José Emilio Pacheco: “sensual, durable, romantic”

José Emilio Pacheco, born in Mexico City (30 June 1930), has been publishing poetry, novels and essays since his first volume, Los elementos de la noche, appeared to critical acclaim throughout the Spanish-speaking world, in 1963).
Pacheco was honored today with the Queen Sophia Prize for Poetry.  The 42,000 Euro prize, given by the  University of Salamanca is considered the most prestigious poetry award in Hispanic letters.

Influenced by the Spanish “50s Generation” poets — who reacted against the banality of the Francoist era by turning to philosophical verse and a preoccupation with language — Pacheco does have some resemblance to that preceding generation of poets. While Pacheco and his friend Carlos Monsiváis have been co-editors for at least two cultural publications, Pachecho is unusual for a Mexican writer in NOT being a “public intellectual”.

Sticking to  “sensual, durable, romantic” poems has been Pacheco’s life work.  He saw the prize as a small consolation for Mexico and his native city, after the “apocalypse” of cultural life last week (when everything that matters to a poet — museums, libraries, cafes and cantinas — were shuttered).

Certainly a Mexican, but his patriotism and public utterances are of a different order.

(my translation from “Alta tración”)

High Treason

I don’t love my country.

Such dazzling abstractions

are beyond my grasp.

But (I know it sounds wrong)

I’d give my life

ten times over,

for certain people,

ports, pine forests,

attitudes,

a worn-down city,

gray and monstrous,

various historical figures,

mountains

– and three or four rivers.