THE PULVERIZED ARMS BY JUAN RAMIREZ RUIZ AND
THE POWER OF POETRY
Marithelma Costa, Hunter College
Not often one has the opportunity to discover a luminous poet and poetry book such as The pulverized arms by the Peruvian Juan Ramírez Ruiz. Luminous, encompassing, fascinating. And difficult. A poet inscribing his discourse in the avant-gardes and creating a total world articulated not from an individual but from a “we” that extends in time and includes all men and women who have gone before him in that fertile earth called Perú today, and that earlier had been the privileged space of innumerable cultures. And to those women and men, with first and last names, the poet pays tribute without idealizing them, that is, divesting himself of Arcadian nostalgia and denouncing the plague that then as now destroys us: war. In its multiple and devastating facets, war serves as the backdrop for the book’s three sections and constitutes the key for its cryptic title: the pulverized—or demolished, or crushed—weapons through the medium of poetry.
The first part of The pulverized arms is presented as a song, a song in need of a singer being sought in the double poem that—as a double door entrance—opens this seducing book. And this character is indispensable because he has access to the traces men and women of that land have left, and above all, because he owns the voice that will lead them back to life. The singer is found in the impressive: “Hombre de armas molidas (MAN OF PULVERIZED ARMS) (a)”, dressed in a Western fashion “con camisa blanca / pantalón y zapatos negros” (WITH WHITE SHIRT/ BLACK SHOES AND PANTS). This apparent simplicity disappears since he is described, in the next verse, as the “semilla de un torrente de raíces” (A SEED OF AN INNER STREAM OF ROOTS); inner stream where the lyrical speaker must submerge himself in order to sing, because the human species depends on his song. And that song is a gift.
Resting upon daring paradoxes (“no one goes ahead of him/ and he goes ahead of no one”), impacting images (“he uses a harvest of
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roads/ for a breakfast of frontiers”) and euphonic, incantatory repetitions (“every imprint signs a time and is worth space/every imprint sings a time and is worth space”), in the poems that follow a poetic discourse is woven centered around that singer of whom the house, the body, the face and principal activity, walking, are described. This constant movement has the speed of poetic thought and utilizes as a guide the same love and solidarity as César Vallejo, another Peruvian poet.
It should not surprise us that The pulverized arms is structured in three parts, like that other voyage six centuries before, undertaken by Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy. The coincidences between both epic poems with traveling protagonists are multiple. The most evident one occurs at the structural level: the three-part division in the first—centered consecutively on Hell, Purgatory and Paradise—and the triple division of the poems by Ramírez Ruiz.
But if in the Divine Comedy the triple division is clearly stated in the names identifying each stage of the pilgrimage (corresponding to the Christian cosmovision with its recently created space of Purgatory)—the motif underlying the triple division in The pulverized arms comes out from the very textual weave and appears in some titles, lines and in the Third Index—the book has three indexes—where the author explains Hanan writing.
It must be emphasized that this triple division does not come from the Judeo-Christian tradition, imposed after the Conquest, but from a native, Incaic—and probably pre-Incaic—cosmology corresponding to the three planes of the world: Uku Pacha, Kay Pacha and Hanan Pacha. The first, the subterranean world of Uku Pacha, corresponds to the exploration of the past. The second, Kay Pacha, rules the present and is the world where the lives of men, animals and plants take place. Hanan Pacha, the superior third world, is constituted, in the author’s own words, by “Cosmic and earthly paradise, peopled by the diaphanous teleleogies of all men’s mental and spiritual elaborations” (Vid. Third Index).
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What could be a polygenic coincidence—backed up, of course, by the element consubstantial to perfection and equilibrium from a geometrical perspective, which lies in 3 as a number—can be seen as well as its predecessor’s intellectual echo. In effect, according to Index Two, the second and third parts of The arms consist of 33 poems (revealingly marked in Roman numerals) and coincide with the number of Cantos in Purgatory and Paradise. And if Dante, who also anchors the structure of his Commedia on the number 10 from pythagorical tradition (with its 10 levels of Hell—nine circles plus the vestibule of the indifferent) or 100 Cantos (Hell completes the number with 34), Ramírez Ruiz stays within the parameters of American traditions and includes 36 poems in the first part.
This number which separates the first Canto from those that follow is evidently self-referential, since at a microstructural level it points to the three levels of the universe’s macrocosmic structure recreated in his book. But seen in its totality as 36, it also carries a symbolic load, since most of the astronomical cycles are its multiples, and as 360 they also constitute the circle’s division and the lunar calendar. If we concentrate in the purely numerical, the square of 9 is 36 (let us not forget the importance of 4 in the tetrasymbolic matrix of the Hanan writing system which the poet presents in the upper margin of The pulverized arms and concludes in the poems from the epilogue). Finally, the sum of texts from the three parts (36+33+33) adds up to 102, a number remitting once more to the cosmological 3 which informs the collection of poems.
Text V. “AL CAMINAR/WHEN WALKING (17)” opens with a poetic subject that antithetically addresses air and earth, affirming: “I am going to walk to where there is not a road without a crossroads”. There his goal is established: to get “the end of the South”, primordial space upon which the text revolves. Such a “crossroads” allows the singer to penetrate into the spatio-temporal depths of the Uku world, achieve the trace, and through it go towards the history of past cultures, from the most ancient, Waka Prieta and Sechín—whose millenary megalites he transforms in playful avant-garde semaphores--, to Chavín, Pucará and Vicús. Upon embarking on this voyage, the
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singer stumbles into the first painful revelation: “and already dark war had started”.
In this long poem entitled “El Rumbo/THE DIRECTION (23)”, which goes from the fifth to the tenth section—in roman numerals—there occurs an innovative poetic game which will prevail throughout the work: the footnote poem or the poem within a poem. Some of the verses end with a footnote where the principal text’s idea is amplified. Thus, the mention of the Mochica people in VII. ETAPAS/STAGES (18)” leads, in a descending movement, to an allusion to Chachapoya culture, represented by the colossal fortress in Kuelap—which with 400 buildings overwhelms many of the archeological centers of the Americas —and by the Gran Pajatén, whose 26 circular structures with their many terraces and stairs lay in the Andean cloud-forest. The verse appears by itself in parenthesis (“que fue tejiendo patrias por Kuelap—y Patajén. . ./WHO KEPT WEAVING HOMELANDS THROUGH KUELAP AND PAJATEN)”, with which the reading of the text on the printed page—upper vs. lower part: 1. mirrors the movement of an archeological excavation and exploration of a foundational past: 2. suggests, as Tulio Mora has pointed out, the application of Andean thought’s structural Hanan-Urin dichotomy. It is worth pointing out that in this bipolar cosmological division—which doubtlessly is similar to Chinese philosophy’s yin and yang--, Hanan represents the superior, masculine, maturity and space to the right; whereas Urin represents inferior, feminine, youth and the left.
The author rejects the linearity of Judeo-Christian tradition and privileges other ways to organize poetic space, so he creates: 1. poems within poems—in the manner of Chinese boxes or historical phases which lay, one within the other, in many of Mesoamerican pyramids. 2. Towards the end of the first part, the breakup of linearity makes him record surprising poems either parallel or repeated which force the reader to question his perception and habits as the privileged receptor of poetic texts, and to rethink his own concept of the poetic act itself.
But let us go back to “El Rumbo”/“The Direction (23)”, where there appears a character of primordial importance for the whole book:
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el golondrino (male swallow, or migrant bird). As Tulio Mora has pointed out in his seminal essay, published while The pulverized arms was yet unpublished, el golondrino is “a sociological concept which is contemporarily allocated to those landless peasants who come down from their original abodes to the costal valleys at planting time”. Once established as a fluctuating and multiple figure, he is marked by the semantic field of that which is familiar and quotidian, and also by movement – “toma el rumbo/ pero no por eso al amanecer suelta/ la muerte encuentra / y no por eso la vida pierde”/HE TAKES THE PATH / BUT DOES NOT LET GO OF THE DAWN BECAUSE OF THAT / HE FINDS DEATH/ AND DOES NOT LOSE LIFE BECAUSE OF THAT —
The concept expands in order to encompass all the humble people, including the poetic I. In the poems XI and XII—“EN UKU/ IN SIDE” (24) and “LA TARDE INDICA/THE AFTERNOON SHOWS (25), he writes: “me llaman Golondrino” and “de llamados golondrinos vengo” /THEY CALL ME MIGRANT BIRD AND FROM MANY MIGRANT BIRDS CALLINGS I COME” a line which ends with a call to the three compositions which figure in the footnote, where a new poem opens, to go deeper into the concept: “campesinos obreros guerreros PEASANTS, WORKERS, WARRIORS…cachueleros yanaconas aparceros” . The notion is expanded in “Saludo a los Destinos del Sol (39)/ SALUTE TO THE MANY FATES OF THE SUN” to include an enumeration of all the planet’s marginalized peoples:
A. golondrino árabe g. vasco g. Irlandés
/ARAB MIGRANTE BIRD BASQUE M.B. IRISH M.B.
he allí, allá están, vienen de significar
/HERE THEY ARE, THERE THEY ARE, THEY COME HAVING MADE A MEANING
g. inui g. suramericano g. chicano
/INUI M.B. SOUTHAMERICAN M.B. CHICANO M.B.
¡vienen de significar y van a significar!
THEY COME AND GO TO MAKE A MEANING
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B. g. polinesio g. papúa g. nigeriano …
/POLINESIAN M.B. PAPUA M.B. NIGERIAN M.B.
These verses make evident the wide scope of this poet, who does not stop at the purely personal or national, but who includes the whole of humanity in his vision.
The pulverized arms may be read in many ways simultaneously, but it is above all an extensive epic poem with a collective hero in whose first section there is an attempt to rescue a silenced past, and a common man, the victim of war, who is more numerous that the sand pile—a symbol of abundance in several Asiatic and Biblical traditions.
After going back to the theme of war in “XVII QUINCE MILLONES DE AÑOS (31)/FIFTEEN MILLION YEARS” the author zeroes into the number of the fallen : “El arenal es diminuto – no se puede ay con él / contar a los caídos” THE SANDS DUNES ARE VERY SMALL, NOT ENOUGH TO COUNT THE FALLEN WITH THEM. The devastation that merely one battle exerts is presented in all its magnitude in the same text by a chain of images which contrasts with the surprising urban movement of ascent which crowns the whole series:
“27.2 Todos los objetos están gimiendo – las llanuras
inauguran sinfonías—los valles vuelven
al subsuelo –la tierra se arrepiente (me parece):
el torrente de sangre avanza ahora
más alto que las antenas…”.
27.2. ALL THE OBJECTS ARE WHINING – THE PLAINS
OPEN UP SYMPHONIES- THE VALLEYS
GO BACK UNDERGROUND- THE EARTH IS REGRETFUL (SEEMS TO ME):
NOW THE FLOW OF BLOOD
KEEPS GOING HIGHER THAN THE ANTENNAS…”
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The pain produced by such a spectacle is expressed with a triple exclamation, which this time is complemented by a descending image: “27.3 ¡ Dónde mirar—dónde mirar—donde mirar / sin que los ojos no se derramen por los suelos!” /WHERE TO LOOK AT, WHERE TO LOOK, WHERE TO LOOK, WITHOUT THE EYES SPILLING INTO THE GROUND.
The poet inquires about the men who accompanied the leader Manco Inca in his historic rebellion (“28. Cómo se llamaban los yanaconas los mitayeros / los hatunrunas golondrinos a Manco Inca unidos…”/WHAT WAS THE NAME OF THE YANACONAS, MITAYEROS, HATUNRUNAS, ALL MIGRANT BIRDS AROUND MANCO INCA ), but soon perceives that they have become a legion in time —“30 Qué padres no tienen su héroe- / qué familia no tiene su mártir” / WHICH PARENTS DO NOT HOLD A HEROE, WHICH FAMILY DOES NOT OWN A MARTYR— and in space: “32 Cada metro de suelo escenario de varias guerras / ¡cómo vertebrar una relación completa de ellas! / EACH METER OF GROUND A PLACE OF SEVERAL WARS / HOW EMBODY A COMPLETE LIST OF THEM”.
The poet’s objective, to rescue, through song, these erased heroes—since, after the wars, there happened the holocaust of conquest (“31 Qué ciudad no fue nombrada por criminales / qué lar – qué pueblo –qué comunidad…” / WHICH CITY WAS NOT NAMED BY A CRIMINAL / WHICH TOWN, WHICH COMMUNITY)— but suddenly he meets a revelation which produces a new exclamation, and is expressed through an natural image associated with infinitude: the leaves of grass:
34. Millones de golondrinos y mártires… millones…
¡cómo- dónde nombro a cada uno de ellos!…
…¡hasta las briznas son pocas: no se puede
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ay con ellas contar a todos los caídos!…
34. MILLIONS OF MIGRANT BIRDS AND MARTYRS…. MILLIONS
!HOW-WHERE FROM CAN I NAME EACH ONE OF THEM!
… EVEN THE LEAVES ARE NOT ENOUGH: IT IS NOT POSSIBLE
AH TO ACCOUNT FOR ALL THE FALLEN ONES!
The symbology of water is present through the whole first part of the book. Generally it appears as the fountain revealing the enigmas that the lyric I propose to decipher, but also as still water. Next to the image of “torrentes de raíces/TORRENTS OF ROOTS” which was identified with the singer at the beginning of the book, there appears another, much more complex, articulated upon a paradox: “tocando el agua inmóvil / en la piedra que se va / TOUCHING THE STILL WATER / IN THE STONES THAT WALK AWAY”. A bit further, in “ El Nombre elegido /THE CHOSEN NAME (26)” the poetic I is once more identified with the same element, utilizing a surprisingly spatial image: “24.1 ¿También por eso – cuando el día copia / bien al suelo – soy un río vertical?” ALSO BECAUSE OF THAT/ WHEN THE DAY COPIES THE GROUND WELL/I AM A VERTICAL RIVER. And in section XXV of “Aguas que estoy bebiendo “WATERS I AM DRINKING” (49)” their inspirational function is declared, and they are invoked in a quadruple repetition:
aguas que estoy bebiendo – déjenme seguir:
WATERS THAT I AM DRINKING/ALLOW ME TO CONTINUE
Si no recuerdo cada una de las guerras
IF I CANNOT REMEMBER EACH OF THE MANY WARS
es porque son innumerables…—
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IT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE INNUMERABLE
y ese mar rompe mis caminos…
AND THAT SEA BREAKS MY WAYS
pero aún reteniendo los susurros
BUT EVEN RETAINING THEIR MURMURS
no olvidaré los alaridos…
I WILL NOT FORGET THE SCREAMS
The author often uses encantatory repetitions which euphonically underline an idea: “La piedra se dobla para acoger su huella / Santiago Távara Guerrero / la piedra se dobla para acoger su huella”/THE STONE BENDS TO TAKE IN HIS FOOTSTEP/ SANTIAGO TAVARA GUERRERO, THE STONE BENDS TO TAKE IN HIS FOOTSTEP (poem XXI). These repetitions get amplified in poems XXXIV, XXXV and XXXVI which close the first part since, as I observed before, the same verses are repeated identically on both sides of the page, as mirrors reflecting each other.
Duplications begin from poem 90 on, where the singer and golondrino is presented as the warrior of a war preceding agriculture—he is “más antiguo aún / que la invención de los sembríos” /EVEN OLDER THAN THE INVENTION OF THE FARMED LANDS–, and also older than the world itself since he began “antes que el mar tuviera suelo/ BEFORE THE SEA COULD HAVE A BOTTOM” and “las cordilleras se levantaran” AND THE MOUNTAIN RANGES WOULD RAISE. In order to eliminate any doubts about the intentionality of duplicating entire pages, “SE DEBE AÚN /STILL OWING (59)” and “FONDO DEL DESIERTO /BOTTOM OF THE DESERT(59)” are repeated three consecutive times, whereas “EN CHACUPE (61)”, “POR RÍO MANTARO (61)” y “EN NAZCA (61)”
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are repeated only twice. The triple repetition of the same verses and the same graphic disposition of the pages erase any doubts that might arise in the reader about such an innovative proposal; and the duplication in the same page side by side admits two types of reading: 1. from top to bottom, that is, a diachronic approach which follows the order of the stanzas in odd and even pages or 2. as parallel lines, synchronically, simultaneously—and horizontally—going over the same line twice.
Poetry’s linear scheme having been broken, these texts also emphasize the break with the pattern of 33 texts established in the second and third sections of the book. At the same time, Ramírez Ruiz presents here his cosmological vision anchored on the number 4 (the tetrasymbolic matrix corresponding to the four cardinal points or the Southern Cross as the axis of cosmic orientation) and number 5, which adds a central point to the four. As in a game of riddles, the number of poem 36 add up to 9 (4+5 or 3 x 3), a number which appears, by itself or in multiples, throughout the three parts of the book.
Apart from the numbering given to revealing poem 90 “Guerrero de un combate /WARRIOR OF A BATTLE”, which serves as a prelude to the simultaneous or parallel poems, 9 and its multiples is repeated as a marker of temporal cycles in several poems.
If the first part of The pulverized arms, with its exploration of the past in its different archeological strata, corresponds to the Uku region and the and pre-columbine epoch, the second corresponds to the Kay region, where human life, personal and social, occurs. And if previously the poetic voice, incarnated in the man of pulverized weapons, recalled the fights in the foundational past, here it centers on the present and the multiple towns in the Amazonic region, which have been extinguished or are in danger of extinction.
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The voyage continues searching for the beginning, the origins, and the singer undertakes it, with which once more the double initial door is constituted by two poems centered in that singer who affirms his self-conscious identity as a multiple, polyphonic poetic subject whose aim is to tell a story. For the second time the theme begins very simply in “Un Día y un Poeta”/A DAY AND A POET
I. Sin vanidad ni modestia
no delante ni detrás de nada
y nadie;
sabiendo que no hubo ni habrá
otro
como cada uno de ellos,
un día y un poeta
cruzan juntos
la semilla del Perú.
L. WITHOUT VANITY AND MODESTY
NEITHER BEHIND OR IN FRONT OF ANYTHING
OR NOBODY:
KNOWING THAT THERE IS NOT GOING TO BE
ANOTHER ONE
LIKE EACH ONE OF THEM,
A DAY AND POET
CROSS TOGETHER
THROUGH THE SEED OF PERU.
This naturalness and simplicity are complemented in the text –“Hombre de Armas Molidas (c) /MAN OF PULVERIZED ARMS (C) with the self-afiirmation of the I: “II. Fondo de la noche negra: / sé quién soy / conozco mis nombres” /BOTTOM OF THE DARK NIGHT / I KNOW WHO AM I / I
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KNOW MY NAMES”. The lines are repeated in the third stanza and retake the theme of the voyage, this time from a nautical perspective which started the book: “Desde un billón de puertos, / sé quién soy, sé qué quiero, / conozco mis nombres/ FROM A BILLION PORTS / I KNOW WHO AM I , I KNOW WHAT DO I WANT/ I KNOW MY NAMES:” . At this moment the Man of the Pulverized Weapons echoes the words of a famous traveler and explorer of another Kay reality: Don Quijote de la Mancha. In the fifth chapter of the novel’s first part, Don Quijote affirms a consciousness of the subject combined with a multiple identity: “I KNOW WHO AM I AND WHO I COULD BE”.
Rooted in its plural, desiring identity, the poetic voice gets ready for “109.3 Publicar el encuentro con la maldad / y el asesinato de la bondad” TO PUBLISH THE ENCOUNTER WITH EVIL / AND THE ASSASINATION OF GOODNESS.
The text entitled “Hacia la Familia Hanan TOWARDS THE HANAN FAMILY (74)” is made up of five stanzas which in turn refer to five footnotes where the circumstances marking the singer are repeated: “Un poeta en tiempo de guerra/ A POET IN TIMES OF WAR” y su destino de caminar por –con la ruta del sismo / TO WALK BY-WITH THE SYSMIC ROAD”, to see “en –con el suelo / a los rojos y a los rosados elegidos” / IN-WITH THE GROUND THE CHOSEN RED AND PINKS, to hear “los rojos lingotear el arcoiris/ THE REDS INGOTING THE RAINBOW”, to see “al planeta/ mutando/THE PLANET MUTATING” and to touch “la piedra por donde van los resultados yendo / THE STONE WHERE THE RESULTS GO”.
As Fredy Roncalla points out, from La Vida Perpetua (1978) on, Ramírez Ruiz posits a multilineal writing which is here realized in the poetic structures (boxed and repeated poems) and in the lines themselves. In fact, in the dense semantic units constituting many of his verses, there is an additional rupture of grammatical structures, with double articles—determined and undetermined, which he named “paligadas”—preceding nouns; double and even triple prepositions before objects that can simultaneously be time, place and circumstance. An example is the line: “su destino de caminar por –con la ruta del sismo” / HIS DESTINY TO WALK BY-WITH THE SYSMIC ROUTE” .
The litic theme expands in the following poem--—”Cuando Piso la Tierra Nuevamente / WHEN I STEP ON THE GROUND
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AGAIN” (75)—where the privileged perception Quechuas have of the cultural universes preceding them is pointed out. The group is presented through a quite effective traditional synecdoche pars pro toto:
111.1 Las naciones crecen sobre otras ya disueltas
NATIONS GROW ONE ON TOP OF OTHER DISSOLVED ONES
pero en valles cordilleras o riberas
BUT IN THE VALLEYS MOUNTAINS OR RIVER BANKS
un quechua –las ve eslabonadas…
A QUECHUA SEES HOW THEY ARE LINKED TO EACH OTHER
This revealing final verse serves a prelude to one of the most moving poems in the whole collection: “Homenaje a los Extintos / TRIBUTE TO THE EXTINGUISHED ONES (79)”.
At the beginning of this elegiac section, the poetic voice returns to the voyage motif “112 Antes de partir al bosque / en el valle cerré mi casa /BEFORE LEAVING TO THE FOREST,/ I CLOSED MY HOUSE IN THE VALLEY ” and in this new natural space it finds and names several amazonic towns. It starts its survey with “los extintos Abishira- que Tequiráca / a sí mismos se nombraban/THE EXTINGUISED ABISHIRA, WHO CALLED THEMSELVES TEQUIRACA” and in the sections following it extends the enumeration to the Aguano, the Atsahuaca, the Carahuano, the Cholón, the Paniobo and the Esse Ejja. This type of ubi sunt of classic and medieval tradition is not present in The pulverized arms to initiate a spiritual or existential meditation on time’s ephemeral quality but to rescue such peoples from total annhilation through poetic utterance –“115.1 Nunca se cansa la muerte …/ Por donde pasa deja un libro / escrito—y otro por escribir / DEATH NEVER GETS TIRED / WHERE SHE PASSES BY SHE LEAVES A WRITTEN / BOOK AND ANOTHER ONE YET TO BE WRITTEN”.
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The tense relationship between the word and oblivion is explored from multiple perspectives; some, as in the case of the Cholón, tinged with irony:
113 ¿40 familias son los Aguano?
40 FAMILIES ARE LEFT OF THE AGUANO PEOPLE
¿Sólo 40 familias que ignoran su casa
ONLY 40 FAMILIES WHO IGNORE THEIR HOME
su idioma y su huella?…
THEIR LANGUAGE AND THEIR TRACE
No—eran muchos más
NO, THEY WERE MANY MORE
pero después de una epidemia
BUT AFTER AN EPIDEMY
quedó una mano
ONLY ONE HAND WAS LEFT
y la misma bala en cien mil cuerpos.
AND THE SAME BULLET IN A HUNDRED THOUSAND BODIES
—-
116 ¿Cómo se llamaban – cuál es su nombre
WHAT WAS THEIR NAME, WHICH IS THE NAME
(siquiera) de un solo Cahuarano?
OF AT LEAST ONE CAHUARANO
…silencio…: SILENCE
sólo el nombre de un pueblo
ONLY THE NAME OF A PEOPLE
arrastrándose entre follajes…
DRAGING ITSELF ON THE THICK FOLLIAGE
—-
117 Seetpsá se nombraban a sí mismos los Cholón.
SEETPSA CALLED THEMSELVES THE CHOLON PEOPLE
Eran 4880 pero murieron cinco mil…
THEY WERE 4880, BUT 5,000 DIED
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At the end of “Homenaje/TRIBUTE” the poetic voice no longer asks itself about the missing, but affirms their irreversible disappearance. It is worthwhile to notice that pain is expressed, as in Miguel Hernández’s “Elegy” in life’s fundamental act: breathing.
¡Pero dónde están ahora los Panobo Waripano!
BUT WHERE ARE NOW THE PANOBO WARIPANO
¡Dónde están los Iñamari—los Mayo
WHERE ARE THE INAMARI, THE MAYO
los Nocaman los Remo los Sensi!
THE NOCAMAN, THE REMO, THE SENSI
¡Dónde están los Yameo los Aushiri
WHERE ARE THE YAMEO, THE AUSHIRI
los Umurano los Zaparo!
THE UNURANO, THE ZAPARO
¡Extintos! ¡Extintos!
EXTINGUISHED EXTINGUISED
¡Es demasiado—ay –es demasiado…-
IT IS TO MUCH, AH, THE PAIN IN THE BREATHING GLASS IS TOO BIG
el dolor en el vaso de la respiración
yo—aquí—solo en esta pampa
HERE, BY MYSELF IN THIS PAMPA
bebo no en sorbos sino en torrentes!
I DRINK NOT IN SIPS, BUT IN TORRENTS
After this powerful introduction, in “Las Extraviadas Enseñanzas del Río (82)/THE LOST TEACHINGS OF THE RIVER” the poetic voice is transformed, through its counterpart, the Golondrino- into a member of these groups: “cuando borro la boca del ruido / que sigue nido / de todo golondrino atormentado como yo –un Amahuaca WHEN I ERASE THE NOISE’S MOUTH / THAT REMAINS NEST /OF ALL MIGRANT BIRDS LIKE MYSELF, ME AN
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AMAHUACA” y “Pero Golondrino y Cujareño seguiré” BUT I WILL CONTINUE BEING A MIGRANT BIRD AND CUJAREÑO.
The Amazon ethnic groups threatened by rubber, oil, gold and wood traffickers are represented here by the image of isolation or its opposite, conversation: this configuration appears in the lines dedicated to the Mayoruna and the Morunahua :
121.3 ¡Fragmento de mañana—
TOMORROW’S FRAGMENT
que hace tiempo no apareces—
THAT FOR A LONG TIME YOU DO NOT APPEAR
qué haces otra vez
WHAT ARE YOU DOING AGAIN
en la mano derecha de este aislado Mayoruna!…
ON THE RIGHT HAND OF THIS ISOLATED MAYORUNA
—-
122 Alma caída del Perú (en Kay Kay Kay)
FALLEN SOUL OF PERU (IN KAY KAY KAY)
un Morunahua te recoge
A MORUNAHUA PICKS YOU UP
y luego de pastorear estatuas
AND AFTER HERDING STATUES
y monumentos
AND MONUMENTS
voy contigo a conversar a conversar…
I GO WITH YOU TO CHAT TO CHAT
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The identification of the lyrical speaker with the Native American peoples extends to the Pisabo—whose population has not even been estimated—in the moving final section:
124 En tierra no cautiva-
IN A NON CAPTIVE LAND
un Pisabo—yo—en silencio—
A PISABO, MYSELF, SILENTLY
con mi tu rostro muevo un relámpago sonoro
WITH MY-YOUR FACE I MOVE A RESONANT LIGHTENING
y en mi tu mente pongo los días
AND IN MY-YOUR MIND
que mueren en el suelo…
I PUT THE DAYS THAT DIE ON THE GROUND
When the poet in his travels gets to the Aymara, whose population, only in Perú, reaches 441, 743 inhabitants, it is possible for him to introduce a hopeful text “En la Noche de los Ojos (84) IN THE NIGHT OF THE EYES” and presents them—as he did in the section dedicated to the lucid Quechuas—offering their space, that primordial South around which the poet weaves his verses.
126 El dolor no ha movido mi camino
PAIN HAS NOT CHANGED MY PATH
ni tampoco los rumbos que me señalan.
NOR THE DIRECTIONS THAT SHOW ME
Este es mi –el Sur: y yo lo doy…
THIS IS MY –THE SOUTH: AND I OFFER IT
“Las Raíces de la Yanchama / THE ROOTS OF YANCHAMA(86)” is centered on the Omagua, who once occupied the whole western zone of Brasil and today have shrunk to less than 430 individuals. This genocide, which is emphasized from the very first
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stanza and is underlined by the double article—“y ese hombre era yo— ¡el un Omagua / apresado por el suelo y el cielo!… AND THAT MAN WAS MYSELF A-THE OMAGUA/ TRAPED BY THE GROUND AND THE SKY”—, leads to a new and frightening enumeration of groups about to disappear.
134 ¡Resto de Futuro y Tamaño del Presente!
REMAINS OF THE FUTURE AND SIZE OF THE PRESENT
¡los Andoa somos 5 (sólo 5)—los Andoque 10—
WE ANDOA PEOPLE ARE 5 ONLY 5, THE ANDOQUE 10
los Omagua (como yo) 600—
THE OMAGUA (LIKE MYSELF) 600
los Ocaima 250—los Arasarie 22—los Isconahua 280
o 500 como máximo AT MAXIMUM
los Marakeri 400—los Iquito 150—y también
los Arabela 150—
los Huachipaeri 165—-
los Capanahua 150
y los Culina
o Medija
400—y no más—ninguno más!… A.
AND NO MORE, NOT EVEN ONE MORE
In this section of The pulverized arms several testimonies are also gathered. They start with the Bora, who live near Iquitos and have survived by turning into a parody of themselves, that is, as a turist attraction. The text—titled “En las Puertas de una Maloca / AT THE DOORS OF A MALOCA (79)”—opens with the first person discourse of a Bora who affirms his slow dissolution due to the loss of his given name and his history:
137 He cambiado:
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I HAVE CHANGED
adoro a todo el suelo—
I WORSHIPALL THE GROUND
he perdido las fechas—ya no tengo
I HAVE LOST THE DATES - DO NOT HAVE A BIRTHDAY
ANY MORE
The testimony ends with a double prophetic affirmation that the Boras can only prevail through the mixing of their blood:
¡Así dirá – así dirá
THUS WILL SAY – THUS WILL SAY
en el libro zambo mi canto Bora!
MY BORA CANTO IN THE ZAMBO BOOK
The Chayahuita (whose book will be “cholo”, that is half indigenous, half european) are presented with a similar a destiny and poetic treatment, whereas the Ticuna, as the Aymara before them, are presented moving towards a saving space, the primordial South, and also leaving behind an Indian testimony:
141 Para romper al corazón asesino
IN ORDER TO BREAK THE MURDEROUS HEART
fui cauto: cogí el relumbrón
I WAS CAUTIOUS: I TOOK THE FLASH
que siempre llevan
THAT IS ALWAYS CARRIED
los rayos láser veloces y contundentes…
BY FAST AND CONVINCING LASER BEAMS
Fui sagaz: retuve junto a mí
I WAS SHREWD: I KEPT CLOSE BY
Los paisajes que tiran muy lejos
THE LADSCAPES THAT THROW
A las ventanas…
THE WINDOWS VERY FAR
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Viré al Sur…
I TURNED SOUTH
—-
¡Así dirá – así dirá en el libro indio
THUS WILL SAY- THUS WILL SAY IN THE INDIAN BOOK
mi testimonio Ticuna!
MY TICUNA TESTMONY!
After beginning to define in the very textual weave of “El Arbol de los Primogénitos/THE TREE OF THE FIRST BORNS (93) what is Hanan and what are pulverized weapons (“yendo a Hanan = Nación de Armas Molidas” GOING TO HANAN = PULVERIZED ARMS NATION)—the author stops in the Esse Ejja’s lament:
143 Así arde y cae un mundo sin nosotros
THUS A WHOLE WORLD BURNS AND FALLS WITHOUT US
los Esse Ejja…: / THE ESSE EJJA
cómo vivirá este Perú en el Nuevo Sur—
HOW WILL THIS PERU LIVE IN THE NEW SOUTH
y a dónde irá este mundo sin nosotros
AND WHERE WILL THIS WORLD GO WITHOUT US
eso queremos saber—para eso hemos venido
THAT IS WHAT WE WANT TO KNOW- THAT IS WHAT WE HERE FOR
—-
nuestra comunidad parece una maqueta trashumante
IN OUR HEARTS OUR COMMUNITY LOOKS LIKE A MIGRATING MODEL
y una galaxia inmóvil en nuestro corazón
AND A MOTIONLESS GALAXY
The book’s second part peaks with two primordially important texts: “Puente Sobre Aguas Turbulentas /BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS (103)” y “Tinkunakuy (104)”. In the first, natural space is abandoned, the poetic I reaches the city, and is received by its walls, “tajos al infinito” INFINITE CUTS. However, he does not stop but continues “en el envés del Sur” IN THE BACK SIDE OF THE SOUTH, reaching the shaman Ramón Shipibo’s house. For this ritual encounter, the ceremonial space is marked “en el lugar donde una flor se viste/WHERE A FLOWER DRESSES HERSELF” and the propitious fire is lit “abrimos leña buscando lumbre
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/ WE OPENED THE WOOD LOOKING FOR FIRE”. The whole American continent is gathered, being represented by its flora, fauna and geography. The meeting, whose open and jubilant tone contrasts with the anger and pain predominating in the preceding texts, happens quite appropriately in a boxed or footnote-poem. There, the names and surnames of apparently ordinary characters reveal their hidden identity:
Ya sin lágrimas que caían en la mente
NOW WITHOUT TEARS FALLING IN THE MIND
Alejandro Guatemala
abraza a Julia Paraguay
ALEJANDRO GUATEMALA HUGS JULIA PARAGUAY
y llegan a la casa de don Ramón Shipibo
AND ARRIVE TO DON RAMON SHIPIBO’S HOUSE
el abuelo—el misionero del amor al cactus—
THE GRADFATHER –THE MISSIONARY OF LOVE FOR THE CACTUS
—
Maruja León ya está aquí
MARUJA LEON IS ALREADY HERE
y José Pejerrey
AND JOSE PEJERREY
y Pedro Puma también
ALSO PEDRO PUMA
Don Ramón – con Miguel Flores—y Ana
DON RAMON WITH MIGUEL FLORES AND ANA
y Rosa—su sobrina conversa
AND ROSA –HIS NIECE
Don Ramón escucha
DON RAMON LISTENS
y sonríe…
AND SMILES
—
Cada uno con el rostro próximo
EACH ONE OF THEM WITH THER FACES CLOSE TOGETHER
Llama cantando al lejano valle del otro…
CALLS SINGING TO THE FAR VALLEY OF THE OTHER
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Don Ramón –El Chamán—comprende
DON RAMON --THE SHAMAN-- UNDERSTANDS
It is quite significant that the shaman’s name refers to thee Shipibo, one of Western Peru’s indigenous groups, comprising about 26,000 individuals, belonging to the Pano linguistic group and living on the margins of the Ucayali river. According to the most recent studies, their presence goes back at least to 300 A.C. and their language is one of the country’s official ones. Besides, the text’s title–“Puente Sobre Aguas Turbulentas/BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS”—reminds us, at this point of transition to the third section of the book, the Andean belief that in order to reach the upper regions, the Hanan, they had to cross a river made of human hair.
The last poem closes with a metawriting reflexion “a Hanan viraba el Sur, y yo iba y vengo / como parto de intuiciones y puñales…. /THE SOUTH WAS TURNING TO HANAN,/AND I WAS AND GOING AND I COME/ AS A BIRTH OF INTUITIONS AND DAGGERS” combined with a series of prophecies anaphorically repeated throughout the text:
Quedarán las puertas repartidas como tarjetas
THE DOORS WILL REMAIN DISTRIBUTED AS CARDS
Quedarán los poetas trajeados con su el rumbo entero
THE POETS WILL REMAIN DRESSED WITH THEIR THE FULL PATH
Y quedarán mis nombres reunidos en mi nombre nuevo…
AND MY NAMES WILL REMAIN GATHERED IN MY NEW NAME
As the central part of the third section begins, the double entry is abandoned, that is, the double poems at the beginning of preceding sections, and the motif of song is retaken, which needs be heard, since “las músicas suenan como naciones”/THE MUSICS SOUND AS NATIONS. In the second text,“Cronología / CRONOLOGY (114)”, the visionary and exclamatory tone prevailing in many of the poems is established:
II. 178 ¡Cambian la alturas!
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THE HEIGHTS CHANGE
¡Están cambiando las alturas !
THE HEIGHTS ARE CHANGING
¡Pero las calles no se mueven –el suelo no se abre—
BUT THE STREETS DO NOT MOVE – THE GROUND DOES NOT OPEN
los techos no se caen—pero cambian las alturas!
THE ROOFS DO NOT FALL –BUT THE HEIGHTS ARE CHANGING
We penetrate into a new cataclysm, no longer situated in the Amazonic jungle, but corresponding to the political violence in the Ayacucho Depatment in the 80’s. The effects of this devastating civil war are established in “(En) El Día Enterrado /IN THE BURIED DAY (116)” where terror and darkness prevail, and both humans and inanimate objects are animalized:
III. 182. ¡El día enterrado vuelve por los pies a mis ojos! …
THE BURIED DAY RETURNS THROUGH MY FEET UP TO MY EYES
¡Y las mujeres abrumadas tiemblan en la oscuridad redonda! …
AND THE OVERWHELMED WOMEN TREMBLE IN THE ROUND DARKNESS
¡Balan los edificios como corderos desolados!
BUILDINGS BLEAT LIKE DESOLATD LAMBS
¡Se buscan los rostros –se busca el suelo
ONE LOOKS FOR THE FACES –ONE LOOKS FOR THE GROUND
porque el miedo estruja las fachadas
BECAUSE FEAR CRUMPLES UP THE FACADES
y un tropel de animales negros desata cada esquina!
AND A HERD OF BLACK ANIMALS UNTIES EACH CORNER
This apocalyptic climate fosters mass executions, common graves, and vanished people. In the last stanza, where the methods for making people disappear are listed, the word “stuffed’ (embutida) is repeated, creating ambiguous and impacting images in the following poems:
186 ¡Los vehículos llenos de oscuridad arañan las pistas
VEHICLES FILLED WITH DARKNESS SCRATCH THE ROADS
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se detienen –arrojan muchachas de terror—y parten!
THEY STOP –THROW TERROR MAIDENS—AND THEN LEAVE
¡Sobre las puertas y ventanas embutidas con gente raspada—
ON TOP OF DOORS AND WINDOWS WHICH ARE STUFFED WITH SCRAPED PEOPLE
agua negra –tumba el apagón—
BLACK WATER – THE BLACKOUT FLASHES
After dedicating “(En) Las Semanas Encarceladas/ THE INCARCERATED WEEKS (118)” to call on the cardinal points and ask that they take away esta hora que extravía / las calles embutiéndolas en mi casa…”( THE HOUR THAT LOOSES/ THE STREETS STUFFING THEM IN MY HOUSE), section VI. “MANIFIESTO (a) from del “El Almanaque Perdido LOST CALENDAR(124)” starts with an allusion to Sendero Luminoso’s /SHINNING PATH’S practice of hanging dogs from public lampposts:
VI 198. Perro jalado por los ojos—perro embutido
DOG PULED BY HIS EYES—STUFFED DOG IN A FLOWERPOT
en un florero—
perro que rasca el aire mordido por el humo…
DOG SCRATCHING AIR BITTEN BY SMOKE
—-
y dije con legiones de perros ahorcados:
AND I SAID WITH LEGIONS OF HUNG DOGS
¡Están llevando a los mansos al suplicio!
THEY ARE BRINGING THE DOCILE ONES TO TORTURE
As I have previously proposed, the poetic voice covers the different victims of this kingdom of terror inflicted by all agaist all: guerrillas, soldiers and peasants. In “TESTIGOS/WITNESSES (122)” the word “embutir” appears for the fourth time as a transitive verb and with the same meaning it had three times previously. The paradoxical fragment—and Tulio Mora has already underlined its complexity—stands out, since the manager of a cooperative is accused of torture and killings:
En la cumbre donde gime el paisaje
ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP WHERE THE LANDSCAPE WEEPS
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Yo vi a Manuel Riego –jefe de Coop. Chota—
I SAW MANUEL RIEGO—LEADER OF THE CHOTA COOPERTIVE
Embutir un waype
STUFFING RAGS
En muchas bocas que ya después no respiraron
IN MANY MOUTHS THAT LATER COULD NOT BREATH
203 ¡Aquí en este suelo están los testigos…
HERE ON THIS GROUND ARE THE WITNESSES
todos muertos …
ALL DEAD
menos uno: yo que no puedo callar…!
BUT MYSELF: AND I CANNOT KEEP SILENT
“DESAPARECIDO/MISSING (122)” centers on Javier Cóndor Quispe, this time detained by four solders in civilian clothing. The colloquial register established with the “waype” from “TESTIGOS/ WITNESSES” extends with the whereabouts of Cóndor Quispe, who was “por el Jr. Cañete s/n (SEEN) BY JIRON CANETE, WITHOUT NUMBER” and is magnified by the efforts to find him. As in the poetry of that other great experimenter, Nicanor Parra—and I am referring to his “Anti-Lázaro” the text is saturated with greatly effective apparently anti-poetic elements:
207 ¡Aló dígame por favor dónde está
HELLO TELL ME PLEASE WHERE IS HE
qué ha pasado ayer estuve aquí tomé una foto
WAHT HAPPENED YESTERDAY I WAS HERE I TOOK THIS PHOTO
tomé esta foto ¡aló! aló! qué pasa
I TOOK THIS PHOTO ¡HELLO! ¡HELLO! WHAT’S GOING ON
qué está ocurriendo qué ocurre A
WHAT’S GOING ON WHAT IS HAPPENING
por qué no contestan qué ocurre
WHY YOU DO NOT ANSWER WHAT’S HAPPENING
por qué no contestan qué pasa ¡aló! ¡aló!…
WHY NO ONE ANSWERS WHAT’S GOING ON ¡HELLO! ¡HELLO!
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In a moving moment, the tercet to which the fourth stanza remits and is found as a footnote, is dedicated by the poet to Jaime Ayala Suica, the journalist who disappeared in Ayacucho’s Huanta province at the hands of the War Navy:
¡Cuenta cuenta Jaime Ayala—
TELL US JAIME AYALA—
qué está pasando en Huanta
WHAT’S GOING ON IN HUANTA
qué está pasando en Huanta!
WHAT’S GOING ON IN HUANTA
In “El Meridiano Uchuraccay UCHURACCAY MERIDIAN (128)”, the poet explores two of this civil war’s emblematic spaces. Uchuraccay, the Andean community where nine people—eight journalists and their guide—were killed, and later, 135 peasants died; and Iquicha, where the peasants themselves confront Shining Path for the first time. Iquicha’s political violence is described through a cumulative anaphorical enumeration which refers to Francisco de Quevedo’s famous sonnet, “Once there was a man stuck to a nose”, by its structure:
220 Trajeado sin embargo con focos que destilan
DRESSED NEVERTHELESS WITH SPOTLIGHTS THAT OOZE
claridades
BRIGHTNESS
del tamaño del valle de Iquicha—
THE SAME SIZE OF IQUICHA VALLEY
era una guerra
IT WAS A WAR
dentro de un pelotón de sombras—
INSIDE A SQUAD OF SHADOWS
era un cuchillo abortado en con cada gesto—
IT WAS AN ABORTED KNIFE IN EACH GESTURE
era una marejada de charangos
A WAVING SEA OF CHARANGOS
saliendo de las heridas nuevas—
COMING OUT OF THE NEW WOUNDS
era el nudo de la garganta tocado con las uñas—
IT WAS THE LUMP IN THROAT TOUCHED WITH THE NAILS
era un alfabeto regado en las lagunas—
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IT WAS AN ALPHABET WATERED IN THE LAGOONS
era un susurro en los radares roídos por el ruido
IT WAS A WHISPER IN THE RADARS CHEWED BY THE NOISE
The text closes with a condemnation of Uchuraccay in three dimensions: its fauna, represented metaphorically by its escamas scales—an extension of water and blood—its flora, present in the cascara (rind) and human level with the piel (skin)
y veo desaparecer tu nombre entre
AND I SEE YOUR NAME DISAPPEAR AMONG
bajo el filo del agua y de la sangre
UNDER THE WATER’S EDGE AND THE BLOOD
que aún moja las escamas – la cáscara y la piel…
WHICH STILL SPLASHES THE SCALES – THE SHELL THE AND SKIN
In the poems that follow the author combines allusions to the road to Hanan with multiple denunciations of the atrocities inflicted on the peasant population during that time. He devotes sections to assassinated female peasant leaders—such as Toribia Torres--, retakes the ubi sunt theme in several series devoted to concrete disappeared victims and describe the horror produced by violence:
Con pasamontaña óntico
WITH AN ONTIC ALL FACE MASK
gruñendo incluso con los bordes de la ternura
EVEN GRUNTING CLOSE TO TENDERNESS
avanza el horror buscando en mi cuerpo
(THE) HORROR MOVES FORWARD LOOKING IN MY BODY
lagartijas de pánico y locura.
FOR LIZARDS OF PANIC AND MADNESS
In “El Nacimiento de los Mártires / BIRTH OF MARTYRS (150)” the misfortunes suffered by the population are presented as destiny:
271 La respiración no es una estatua:…
BREATHING IS NOT A STATUE
otro mártir va a nacer
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ANOTHER MARTYR IS GOING TO BE BORN
y en el valle y en el mar
AND IN THE VALLEY AND IN THE SEA
florece su árbol genealógico
BLOOMS HIS FAMILY TREE
y en su corazón o girasol sonoro un sublime pensamiento
AND IN HIS HEART OR RESOUNDING SUNFLOWER A SUBLIME THOUGHT
¡Otro mártir va a nacer!
ANOTHER MARTYR IS GOING TO BE BORN
¡quién ayuda!
WHO IS GOING TO HELP
¡quién viene y ayuda!
WHO IS GOING TO COME AND HELP
In this text assassins are also condemned and their name is not intentionally mentioned, so they may not survive through song:
No sé todos los nombres—pero sí algunos
I DO NOT KNOW ALL THE NAMES –BUT I KNOW SOME OF THEM
rotos por las hachas obstinadas
BROKEN BY STUBBORN AXES
y extraviados en la pestilencia
AND LOST IN PESTILENCE
(de la médula)
OF THE MARROW
que roe sus esqueletos escupidos por Dios…
THAT GNAWS AT ITS SPITTED BY GOD SKELETONS
sé sus nombres pero no les daré letra –
I KNOW THEIR NAMES BUT I WILL NOT GIVE THEM A LETTER
Sé sus nombres pero no les daré letra…
I KNOW THEIR NAMES BUT I WILL NOT GIVE THEM A LETTER
Refusing to name abjection reflects his refusal to include past criminals in ”La Leyenda Secreta/SECRET LEGEND (35)”:
Por qué entonces nombraré yo a los asesinos – por qué
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WHY SHOULD I NAME THE MURDERERS-- WHY
(Llévate—silencio—esa turba legión
SILENCE—TAKE AWAY THAT BLURRED LEGION
pues aquí nunca habrá letra para el nombre abominable)
BECAUSE HERE THERE WILL BE NO LETTERS FOR THEIR ABOMINABLE NAME
Given the richness and impacting energy of Ramirez Ruiz poetic proposal, I could continue paraphrasing and breaking down the powerful texts of The pulverized arms. However, I prefer to end this exploration of his fascinating and provoking work with the poem “En la Madrugada /AT DAWN (166)” where the author gathers some of the motifs strewn in previous pages in order to openly declare his goal:
XXVIII Qué le pasa a los perros:
WHAT’S HAPPENING TO THE DOGS
están, al mismo tiempo, ladrando mucho:
THEY ARE, ALL AT THE SAME TIME, BARKING TOO MUCH
qué de la bestia has oído en la medianoche,
WHAT HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE BEAST AT MIDNIGHT
qué
WHAT
qué mariposas
WHAT BUTTERFLIES
unidas con quenas y antenas parabólicas
HELD TOGETHER WITH FLUTES AND PARABOLIC ANTHENAS
están oyendo.
ARE THEY LISTENING
Nada. No han oído nada
NOTHING. THEY HAVEN’T HEAR ANYTHING
Me han visto a mí viniendo el gran amor
THEY HAVE SEEN ME COMING TO THE GREAT LOVE
por para labrar el libro de la guerra y de la paz.
IN ORDER TO WRITE THE BOOK OF WAR AND PEACE
The pulverized arms is an epic song, of real wars and desired peace, peace towards which the poet and the book are moving, that space of
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crushed, pulverized and demolished weaponry—and of Hanan. In “Cambio de Tiempo (171)” is chosen what will be carried to the new space:
Nada útil quedará en las casas
NOTHING USEFULL WILL REMAIN IN THE HOUSES
que habrán de derribarse, nada:
THAT WILL HAVE TO BE DEMOLISHED, NOTHING:
el vacío de las cajas
THE EMPTINESS OF the BOXES
puede mañana necesitarse, los trapos
CAN BE NEEDED TOMORROW, ONLY
sólo limpios llevaremos,
THE CLEAN RAGS WE WILL BRING
el juguete cojo; puede arreglarse todavía.
THE BROKEN TOY; CAN STILL BE FIXED
Las raíces: eso nunca olvidaremos
THE ROOTS: THOSE WE WILL NEVER FORGET
The central poem of the book closes with an illuminating and cryptic text where Ramírez Ruiz once more presents his peculiar cosmovision based on a four part symbolic structure and the bipolar nature of the universe: that is to say, with the combination of the structure of the Southern Cross and the spaces of Hanan and Urin. The final text, titled “Hombre de Armas Molidas / MAN OF THE PULVERIZED ARMS (d) (180)” constitutes the fifth in the series—since in his alphabet the poet incorporates the letter “ch” for his fourth “Hombre”--, whose number, 180, corresponds to the double of 90, which as we have seen recurs through the poems. In the subdivision of this final poem an encompassing circular movement of the four cardinal points is established, beginning in the Southwest, moving Northeast, crossing—like the Southern cross—to the Southeast and ending in the Northeast. The titles of the four sections are preceded by the same spatial preposition: “IN THE SOUTHWEST”, IN THE NORTEAST” etc.
The series finishes with a spatial polarization: North/South or up/down for which the nomenclature is changed and the more refined Latin terms are used: “EN EL SEPTENTRIÓN /IN THE NORTH” and “AL MEDIODÍA / AT NOON-IN THE SOUTH. The first is limited by the preposition “en” and the second semantically combines temporality with the vector character of a destiny--–el Gran Sur— which the text leads to. In the
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last lines the man with the pulverized weapons is exhorted to ascend through poetry, to reach Hanan, because it is the promised land, the space of illumination, wisdom, solidarity, ease and tenderness.
This luminous book has already fulfilled what Roberto Bolaño has called the first of Nicanor Parra’s requisite for a masterpiece: to go unnoticed. It was published more than twenty years ago, and the few copies to reach university libraries have disappeared. I can only hope that editors will soon awaken and readers may gain access to Juan Ramírez Ruiz’s splendid work and perceive its great value, and the poet’s significant stature.
Translated by Alfredo Villanueva Collado
