Given the text: Like water in a basket.
For things I never experienced.
Dreaming of impossible lives I more than understand).
For what I hoped to have and don’t have.
And shining like the sun on wheat.
With a love linking the watching gaze with ideas.
I spoke courteously, politely asked for life not to hurt.
Evening came in with grey light and no mist.
Xuan Bello(Paniceiros, 1965) is one of the best-known writers in Asturianu. He had a national success in 2003 with Hestoria Universal de Paniceiros. Paniceiros is a tiny village in the district of Tineo, which is on the route of the Camino Primitivo as it crosses the mountains heading west out of Asturias into Galicia. In Bello’s writing the village becomes the focus of a meditation on the disappearing country life of a generation ago, combining autobiography and fiction.
I have been reading Ambos Mundos: Poesía 1988-2009 (Oviedo: Trabe, 2010), a bilingual anthology of poetry that includes a broad selection of poetry from a literary life that started very early: he published his first book of poetry in 1982 when he was just sixteen years old. Since the author is better known for his fiction I have been reading Confesión Xeneral (Oviedo: Ámbitu, 2008) in tandem. The novel follows the Kafka-esque trials of its hero Andrés Parrondo into Portugal. He is an Existential detective, of a kind we have become familiar with in contemporary literature from Paul Auster to Haruki Murakami. It is strong on place, ideas and reflection and weak on character: the only character with any life is the protagonist; all the others are cut-outs offering clues to ‘reality’.
This sounds damning but, as you can appreciate from this poem, there is something startlingly fresh and honest about his soul-searching. We do not complain that John Donne is always talking about himself, and Wordsworth’s enormous conceit in writing the Preludes does not prevent him being a great poet. Xuan Bello’s excruciating honesty would make him a poor dinner guest, but the poetry is exacting, specific and tight.
Pretending passion, pretending love, pretending to be these words I speak.
And who walked on the street in front, without seeing me.
This entry was posted in Asturianu, Contemporary and tagged Ámbitu, Haruki Murakami, Paul Auster, poetry, Trabe, Xuan Bello. Bookmark the permalink.
Can you summarize Xuan Bello's writing style and the themes addressed in his works?
This prompt doesn't seem malicious.