Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
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CARLOS PELLICER AND CREACIONISMO
The first two decades of the twentieth century shaped the artistic avant
garde in Europe and the Americas and gave birth to a multitude of isms.
Cubism, Dadaism, Expressionism, Imagism, Futurism, Surrealism, and Ul
traism are some of the major movements that formulated modern aesthetic
theories. In Latin America the most influential ismo during the burgeoning
years of the avant-garde was creacionismo.
Creacionismo, whose chief exponent was the Chilean poet Vicente Hui
dobro, is clearly an avant-garde movement in the full sense of the word. In
The Theory of the Avant-Garde Renato Poggioli characterizes the avant-garde
as an "activist movement" which is "formed in part or in whole to agitate
against something or someone.'n
In addition avant-garde art implies a spirit of futurism in the broad sense
of the word and not merely in the limited sense given to it by Marinetti.
Poggiolo contrasts this futurist consciousness of the modern avant-garde
period with the consciousness of the past of a classical epoch.
These attitudes are expressed on numerous occasions in Huidobro's mani
festos and in his poetry. His program is in direct opposition to what preceded
him and clearly outlines a plan for the future.
While there have been some disagreements as to Huidobro's originality,
recent criticism points to the undeniable fact that the Chilean's verse and
essays reflected the latest European achievements in poetry and aesthetics
and initiated corresponding trends in Latin America. Although there was no
formal school or banner for creacionista poets, its influence was manifest in
poets such as Pablo Neruda, Jorge Carrera Andrade, Oliverio Girondo, and,
as we will demonstrate later in this study, Carlos Pellicer.
The influence of Huidobro on the modern poets of Latin America is
made obvious in an interview with the Ecuadorian poet, Jorge Carrera An
drade, by William J. Straub:
W.J.S. With whom, among the ultraistas, do you feel most affinity as
a writer?
J.C.A. I do not believe that I have afinity with any ultraista poet. I feel
closer to Huidobro and creacionismo. Someone has said that I oc
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96 LATIN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW
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CARLOS PELLICER AND CREACIONISMO 97
[Let verse be like a key that opens a thousand doors. A leaf falls;
something passes flying; whatever the eyes see, let it be created, and
the soul of the listener tremble. Invent new worlds and take care with
your words. The adjective, when it does not give life, kills. We are in
the cycle of nerves. The muscle hangs as a memory in the museums. It
is not only for this that we have less strength: True vigor resides in
the mind. Why sing to the rose, poets. Make her bloom in the poem.
All things under the sun live only for us. The poet is a little god.]
The "Arte po?tica" and other creacionista doctrines were not to fall on
deaf ears in Latin America. Earlier in this study we cited specific poets who
iecognized the importance of Huidobro to the development of the avant
garde in Latin America. Let us now examine specific instances of creacionismo
m the poetry of Carlos Pellicer.
7 Ibid., p. 255.
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98 LATIN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW
The reader will note that some poetic elements introduced here as
creacionistas have been discussed in other studies on avant-garde poetry and
attributed to different sources. This is not to deny Huidobro's contributions,
but to suggest a simultaneous creativity. For Huidobro was only one of
hundreds of poets who were seeking a new poetic that would be capable of
responding to the challenge of language and reality in the modern world.
His theories are similar in many ways to those put forth by other isms, but
in as many ways Huidobro shows original thought in postulating guidelines
tor the poet of the twentieth century. Modern poetry has no one hero, no
one school, and no fixed point in time. Philosophers and poets, together as
well as other artists, have all fashioned an aesthetic, a view of reality and
man's role within that reality, which falls into a general category of "the
modern." Thus the poetic elements we term creacionistas are those that are
consistent with Huidobro's manifestos and his poetry, as well as with the
works of other artists of the age
8 Ibid., p. 697.
9 Unpublished interview, February, 1969.
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CARLOS PELLICER AND CREACIONISMO 99
But ultimately it is an object over which the poet has complete contro
The use of creacionista techniques is found in many poems and is
images throughout the early production of Pellicer. Most notable amon
are a group of poems entitled "Suite Brasilera" ["Brazilian Suite"]
poem which we will transcribe in its entirety, "El sembrador" ["The So
Sembrador silencioso:
el sol ha crecido por tus m?gicas manos.
El campo ha escogido otro tono
y el cielo ha volado m?s alto.
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100 LATIN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW
Sembrada la tierra.
Su paso era bello: ni corto ni largo.
En sus ojos cab?an los montes
y todo el paisaje en sus brazos. (134)
[The sower sowed the dawn; his arm reached the sea. The mountains
could enter his vision. The earth lined by furrows heard the grains
fall. The tree began to dance to that simple and profoundly melodic
rhythm. Silent sower: the sun has grown by your magical hands. The
countryside has chosen another tone and the sky has flown higher.
The earth is sown. His step was fair: neither short nor long. The
mountains filled his gaze and all the landscape in his arms.]
II.
[I will play with the houses of Curazao. I'll put the sea on the left and
will make more moving bridges. Whatever the poet says!]
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CARLOS PELLICER AND CREACIONISMO ?OT
[Profoundly oblique, the airplane twisted and the entire landscape was
a glorious act of my hands. Without a single remembrance nor desire,
as a god, I unfolded the panoramas, adorned with light, airy with
flight. And among the clouds I promised to raise a mountain!]
[To draw the hills! To give them eyes and bring them fine words. To
dip the brush slowly; to divide the fog at nine o'clock in the morning,
so that a country glass of water becomes a happy lemonade.]
Si yo fuera pintor
me salvar?a
con el color
toda una civilizaci?n yo crear?a.
El azul ser?a
rojo
y el anaranjado
gris:
el verde soltar?a en negros estupendos. (119)
[If I were a painter I would save myself with color. I would create a
whole civilization. Blue would be red and orange, gray; green would
leap out in stupendous blacks.]
In the poetic world of Pellicer the wind possesses the ability to change the
color of the landscape:
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?Q2 LATIN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW
[And the wind that plucked the agile palms changed the color of the
landscape.]
HI.
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CARLOS PELLICER AND CREACIONISMO 103
Desde el avi?n
la orquesta panor?mica de R?o de Janeiro
se escucha en mi coraz?n (78)
[From the airplane, the panoramic orchestra of Rio de Janeiro is heard
in my heart]
12 We use the term "unreal" to refer to images which are not attached to any
consideration of an a priori exterior reality.
13 Octavio Paz, Las peras del olmo, 2nd ed. (M?xico: Universidad Nacional Au
t?noma de M?xico, 1965), p. 100.
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104 LATIN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW
In the last image light is not only described in terms of sound, but it is also
given physical mass by virtue of the verb "rota" [broken].
A quite uncommon use of synesthesia is found in "Mi sed amarga que
alz? gritos" ["My bitter thirst that raised shouts"] where the sensation of
taste is expressed in terms of sound, or the combination of smell and sight in:
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CARLOS PEIXICER AND CREACIONISMO 1?5
Tu mar y tu monta?a
? un pu?adito de Andes y mil litros de Atl?ntico. (79)
[The sea and the mountain?a handful of Andes and a thousand liters
of Atlantic]
14 Friedrich, p. 309.
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106 LATIN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW
This technique is not only used in the poems of aviation but is also
effective in expressing the closeness of two lovers:
Once the borders of normal spacial confines are crossed the poet is free
to attack even a more sacred absolute: time. Pellicer lives in two temporal
worlds: one which is modern and western in which time and history are
linear thus constantly moving to some end. The other is of his native tropical
Tabasco and a circular concept of time characteristic of the pre-Columbian
cultures of that region. In "Estudios" from Hora y 20 [Hour ?md 20~] he
captures the essence of timelessness:
Relojes descompuestos,
voluntarios caminos
sobre la m?sica del tiempo
He aids the poem with an image of time which is not speeding to some
conclusion, but rather moves slowly in a circular path:
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CARLOS PELLICER AND CREACIONISMO 107
And a city seen from an airplane is "un libro deshojado" (79) ["an un
bound book"].
Pellicer's combination of disparate elements in one image has various
effects. It can be humorous as in:
El cielo de Tilantongo
vuela en un pico de garza (352)
[The corn in the cornfield laughed heartily.... The sky of Tilantongo
flies in the beak of a heron.]
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108 LATIN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW
Y el puerto suntuoso,
liberal y tropical
entre gr?as y palmeras en reposo (81)
[Under the wheels of the mountain the resonant and modern sea turns
its ancient machinery slowly. ... And the sumptuous port, liberal and
tropical between cranes and palms in repose].
And:
Bajaron las palmeras
de las trescientas olas autom?viles (262)
[The palms descended from the three hundred automobile waves.]
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CARLOS PELLICER AND CREACIONISMO 109
And:
la luz es im fruto que devora el paisaje. (124)
[the light is a fruit that devours the landscape.]
Ayer se hundieron
un barco holand?s y el Sol.
La medianoche ha quedado estancada
en los astros mayores y en los pechos de amor.
En la playa hay preguntas y luci?rnagas.
En el puerto s?lo yo soy feliz.
?Tu nombre me salva del mundo!
?Divina palabra!
Silencio y abril. (37)
[Yesterday a Dutch boat and the sun were sunk. Midnight has become
stagnant in the larger stars and in the breasts of love. On the beach
there are questions and bats. In the port I alone am happy. Your name
saves me from the world. Divine word. Silence and April].
Through this seemingly chaotic arrangement one can sense the utter fri
volity, the youthful exuberance that Pellicer brings to poetic creation. Nothing
is too sacred or too commonplace for his imaginative manipulations. Octavio
Paz captures this sense of joy in Pellicer when he states: "His poetry is a
vein of water.in the desert; his joy returns to us the faith in joy."15
The final category, representation of the abstract and the intangible by
the concrete, could easily be discussed here but its frequency of appearance
in Pellicer's poetry merits its own section.
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110 LATIN AMERICAN LITERARY REVIEW
Friedrich contends that this stylistic technique is not uncommon among many
modern poets: "Another stylistic law," says Friedrich, "that has almost become
topical consists of situating on the same level the tangible and concrete and
the abstract."16 This technique in Pellicer, however, was not simply a borrowed
innovation, but an act which demonstrated his natural desire to express himself
in visible or other sensual terms. His poetry is not about things, but rathei
about the things created in a reality all his own.
In "Eleg?a" he writes "Yo tendr?a ojos en las manos/ para ver de re
pente." ["I would have eyes in my hands in order to see suddenly"]. Here
he expressed the desire to see by touching and feeling and not through a
conceptual process. This desire is again repeated in "Estudios Venecianos"
[Venetian Studies]:
In this poetic reality his personal emotions are given physical dimension
?solitude: "es olvido esf?rico de mi soledad"; (234) ["it is the spherical
oblivion of my solitude"], "Vuelvo a t?, soledad agua vac?a,/ agua de mis
im?genes, tan muerta,/ nube de mis palabras, tan desierta"; (267) ["I return
to you, solitude, empty water, water of my images, so dead, cloud of my
thoughts, so empty"], "ausencia/ manzana a?rea de las soledades"; (340)
["absence, aerial block of solitudes"], "veo tu soledad c?rcel abierta"; (212)
["I see your solitude, open jail"], or this personification: "la soledad est?
pensando/ junto a la ventana." (157) ["Solitude is thinking next to the
window"].
Note how in the second example solitude is not only given a concrete
representation through its metaphoric relationship to water and clouds, but
the intensity and immensity of the emotion is heightened as well through its
attachment to elements which are vast and unfathomable.
Another emotion which is made concrete is happiness: "por el rinc?n
de un sollozo/pas? la felicidad." (224) ["happiness passed through the
corner of a sob"]; here not only is happiness personified by the use of the
verb "passed," but "sob" is given physical dimension in the metaphor "corner
of a sob." No emotion or concept is free from Pellicer's poetic sculpture:
sound; "tu voz... de perfil," (221)) ["your voice... of profile"]; the
afternoon is capable of being cut, "El segador con pausas de m?sica/siega la
tarde." (135) ['The reaper cuts the afternoon with musical pauses"]; and
night is personified in "La noche, lentamente se desnuda/para dormir sobre
mi coraz?n" (72) ["Night slowly undresses itself to sleep on my heart"].
Friedrich, p. 315.
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CARLOS PELLICER AND CREACIONISMO 111
Even the inverse is possible as in the following image where two tangible
objects are described in terms of an abstract: "ventanas y puertas de alegr?a"
(29) ["windows and doors of joy"].
This then is the body of the poetic work of Pellicer. A world of things,
visible and invisible, but all transformed to correspond to his unique vision
of reality. Although, as we have demonstrated, Pellicer had adopted many of
the creacionista techniques, philosophically there stretched a distance between
him and Huidobro. Where in Huidobro there is a tendency to reject nature,
Pellicer's relationship to nature is one of harmonious coexistence. It is an
interchange by which the sun, the sea, and the wind provide him with inspi
ration, and he in turn dresses them in imaginative colors and forms.
Thus we come to the problem of classification?is Pellicer a creacionista
poet? To the extent that he adopts many of the creacionista techniques we
would answer yes. However, Carlos Pellicer is clearly not an avant-garde
artist. While he adopts many of the devices and attitudes which originate
in avant-garde movements, he is not disposed to the avant-garde mentality.
His poetic production begins at a time when the avant-garde frenzy of the
first two decades of the century had subsided. His modernity is manifest
most of all in the attitude that all advances in poetry are his own. He is at
once a contempor?neo, a creacionista, an ultraista, but most of all he is Car
los Pellicer.
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