates Del Pliego's multidimensional project that wants to overcome the limitations of the use of literature.
And, since we've talked about a bestiary and an alphabet, it would be appropriate to end with a corollary about this book. Over the years, Del Pliego has developed a body of work that deserves all possible academic and other types of celebration. That's why, with Fable, after a little over a decade, he establishes himself not only in the game of translation and visualization of his writing to/in another language, but also in the gallery of Spanish-language writers who choose to also translate it into English, on a two-way journey in which both languages nourish each other, search for each other, and design a futurity. Because this is not merely a poetic or cultural act, but a political one in the most overflowing of senses, if such a thing were given to us, even if we suspect that "the mouth itself is a shoe that emptiness puts on" (p. XLIX).
Benito del Pliego (Madrid, Spain, 1970) is a poet, translator, and —since 2002—professor at Appalachian State University. He is the author of several poetry books; hislatest, Integral dietario reunido, was recently published in Virginia by Editorial Casa Vacía. He has collaborated extensively with artists and musicians. His poems have been included in anthologies such as Forrest Gander's Panic Cure. Poetry from Spain for the 21st Century, Mónica de la Torre and Cristián Gómez's Malditos latinos malditos sudacas. Poesía iberoamericana made in USA, or Joseph Bathanti and David Potorti’s Crossing the rift. North Carolina poets on 9/11& its aftermath. Along with AndrésFisher, he has also done translations —to and from English— of poets such as Lew Welch, Philip Whalen, Michael McClure, Gertrude Stein, and Antonio Gamoneda.
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1 Del Pliego and Núñez have collaborated since the 1990s, and began doing so around the Delta 9 group in Madrid in 1993. A precursor to Fable in its dual artistic presentation can be found in the 2011 book Indice.
The whole book comes, with a certain pedagogical touch, accompanied by final appendices that, on the one hand, provide information (about the images) to the reader, including one that appeals to the referential transparency of writing, revealing its sources, its occasional inspirations, particularly of Fable. An ingenious gesture, because through it one can trace networks, origins, meanings, in addition to being a table of recognition and gratitude as well, and, of course, demands of readers, especially if they hear these texts live. On the other hand, one of these appendices dedicates itself to explaining to the readers “On the Various Methods of Consultation”, where the author proposes “an oracular reading of this work”, an “interpretation of certain signs” (verbal and visual in a triangular relationship with the reader), before which questions are asked and answered in the manner, for example, not so much of the I Ching, but rather of the initiation traditions and stories of Zen tales (koans) or poems, Sufi tales, and those of India and China. The work is even proposed as a “horoscope-type reading”, a game of chance and predetermination; and The Voice of Hearing as a collection of “message[s] left [in her mailbox] for the reader by each of its voices”. All of which demonstrates Del Pliego's multidimensional project that wants to overcome the limitations of the use of literature.
And, since we've talked about a bestiary and an alphabet, it would be appropriate to end with a corollary about this book. Over the years, Del Pliego has developed a body of work that deserves all possible academic and other types of celebration. That's why, with Fable, after a little over a decade, he establishes himself not only in the game of translation and visualization of his writing to/in another language, but also in the gallery of Spanish-language writers who choose to also translate it into English, on a two-way journey in which both languages nourish each other, search for each other, and design a futurity. Because this is not merely a poetic or cultural act, but a political one in the most overflowing of senses, if such a thing were given to us, even if we suspect that "the mouth itself is a shoe that emptiness puts on" (p. XLIX).
Benito del Pliego (Madrid, Spain, 1970) is a poet, translator, and —since 2002—professor at Appalachian State University. He is the author of several poetry books; hislatest, Integral dietario reunido, was recently published in Virginia by Editorial Casa Vacía. He has collaborated extensively with artists and musicians. His poems have been included in anthologies such as Forrest Gander's Panic Cure. Poetry from Spain for the 21st Century, Mónica de la Torre and Cristián Gómez's Malditos latinos malditos sudacas. Poesía iberoamericana made in USA, or Joseph Bathanti and David Potorti’s Crossing the rift. North Carolina poets on 9/11& its aftermath. Along with AndrésFisher, he has also done translations —to and from English— of poets such as Lew Welch, Philip Whalen, Michael McClure, Gertrude Stein, and Antonio Gamoneda.
____________
1 Del Pliego and Núñez have collaborated since the 1990s, and began doing so around the Delta 9 group in Madrid in 1993. A precursor to Fable in its dual artistic presentation can be found in the 2011 book Indice.
Fable is a publication by New York: Quantum Prose.
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