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Beyond the Wall: New Selected Poems

Régis Bonvicino

Translated from the Portuguese by Charles Bernstein, Odile Cisneros, and Thérèse Bachand

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A Bilingual Edition




SALE PRICE: U.S. $9.95
Régis Bonvicino
Beyond the Wall: New Selected Poems
Series No.: 208
ISBN: 978-1-55713-431-8, Pages: 220
Brazilian Literature, Poetry

Régis Bonvicino's poems are centered around the dystopia of urban spaces -- especially Sao Paulo where he lives. While his poems include the imagery of nature, they are nevertheless resolutely unromantic, and often brutal in their street-level observations. Friction reigns between the intense lyricism and gritty content, between sound and syntax, between rhyme and intense rhythmic shifts.

Among Bonvicino's many publications are Sky-Eclipse: Selected Poems (Green Integer), Ossos de Borboleta (poems of which appear in this volume), 33 Poemas, Más companhias, Primeiro Tempo, and a children's book, num zoológica de letras. He has edited and translated Oliverio Girondo's work, as well as books by Jules Laforgue, Robert Creeley, and Douglas Messerli. He edited the correspondence of Brazilian poet and novelist Paulo Leminski. He is the editor of Sibila, a magazine of art and culture.

 
Also by Régis Bonvicino:
Sky-Eclipse: Selected Poems, $9.95
 


Book Review(s)




SIBILIA, June 5, 2017

by Rodrigo S. Cintra

"Nota sobre Beyond the wall"

é um artista se entregando para a polícia

"Arte" de Régis Bonvicino

Quem se dispõe a percorrer a nova coletânea de poemas de Régis Bonvicino, Beyond the wall (Além do muro) recém publicada pela editora Green Integer nos EUA, deve estar preparado para enfrentar uma complexa trama em que o estatuto da arte, a vida na cidade e a política em ponto de bala se entrelaçam de uma maneira absolutamente inextricável, de modo que é praticamente impossível uma dissociação dos elementos dessa poética – existe algo de irredutível na obra que impede os esquemas mais tradicionais de interpretação de livros de poesias. Não é o caso, então, de tentar localizar quais são os poemas de uma ordem metalinguística mais evidente ou os que apresentam imagens da cidade ou mesmo os que discutem relações de poder. Os poemas de Beyond the wall operam nas bordas, nos limites em que um tema já se transforma em outro, mas ainda não deixa de ser o que era.

Existe uma verdadeira topografia poética, um modo pelo qual esses poemas foram estrategicamente colocados em sua sequência, que causa a perfeita percepção de que o livro tem um espaço próprio de acontecimento: a cidade. O terreno em que os textos são colocadas é o espaço urbano. Só que a cidade de Régis Bonvicino não é composta de prédios, janelas, casas e lojas. O lugar de que fala e de onde fala o poeta é feito de mendigos, ratos, garrafas, urina e cigarros. Não é uma cidade específica, tampouco. Pode ser Le monde, Bank of China, Chascona, Passeig de Gràcia, New York ou Bom Retiro. De qualquer modo: é uma poética urbana.

Se as metrópoles são o espaço da desigualdade evidente, Régis constrói suas imagens-sons de uma maneira particular. Uma técnica de construção de linguagem por contradição, talvez mesmo, por atrito. Não há nada de um lirismo coerente, de uma poesia sem arestas. De vez em quando, falta uma rima, outras vezes, um paralelismo é subtraído, uma ideia não se completa, uma imagem é sequestrada. De caso pensado, Régis Bonvicino faz poesia com ângulos, dobras, conflitos, inversões e paradoxos.

O poeta escreve com cálculo: está tudo resolvido no espaço da página. Porém, algo sempre sobra e parece escapar da prisão do texto e golpear os sentidos do leitor. A "urina" realmente fede, o "mendigo" implacavelmente incomoda e, quase imperceptivelmente olhamos para os cantos da sala a procura dos "ratos". Um modo de fazer poesia que contamina as palavras e é contaminado por elas. O cálculo poético parece nos surpreender e somos pegos a levantar a cabeça, deixar o texto, e parar para pensar o que está acontecendo. Nessas vezes, invariavelmente, quando voltamos ao texto, relemos alguma passagem anterior, folheamos o livro e retornamos a algum poema que, de repente, merece melhor apreciação. Não se trata de um livro de poemas para ler do começo ao fim sem interrupções.

Essas interrupções são verdadeiros engasgos, nos pegam de surpresa e provocam uma sensação estranha – às vezes colocamos até um sorriso na boca, tudo aparenta correr bem na leitura, mas, logo adiante, percebemos a verdade que essa poética provoca: o sorriso se transforma em riso nervoso. Trata-se de um tipo de poesia que é necessária, poesia-incomodo, bem diferente dos esquemas fáceis da moda. Pode-se dizer, inclusive, que nos seus ângulos, sinuosidades e esquivas é um livro que respeita plenamente o leitor. Mas, que assim o faz somente na exata medida em que exige mais da leitura.

Analisemos duas poesias da coletânea: a primeira e a última – para fazer uma moldura do que pode ser encontrado entre esses dois muros.

Com o título de "Arte", a poesia de abertura não poderia ser mais irônica. Como falar da arte nos tempos atuais em que a barbárie cultural impera de maneira triunfante? Como fazer arte em tempos de mass media? A provocação que o título da peça de abertura do livro faz




BUREAUCRACY TODAY, November 2017

by K. K. Srivastava

Regis Bonvicino is a Brazilian poet and he is the editor of SIBILA, a magazine of art and culture published from Brazil. Among Bonvicino's publications are Sky-Eclipse: Selected Poems, Ossos de Borboleta, 33 Poemas, Más companhias, Primerio Tempo and a book for children num zoologica de letras. In addition, he has edited and translated Oliverio Girondo's work, as well as books by Jules Laforgue, Robert Creeley and Douglas Messerli. His edited correspondence of Brazilian poet and novelist Paulo Leminski, considered a literary monument.

Published in 2017, his latest collection BEYOND THE WALL, originally written in Portuguese and translated into English by Charles Bernstein, Odile Cisneros and Therese Bachand is a bilingual book: both in Portuguese as well as in English. Bonvicino's poems ruminate over dystopic urban spaces—particularly Sao Paulo where he lives. There might be glimpses of imagery of nature, but often his poems are resolutely unromantic and brutal in their street-level observations. Imagery is startlingly breathtaking.

His poems reflect very vehemently his engagement with the apparent and latent contradictions life offers. These contradictions equip the poet with an opportunity to celebrate what is not celebratable: the free floating anxiety and annihilation of human feelings. A poetic wand in Bonvicino's hands brings to his readers variations in interpretations and experimentations. A careful reading of the book, and it is a very serious book at that, leads a reader to a realm where the storyteller is not tired of telling the story, but he is certainly tired of the unending nature of stories. So he begins with a search. His first prose-poem is 'The New Utopia' which is 'a black butterfly, inattentive with lush eyes,' and has other features. To enumerate a few: it is 'inclusionary, participatory,' it 'dies standing,' it has 'unconditional respect for underachievers,' and a lot more. But Bonvicino leaves, at the end, his readers with a question—'Is The New Utopia a poem in tune with the times?'

In 'This poem' Bonvicino tackles the question of writing a poem which 'attracts no attention' and further 'it has no future.' For him, 'it creates no enemy / it does not die after an attack / it has no barbs / it stands the world.' I interpret 'This poem' as a challenge to the aura of hypocrisy and stubbornness. His preoccupies himself with what seems to be moving out of reach, the nature of space and distance, their relationship. For instance in the poem 'Etc' the poet points to 'the sky, / quiet light, distant, / seeing, only, / arms.' What Bonvicino sees through these poems are the remnants of lost hopes and a humanity which is 'docile, guileless.'

'In the morning' this is what we read—'A dozen street people / inhabit the traffic island on the main road / a shadow hangs like a curtain / on the other side a white couch.' People live in urban jungles: dense and crowded. Some feel the need for solitary confinement. Sao Paulo and other modern cities of today, apart from being physical cities, are also cities of the psyche which splits itself into the real and the phantasmagoric. Enough for reinforcing the cerebral wisdom of the poet. The book masks the sense of indifference beneath the malignant surface of life, the ills of leading a downtrodden existence and its hollowness, irony and pathos of human existence. While our physical selves remain in close proximity to thousands, if not millions, the soul inhabits isolation chambers where thought is not possible. There is loss not just of memory, but also of the sense of association, of human relationships. His poems unfold life, placing it at the debris which is half understood and half not understood. Everything beyond is uncertain.

Looking at prospects of contemporary life and the inbuilt tensions within these prospects, he follows a dreamy, meditative path of poetry not only for the individual but also the system. 'Writing on the wall' is a poem where the poet wants 'to live beyond the wall / at the top of the high-rise / a metal nest / a womb,' which is indicative of the ecstatic nature of impulses.

In his poem 'Image Impossible', the poet finds himself trapped in the dreary existence—'like rats / at favela's door,' from which the only escape available is imagination which runs through these lines: 'Cars cross tunnel / amber, blue, brown / thin sidewalk / a beggar / in the gutter / scraps and rags / against the wall / turning heads.'

Bonvicino acts more like a painter, a thinking painter lost in lording over a literary empire only a few dare to tread, and where even a fewer succeed. His world is a lost world, its retrieval an ongoing enterprise, and his book a gigantic effort to place the retrieved world on an even plane. The poet admits and very correctly in 'Untitled' that 'Almost no one sees / what I see in words / byzantine iconoclasm / the clock reads midnight or midday?' Reason good enough for him to pen in 'Birthday': 'I have been overkilled by my peers / what do I say / enigma?' Bonvicino comes very close to Samuel Beckett in terms of the latter's visionary qualities of looking beyond the un-seeable. After finishing the book, certainly not meant for plebeians, I am reminded of Beckett's play Footfalles—May (M)'s line 'What age am I now?' This is a really difficult book. But is poetry not supposed to be difficult? Otherwise what is heaven for?

___

About the Reviewer: K K Srivastava is a civil servant and currently working as Director General in the Office of Comptroller and Auditor General of India. Further he is a prominent poet and a columnist/reviewer. Apart from Bureaucracy Today, he writes for the newspapers The Pioneer and The Daily Star.





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