VERSE
Cardenal, Ernesto
only known as the poetry of Ernesto Cardenal but rather as Nicaraguan poetry. Q. What about gra~iti and slogans such as you find in Parra's work? A. No, I'm not interested in those, because...
...It was in this sense that he understood the word "wisdom"--in the Biblical sense of wisdom, in the sense the prophets gave to the word...
...A. Well, there is more to life than revolution...
...Q. Do you have a guiding esthetic /or your own work...
...A. A friend of mine from Nicaragua, Jos6 Coronei Urtecho, told me that for Pound poetry was "poetry containing history...
...Rather, with her as my subject, I speak of the current civilization and I consider her not as a symbol but as victimmvictim, really, of the commercialization, of the falsification of this real world...
...Q. How about your epigrams...
...MANAGEA 6:30 PM Neons in the evening are mellow and mercury lamps pale and beautiful . . . And the red star of a radio tower in the twilight sky of Managua is lovely as Venus and an ESSO sign like the moon tiny red lights on cars are mystical (The soul is like a girl smooched behind a car TACA BUNGE KLM SINGER MENNEN HTM GOMEZ NORGE RPM SAF OPTICA SELECTA all proclaim the glory of God...
...She was found dead in her bed, her hand on the phone...
...They broadcast the news . . ." I don't get any other meaning I don't defend the cruelty of those lights And if I have to bear witness to my times it's this: They were primitive and barbaric but poetic 9 II I I Commonweoh 191...
...It was much later that I developed a different kind of poetry-social, political and prophetic...
...STARS The starred sky is like a nighttime city seen from a plane: the stars are like streets like lit-up supermarkets/neon signs like motels nightclubs movies and lights mwhite and red--from cars---come and go__ along dark highways . . . and they burn for nothing: a waste of energy lost here below in the void in streets stores cafes nightclubs motels movies showing a Clark Gable superproduction...
...For me, poetry is above all prophecy in the Biblical sense of guidance...
...The epigrams are lyric hecause they come from my youthful period of lyricism, but my other poetry is not lyric...
...There is also love...
...I am not interested in poetry for poetry's sake...
...Sloganmaking is not poetry...
...They are neither about revolution nor economics...
...and he told me that my poetry was "poetry containing history and wisdom...
...And the detectives couldn't find out who she was going to call...
...The movie ended without the final kiss...
...In what sense is the Marilyn Monroe poem not lyric...
...That is my theme...
...A. I was actually referring to the poetry that I'm writing right now, poetry with a revolutionary theme, for example...
...Well, some anti-poets say they are...
...the reception in the mansion of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor seen in the tiny livingroom of her miserable apartment...
...I would call it--in trying to find the solution for our problems, a poetry that serves for something in the construction of a new society, poetry that would be useful and poetry that might be more than just a vehicle for communicating something...
...A. No, I'm not interested in those, because they are not poetry...
...Kiss me beneath the luminous signs oh God) KODAK TROPICAL RADIO F&C REYES they spell out your Name in many colors...
...My epigrams were written when I was young and they are a poetry of love and hate, some of both love and hate at the same time, because while they are political poems they are also love poems...
...Lord whoever it was she was going to call and didn't call (and maybe it was nobody or Somebody whose number is not in the Los Angeles Directory) You answer the telephone...
...You could say that "Prayer for Marilyn Monroe" is a lyric poem, but it is not properly a poem about an individual since there was no individual relation between her and me...
...My poetry is not lyric...
...She was like someone who has dialed the only friendly voice and hears just a recorded voice telling her: WRONG NUMBER Or like someone wounded by gangsters who reaches for a disconnected telephone...
...In reality, what I would have wanted to say is that my preoccupation--and that, also, of Jos6 Coronel Urtecho---is that of writing a poetry which serves others in communicating its meaning...
Vol. 100 • April 1974 • No. 8
