The current Kenyon Review (JAN/FEB 2018, Volume XL Number 1) features a special section, Generation Zero: New Cuban Poetry, edited by Katherine M. Hedeen and Víctor Rodríguez Núñez, translator and author of With a Strange Scent of World, herein.
In the introduction (available online), they write:
It’s not a cliché by any means to declare that few times in its history has Cuban poetry been more varied, innovative, critical, and attractive than it is right now. And an undeniable part of it is the verse written by what has been called Generation Zero (Generación Cero), poets born after 1970 and who began publishing after 2000.
And:
The work by these young poets reaffirms Cuba’s long, rich tradition of dialogic poetry, which finds its identity through the identification with the other, and is marked by tensions between commitment and autonomy, dialogue and creativity, continuity and rupture.
This introductory essay is a succinct analysis of the situation of contemporary Cuban poetry, and indeed poetry in the Spanish-speaking world in the present ideological environment. They note, for example, that not a single Cuban poet was included in the recently released anthology El canon abierto: Última poesía en español [The Open Canon: New Poetry in Spanish] published by Visor, the most respected poetry press in Spain, in 2015, and add:
Cuban poetry has had to confront, above all in the seventies, neo-Stalinist aesthetic standards, which demanded, among other things, “reaching the people,” being clear and direct. This is precisely one of the paradigms of the so-called “poetry of experience,” which prevails in Spain today, with offshoots in Latin America, especially among the contemporaries of Generation Zero, the self-designated “poets of uncertainty.” By contrast, the young poets selected are very well aware, from historical experience, of the danger of making aesthetic concessions in the name of coherence and transparency, and, as such, they defend poetry’s integrity.
Which makes us wonder if we in the English-speaking world, where "coherence and transparency" continue to be the ideological vogue, might have something to learn from this collection.
And here's a poem to read and listen to from With a Strange Scent of World, by Víctor Rodríguez Núñez and translated by Katherine M. Hedeen, The sound files features Victor reading the poem in the original Spanish and Kate reading the translation.
Kate and Victor both teach at Kenyon, where Kate also serves as Translation Editor for Kenyon Review.
Pick up a copy of With a Strange Scent of World for half price, today only.
Praise for the Neutrino
https://www.lavenderink.org/sound/kate.mp3
For Jesús Selpúveda
I celebrate you
because no one in the world
is smaller
and still
you cross galaxies nebulas stars
not reacting
Because even as light
you move
much slower than light
or rest motionless
correcting
the theory of a warming universe
Because thanks to you
the past was only
reheated plasma and not ashes
Plasma’s density reached
billions of tons
by cubic centimeter
Because no one knew
until now
you were ninety-seven percent
of everything
leaving only three to be divided up
among sons of bitches and the rest
Because thanks to you
no one’s far
from anyone now and everything tends to join
And it doesn’t matter if
in a solid flame
at a radiant point
I celebrate you
because you are
essence of spasm
matter of tenderness
or that tiny bit of nothing
my aunt uses to brown her custards
Thank god
the world isn’t infinite
Like a verse
it’s made up of syllables
that can be counted
The world fits in an alexandrine
Elogio del neutrino
https://www.lavenderink.org/sound/victor.mp3
Para Jesús Sepúlveda
Te celebro
porque en el mundo nadie
es más pequeño que tú
y sin embargo
atraviesas galaxias nebulosas estrellas
sin reaccionar con nadie
Porque aún siendo luz
puedes moverte
muchísimo más lento que la luz
o descansar inmóvil
corrigiendo
la teoría de un universo caliente
Porque gracias a ti
el pasado fue solo
plasma recalentado y no cenizas
La densidad del plasma
era de billones de toneladas
por centímetro cúbico
Porque nadie sabía
hasta ahora
que eras el noventisiete por ciento
de todo
quedando solo un tres a repartir
entre hijos de puta y demases
Porque gracias a ti
nadie se aleja
ya de nadie y todo tiende a unirse
Y no importa que sea
en una llama dura
en un punto radiante
Te celebro
porque eres
la esencia del espasmo
materia de ternura
o ese poco de nada
con que mi tía dora sus natillas
Gracias a dios
no es infinito el mundo
Como el verso
está hecho de sílabas
que es posible contar
El mundo cabe en un alejandrino