The first poems of Severo Sarduy, an unpublished jewel

After 62 years everything is, indeed, different.

Today it is important to present a complete sample of the first poems by Severo Sarduy (1937-1993), those that he wrote and many times published inside and outside of Cuba between 1953 and 1964 but that to date have not been collected in the form of book.

We knew his author as the groundbreaking novelist he undeniably was;

also as an essayist and aesthetic and literary theorist.

We knew him as a producer and announcer on Radio France, as well as a Parisian avant-garde painter;

and certainly towards the end of his life, as a poet of dazzling lyrical ease.

Less known, however, are his origins as a writer, which in Cuba were fundamentally those of a poet, and his early work, which for decades has been dispersed and was not part of the canonical edition of his

(1999).

The poet Andrés Sánchez Robayna is right when he observes, in relation to this first phase of Sarduy's work, that "it certainly deserves a particular study".

THREE

Walking through seven worlds,

lying in silence,

That there is no voice that breaks it,

Nor be that it divides it,

unstable and inaccurate,

Plastic,

In an infinite mobile,

And a time without space,

nine dimensions,

Darling,

Abandoned to the last accent,

to the last silence,

Behind,

Land,

Put in the earth and forming part of it,

Fossil,

Waiting for a message, a messiah,

A Christ with twelve disciples,

last first stage

Soul or life not yet released

-Impossible-

Conceiving a term,

A frame,

An image.

Here like this, like this eight times,

Looking at the sun and elastic,

Collected to the body.

Sheet.

Clock.

leaf-clock.

Without a way to prolong myself.

Not a moment to sleep on me.

All the bugs, the rocks and the lights,

Dressed in newspaper

Shutting up the sky, and with this that is no more,

Than the photo of a man submerged at dawn,

And clearing with her,

Nine dimensions.......... Already!!

NIGHT

The night is silent.

Mars redder than ever.

The coconut leaves form a right angle.

.........., and me .........................

dry,

chaotic,

sunk in myself.

ALMOST WITHOUT ME.

Come!

Cover my eyes to see you as I want.

Cover my eyes so I can see you...

...... all glass and milk.

This winter without wool!

THIS NOW!

I need hunger!

I need thirst!

I need to give myself to the environment itself!

I want to live!

Come on!

Come on!

Who gives more?

A man without bark is auctioned here!

Located between seven stars,

living in a plane of nine dimensions.

Plastic.

Teen.

An angel will give the last first voice.

Do I have a message inside?

ATLANTIC (1959-1964)

Love is saying: “Come to my house

and share with me the light and the word.

Enjoy my peace, speak your language

which is like mine when you speak it”.

Love is saying: “Come to my table

to share the bread

Drink from my water.

Teach me the trade of being free:

the pigeons grown in the dawn”.

It's raising the flags, it's uniting

stand for peace and fight war

march towards an Aurora where united

men from other lands await us.

Love is saying "Come to my house,

sister, comrade, companion!”

DEFINITION OF LOVE

Today I understand that this world still exists

that there was, like a book, already forgotten:

over various windows, from the deep

balcony flowers descend, it is golden

the air you preside over

I am surprised

saying for example: “I love you more

every day, you define Peace

and the act of naming it.”

(Today I understand

that world still exists).

I am born, I find

things slowly: a star,

the way of naming you, the air, the center

first of language or faith.

Already

I gather the words, I speak.

I enter

in its violent light: The moon is beautiful.

CURACAO 59

Garden of languages ​​in the chest of America,

you sail Curaçao against the burning coast,

—fine wood fish and compass rose—

The unnavigable moon turns over your bridge.

Garden of the word, forges in the light

dew of language your incandescent jewel,

the quartz of your edges, like an old engraving

crowning the concise papiamentum rose.

More than stone or foam your coast shines

when calm arrive, in the morning, the boats

and feverish fabric guitars explode.

Fire and silence enamel the mural of your coast

where furious trees suddenly sprout:

the blades like spears against the air strike

and keep the snow away from your land forever.

PARIS 60

against all languages,

against you, gentlemen toads, trilingual and polyglot,

against the Royal Academy of Bad Language,

against the Spanish seseo,

against merci, merci monsieur and monsieur merci well,

against the rags of Esperanto

Latinism and dialect jewellery,

and especially against the cubist hand of the translator

that changes, like the banker,

drachmas for dinars, rupees for shillings,

dollars for dollars for dollars.

Against the jargon of customs

and the hieroglyph of the seals

we will throw the passports into the sea

and the borders and the bombs all.

Only in that silence will we listen

the dialogue of man, the tide

on the metal shores, the arrow

that draws a dove on the asphalt,

and the noise of the factories growing

under the immense tent of dawn.

Under the immense tent of the dawn.

IN THE NAME OF PEACE

I am so confused

that in the cloudy air I see a mirror,

that the light breaks in my pupils

when the blind sing in the subway.

That I go out to the tense sky of the street

and I hear you say: Come on, Severo,

write what you see

and your voice comes

Closer and hotter than my chest.

I'm clear though

in the little things, for example,

I would like to convert the weapons

in bread toys for children,

go to your side, distribute the land,

teach love to the enemy,

make a swing alphabet

for a playground, go on Sundays

to talk a little about painting:

“This is Víctor Manuel, look, friends,

in the metallic night of blues

the chalk trees, the yellow”.

just for these things

Today I name the sea of ​​tin, the fiery face

Of those who wait for this freedom

in the sulfur rain.

For the war

I name the immense and powerful Peace

creator of heaven and earth.

'The silence that does not die.

Poems (1953-1964)', by Severo Sarduy.

Edition and prologue by Enrico Mario Santí.

Huerga and Iron, 2022.

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