Scarecrow & Other Anomalies
Page 9
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OLIVERIO GIRONDO BIBLIOGRAPHY
[1] Veinte poemas para ser leídos en el tranvía (Paris: Coulouma & Buenos Aires: H. Barthélemy, 1922), illustrated by the author, no page numbers. Republished 1925, 1966.
[2] Calcomanías (Madrid: Editorial Calpe, 1925), no page numbers. Republished 1966 with [1] & [3].
[3] Espantapájaros (Al alcance de todos) (Buenos Aires: Editorial Proa, 1932), cover painting by José Bonomi, no page numbers. Republished 1966 with [1] & [2].
[4] Interlunio (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sur, 1937), no page numbers.
[5] Persuasión de los días (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1942), 185 pages.
[6] Campo nuestro (Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana, 1946), 46 pp.
[7] En la masmédula (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1954), 56 pp. Republished 1956, 1963.
[8] Arthur Rimbaud, Una temporada en el infierno (Buenos Aires: Compañia General Fabril Editora, 1959), translated by Oliverio Girondo & Enrique Molina, 77 pp.
[9] Obras completas (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1968), ed. & with an introduction by Enrique Molina, 487 pp. Contains [1] - [7], plus “Membretes” and the article “Pintura moderna.”
[10] Jorge Schwartz, ed., Homenaje a Girondo (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Corregidor, 1987), 347 pp. Contains some previously unpublished pieces and numerous tributes and miscellanea, including “Manifiesto de Martín Fierro.”
[11] Obra completa (Madrid: Galaxia Gutenberg, 1999), coordinated by Raúl Antelo, with textological, critical and memoiric essays, xc, 798 pp. A beautiful edition containing all the above texts, save the manifesto and correspondence.
[12] Voice recording. Oliverio Girondo recorded the poems of his last collection, En la masmédula, on a 33 rpm vinyl disc at an unknown date for the series “Palabra en el tiempo,” directed by Arturo Cuadrado & Carlos Mazzanti. The recording can be heard on the Internet at http://www.cervantesvirtual.com. Type the author’s name in the “Busqueda” window or go directly to http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/ FichaAutor.html?Ref=3730&PO=1&portal=O
NOTES
Espantapájaros / Scarecrow
Translated from number [3] above; consultations made with [9] and [11].
Malabarist—”Fui metodista, malabarista, monogamista” (chapter 4). A malabarist is a juggler or thief, but is here translated “mountebank” to maintain the alliteration of the original. Many choices in the translation are based on such considerations. In point of fact, a mountebank—an entertainer hired to attract a crowd to a quack or sideshow—might juggle on occasion.
Calabrians—”Ni un conventillo de calabreses malcasados...” (chapter 11). Calabrians are natives of Calabria, Italy.
Gasometers—”... los gasómetros...” (chapter 13). Gasometers were large storage tanks for gasoline; the term was also used for a device attached to cars to save gas during shortages.
Poemas / Poems
The selections are all taken from Persuasión de los días (Persuasion of Days), using the texts printed in [9]. Consultation was made with [11].
─Exvoto / Devotion refers to a bygone custom of flirting and courtship. Young women, finely dressed and accompanied by matrons or other girls, would stoll down the street in the evening, and men would circle in as if accidentally and toss out romantic or provocative remarks close to their ear.
─Otro nocturno / Another Nocturne refers to the so-called “apache”—a ladies man, somewhere between lothario and pimp, who controls his woman with proud disdain; the type was made famous by the classical dance form with a dominating, abusive man and a submissive, clasping woman, both usually dressed in black.
Interlunio / Lunarlude
Translated from [9] with reference to [11]. This story provided much of the material for the film, The Dark Side of the Heart (1994). Director Eliseo Subiela, however, gave it quite a different slant.
Barrès—”Sólo un hombre capaz de usar un ala de cuervo sobre la frente, como Barrès...” Auguste Maurice Barrès (1862-1923) was French philosopher, statesman and novelist, noted for his nationalism. Evidently he wore a terrible toupee.
Prosa-Poemas / Prose Poems
The selections are all taken from Veinte poemas para ser leídos en el tranvía (Twenty Poems For Reading on the Streetcar), using the texts printed in [9] and with reference to [11].
Membretes / Memoranda
Selections come from the larger collection printed in [9]. Additional membretes are found in [10] and [11], but are not sampled here.
Récamier—”... las nalgas de madame Recamier” (page 172). Jeanne Françoise Récamier (1777-1849) was a celebrated hostess in French society; at age 15 she married a rich old baker and thereafter held a literary and political salon.
Manifiesto de “Martín Fierro” / The Manifesto of Martín Fierro
Printed in the journal Martín Fierro No.4, 15 May 1924, reprinted in [10], but not in [9] or [11]. The journal took the name of the hero (and title) of Latin America’s first great epic poem, written in 1872 by José Hernández. The epic extols the freedom, simplicity and integrity of the gaucho—the cowboy of Argentina’s pampas—and sets these virtues against the artificiality of modern life. At the same time the journal (and manifesto) affirmed the central position for Argentine letters of Rubén Darío (1867-1916), the great Nicaraguan poet and a founder of modernism in Latin American literature.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
OLIVERIO GIRONDO (1891-1967) was born into a wealthy family in Buenos Aires. He studied for law, but did not practice it, preferring to experiment in literature. His chief publications are Veinte poemas para ser leídos en la tranvía (Twenty Poems To Be Read on the Streetcar, 1922), Calcomanías (Decals, 1925), Espanatapájaros (Scarecrow, 1932), Interlunio (Lunarlude, 1937), Persuación de los días (Persuasion of the Days, 1942) and Campo nuestro (Our Countryside, 1946), the last two being collections of poetry. This iconoclastic body of work is well represented in the present translation. His last book is the untranslatable En la másmedula (Into the Moremarrow, 1954), poetry at the far reaches of the mind. Girondo travelled widely and associated with avant-garde writers in Europe and Latin America. He founded the journal Martín Fierro in 1923, which ran for twenty-six years. At its close, he established the Martín Fierro Award to support young writers. He and wife Norah Lange hosted a literary salon in the capital and presided as patrons of Argentine arts and letters until 1964, when he was injured in a car accident. A generous man, Oliverio Girondo greatly benefitted the cause of imaginative literature in Argentina. Citation of his works in the film The Dark Side of the Heart (1994) created a sensation in Argentina and brought him belated world fame.
GILBERT ALTER-GILBERT is a translator, critic and literary explorer. Among his translations are The Mirror of Lida Sal: Tales Based on Mayan Myths & Guatemalan Legends by Miguel Angel Asturias (Latin American Literary Review Press, 1997); Manifestos Manifest, from the French, by Vicente Huidobro (Sun & Moon Press, 1999); and Strange Forces: The Fantastic Tales of Leopoldo Lugones (Latin American Literary Review, 2001). He is the editor of Life and Limb: Selected Tales of Peril, Predicament and Dire Distress (Hi Jinx Press, 1996) and has several other anthologies in the offing. He writes art criticism and essays in literary esoterica, and serves as a consultant for Xenos Books. His planned translation with Xenos, On a Locomotive & other runaway stories by Massimo Bontempelli, ran off the rails. California born and bred, Alter-Gilbert ventures far and wide, usually in a foreign automobile, but continues to reside in the Golden State, where he maintains one of the most distinctive private collections of literary memorabilia on the Pacific Coast. A master of disguises, he delights in making unexpected appearances and unnoticed disappearances, leaving behind magnetic mummies and historic illustrations of the seven vices.
KARL KVITKO was born in an area of the Blue Ridge Mountains to a woman of Ukrainian or Irish descent. His Germanic father, a zookeeper, disappeared on an extended expedition in very wet terrain. Kvitko, raised in an orphanage, first took an i
nterest in snakes, then languages and literatures. Eventually he studied Russian and specialized in espionage. Most of his works appear in another language under an official cryptonym. In 1985, convinced that the big publishers hated real literature, written, as Yevgeny Zamyatin observed, “not by efficient and trustworthy clerks, but by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels, skeptics,” he founded Xenos Books, taking for its name the Greek word that means both “stranger” and “guest.” Everyone involved with the press matches at least one of Zamyatin’s specifications.
OTHER KINDLE EDITIONS FROM XENOS BOOKS
Antonio Di Benedetto, Animal World, translated from Spanish by H. E. Francis. A collection of short stories (original title: Mundo animal) with hallucinatory animal transformations, by the acclaimed Argentine master. ISBN 1-879378-27-2. $3.99.
Giancarlo Pastore, Jellyfish, translated from Italian by Jamie Richards. An experimental novel that takes the reader to the farthest reaches of alienation and despair. Its hero has a constant fantasy of being inside a jellyfish: “my feet detach from the ground and i float, i extend my tentacles. i expand, soft, languid, transparent. above, the sunlight recedes. Jellyfish (original title: Meduse) was hailed as a classic by major critics in Italy upon its appearance in 2003. ISBN 1-879378-57-4. $4.99.