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Dibaxu
Debajo, dibaxu en sefaradí. Una sola palabra, apenas un adverbio, que designa el doble lugar de origen de la lírica: el amor y la lengua. Porque debajo del canto, se halla la voz y, debajo de la voz, esa palabra que está siempre por decirse, esa promesa que arde calladamente como el sol. En una demostración de audacia y rigor poéticos, Juan Gelman ha escrito los veintinueve poemas que integran este libro en dialecto judeoespañol y los ha traducido luego al castellano moderno. Apasionada experiencia del lenguaje, dibaxu no tiene precedentes en la poesía hispanoamericana contemporánea.
- GenresPoetry
66 pages, Paperback
Published June 1, 1994
About the author
Juan Gelman
132 books85 followersJuan Gelman is one of the most read and influential poets in the Spanish language. He has published more than twenty books of poetry since 1956 and has been translated into fourteen languages. A political activist and critical journalist since his youth, Gelman has not only been a literary paradigm but also a moral one, within and outside of Argentina. Among his most recent awards are the National Poetry Prize (Argentina, 1997), the Juan Rulfo Prize in Latin American and Caribbean Literature (Mexico, 2000), the Pablo Neruda Prize (Chile, 2005), the Queen Sofia Prize in Ibero-American Poetry (Spain, 2005), and the Cervantes Prize (the most important award given to a Hispanic writer, Spain, 2007).
Long biographical note
Juan Gelman is the most significant, contemporary Argentine intellectual figure and one of the most read and influential poets in the Spanish language. Son of a family of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, he grew up like any other porteño, among soccer and tango, in the populous neighborhood of Villa Crespo. At 11, he published his first poem in the magazine Rojo y negro, and in the 1950s formed part of the group of rebel writers, El Pan Duro. He was discovered by Raúl González Túñón, among the most relevant voices of the southern country’s poetic avant-garde, who saw in the young man’s verses “a rich and vivacious lyricism and a principally social content […] that does not elude the richness of fantasy.”
Gelman has published, from his initial Violín y otras cuestiones (1956) to his most recent Mundar (2008), more than twenty books of poetry. These works, as Mario Benedetti asserted early on, constitute “the most coherent, and also the most daring, participatory repertoire (in spite of its inevitable wells of solitude), and ultimately the one most suited to its environment, that Argentine poetry has today”, and Hispanic poetry in general, as the profusion of re-editions of his books and numerous anthologies proves. Gelman’s poetry has achieved international recognition, with translations into fourteen languages, including English. Among his awards are the National Poetry Prize (Argentina, 1997), the Juan Rulfo Prize in Latin American and Caribbean Literature (Mexico, 2000), the Pablo Neruda Prize (Chile, 2005), the Queen Sofia Prize in Ibero-American Poetry (Spain, 2005), and the Cervantes Prize (Spain, 2007), the most important award in Hispanic Letters. No one should be surprised to see him the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature one day.
It would be relevant to note that Juan Gelman has not only been a literary paradigm but also a moral one, within and outside of Argentina. A political activist and critical journalist since his youth, he was forced into an exile of thirteen years because of the military dictatorship that ravaged his country from 1976 to 1983, and the weak governments that followed. In 1976 the ultra-right kidnapped his children, Nora Eva, 19, and Marcelo Ariel, 20, along with his son’s wife, María Claudia Iruretagoyena, 19, who was 7 months pregnant. Nora Eva would later return, unlike his son and daughter-in-law, who were killed; their child born in a concentration camp. The vehement search for the truth about the fate of these family members, which culminated in finding his granddaughter in Uruguay in 2000, has made the poet a symbol of the struggle for respect for human rights.
Like other poets from his time and space, Juan Gelman creates his work starting from a critique of the so-called post-avante-garde poetry, which surges in the Hispanic world in the 1940s and breaks with the powerful avante-garde. He is a poet who denies the labors of the Mexican Octavio Paz, the Cuban José Lezama Lima, the Argentine Alberto Girri, among others, to reaffirm it in his own way. It is a poetry that goes against the current, transgresses the established social and cultural order, challenges the individualism intrinsic to modernity and the neo-colonial condition. A poetry that renounc
Long biographical note
Juan Gelman is the most significant, contemporary Argentine intellectual figure and one of the most read and influential poets in the Spanish language. Son of a family of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine, he grew up like any other porteño, among soccer and tango, in the populous neighborhood of Villa Crespo. At 11, he published his first poem in the magazine Rojo y negro, and in the 1950s formed part of the group of rebel writers, El Pan Duro. He was discovered by Raúl González Túñón, among the most relevant voices of the southern country’s poetic avant-garde, who saw in the young man’s verses “a rich and vivacious lyricism and a principally social content […] that does not elude the richness of fantasy.”
Gelman has published, from his initial Violín y otras cuestiones (1956) to his most recent Mundar (2008), more than twenty books of poetry. These works, as Mario Benedetti asserted early on, constitute “the most coherent, and also the most daring, participatory repertoire (in spite of its inevitable wells of solitude), and ultimately the one most suited to its environment, that Argentine poetry has today”, and Hispanic poetry in general, as the profusion of re-editions of his books and numerous anthologies proves. Gelman’s poetry has achieved international recognition, with translations into fourteen languages, including English. Among his awards are the National Poetry Prize (Argentina, 1997), the Juan Rulfo Prize in Latin American and Caribbean Literature (Mexico, 2000), the Pablo Neruda Prize (Chile, 2005), the Queen Sofia Prize in Ibero-American Poetry (Spain, 2005), and the Cervantes Prize (Spain, 2007), the most important award in Hispanic Letters. No one should be surprised to see him the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature one day.
It would be relevant to note that Juan Gelman has not only been a literary paradigm but also a moral one, within and outside of Argentina. A political activist and critical journalist since his youth, he was forced into an exile of thirteen years because of the military dictatorship that ravaged his country from 1976 to 1983, and the weak governments that followed. In 1976 the ultra-right kidnapped his children, Nora Eva, 19, and Marcelo Ariel, 20, along with his son’s wife, María Claudia Iruretagoyena, 19, who was 7 months pregnant. Nora Eva would later return, unlike his son and daughter-in-law, who were killed; their child born in a concentration camp. The vehement search for the truth about the fate of these family members, which culminated in finding his granddaughter in Uruguay in 2000, has made the poet a symbol of the struggle for respect for human rights.
Like other poets from his time and space, Juan Gelman creates his work starting from a critique of the so-called post-avante-garde poetry, which surges in the Hispanic world in the 1940s and breaks with the powerful avante-garde. He is a poet who denies the labors of the Mexican Octavio Paz, the Cuban José Lezama Lima, the Argentine Alberto Girri, among others, to reaffirm it in his own way. It is a poetry that goes against the current, transgresses the established social and cultural order, challenges the individualism intrinsic to modernity and the neo-colonial condition. A poetry that renounc
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 10, 2018
This is a bilingual Ladino-Castellano poetry collection written by acclaimed Argentine poet Juan Gelman, published in 1994. He decided to call it dibaxu, a Sephardic term that means “under”. The title already conveys the complex universe the reader may find under the veil of a seeming simplicity; a deluge of obstreperous feelings said in an undertone. The past, love, confusion, countless sensations, strong desires, empty spaces, a search for a homeland – roots with which I fail to identify, once more.
In this book, Gelman's poems first appear in Ladino and then in Spanish; I'll follow the same order, including the English translation afterwards.
The act of revealing real emotions – an act often fraught with ineffable difficulty – never looked so simple. Gelman masterfully expresses in a few words, everything that sometimes requires numerous pages and that tangible concept of fleeting nature we call time; everything that emerges from the depths of love, regret,
shame.
Through unique and recurring imagery and a naturally distinctive cadence, he places the reader inside his mind; our mind, that inhospitable region where dreams and yearnings continue to accumulate in secrecy, longing for emotional impetus. Concise lines that belong to a bigger picture, a fragmented reality; lines that are accompanied by the use of somewhat distracting slashes, part of the author's individual style.
Gelman's poetry reveals itself without any affectation; some things are open to interpretation but amid so much comforting frankness, they are so, so clear. He voices his thoughts with simple yet evocative metaphors and a pithy language which defies any traditional rule.
His thoughts, thus, are diaphanous as fire.
Nov 03, 16
* Also on my blog.
In this book, Gelman's poems first appear in Ladino and then in Spanish; I'll follow the same order, including the English translation afterwards.
XV
tu boz sta escura
di bezus qui a mí no dieras/
di bezus qui a mí no das/
la nochi es polvu dest'ixiliu/
*
tu voz está oscura
de besos que no me diste/
de besos que no me das/
la noche es polvo de este exilio/
*
your voice is dark
of kisses that you did not give to me/
of kisses that you do not give to me/
night is dust from this exile/
The act of revealing real emotions – an act often fraught with ineffable difficulty – never looked so simple. Gelman masterfully expresses in a few words, everything that sometimes requires numerous pages and that tangible concept of fleeting nature we call time; everything that emerges from the depths of love, regret,
shame.
XXIV
amarti es istu:
un avla qui va a dizer/
un arvulicu sin folyas
qui da solombra/
*
amarte es esto:
una palabra que está por decir/
un arbolito sin hojas
que da sombra/
*
loving you is this:
a word that is about to speak/
a small tree without leaves
that provides shade/
Through unique and recurring imagery and a naturally distinctive cadence, he places the reader inside his mind; our mind, that inhospitable region where dreams and yearnings continue to accumulate in secrecy, longing for emotional impetus. Concise lines that belong to a bigger picture, a fragmented reality; lines that are accompanied by the use of somewhat distracting slashes, part of the author's individual style.
X
dizis avlas cun árvulis
tenin folyas qui cantan
y páxarus
qui adjuntan sol/
tu silenziu
disparta
lus gritus
dil mundu/
*
dices palabras con árboles/
tienen hojas que cantan
y pájaros
que juntan sol/
tu silencio
despierta
los gritos
del mundo/
*
you say words with trees/
they have leaves that sing
and birds
that gather sun/
your silence
awakes
the cries
of the world/
Gelman's poetry reveals itself without any affectation; some things are open to interpretation but amid so much comforting frankness, they are so, so clear. He voices his thoughts with simple yet evocative metaphors and a pithy language which defies any traditional rule.
His thoughts, thus, are diaphanous as fire.
XXIX
…
pondrí mi spantu londji/
dibaxu dil pasadu/
qui arde
cayadu com'il sol/
*
…
pondré mi espanto lejos/
debajo del pasado/
que arde
callado como el sol/
*
…
i will set my fear afar/
underneath the past/
that burns
silent as the sun/
Nov 03, 16
* Also on my blog.
May 13, 2020
Sensível, econômico, preciso. Um dos tantos livros do Gelman bilingüe, com poemas em castelhano e sefardí, língua na qual diz encontrar um "candor perdido" relacionado à sua origem judia. Para ler de uma sentada ou em duas taças de vinho.
January 18, 2023
《Tu voz está oscura
De besos que no me diste
De besos que no me das
La noche es polvo de este exilio
Tus besos cuelgan lunas
Que hielan mi camino
Y tiemblo
Debajo del sol》
Este fue mi favorito, los demás me parecieron muy cortos.
De besos que no me diste
De besos que no me das
La noche es polvo de este exilio
Tus besos cuelgan lunas
Que hielan mi camino
Y tiemblo
Debajo del sol》
Este fue mi favorito, los demás me parecieron muy cortos.
January 6, 2024
Qué buen autor para leer enamorado. Tiene hijos? Vicente me pidió que le lea algo, le leí la nota del principio y no pudo parar de reir. Calesitas y pájaros. Gracias Juan. Es tierno el sefaradí, tiene razón.
November 16, 2017
Un neoromaticismo existencial
October 31, 2023
Aaaaaaaa la poesía surrealista y plagada de imágenes de Gelman es hermosa, tiene significados ocultos
July 10, 2013
Los besos de Gelman están en un limbo entre el cielo y la naturaleza terrenal. Los besos que se han perdido, los besos que ya se dieron y los besos que quedan por dar. Quizá por culpa de esta obsesión, sus poemas me resultan tan iguales.
March 9, 2013
Un libro realmente genuino, donde los versos son únicos y hermosos. Un placer haberlo leído.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews