SMALL COLUMNS AND JAIL CELLS

by H. Doug Matsuoka

CORDOBA, ARGENTINA. [Okay, I’m not really in Cordoba, but please be advised that this column’s got authentic Latin American content by way of Augusto. The prob is that the original version of this column had too many words in it for my allotted space so I had to cut it down. The original sent out a maximum disrespect notice to the writers at the dailies (compared them to the Pillsbury Doughboy), writers of in-flight magazines (called them whores), local novelists that make caricatures out of Filipinos, and professors of literature (who engage in social, political, and cultural inconsequentiality). That longer version can be read at http://home.hawaii.rr.com/dougwords. I started by pointing out that if you live by the pen, you could die by the sword, especially here (ha ha) in Latin America. But…must use words sparingly now…running out of space…we pick up column here…]

If you wanna fit in the writer wrapper, these are the gigs. The good gigs at that. But if you actually want to write something glorious and consequential, why not use fewer words and just write a lot bigger with a can of Krylon? Why not write something beautifully inflammatory and pass it out on street corners and post it on telephone poles? And whatever happened to catchin a good-ol' fashioned passionate ass-whoopin and gettin your shoes coat and your hat tooken? Whoops! Listening to too much Eminem. He's a rapper, and my rap is asking how can a writer really write about rappers, recidivists, or Republicans while wrapped in a writer wrapper that ain’t the right wrap for writers?

That’s why I’m in exile here in Latin America. We've got WRITERS here. Tough, mustachio-ed, tequila drinking, tango dancing, cigar smoking writers! Watch what you write, though. Being loved by the people may be reason enough for the police to come knocking. Get thrown in jail and tortured. Writers in jail. Writers dead. Writers "disappeared" for what they wrote. That’s part of the "writer wrapper" here so don’t one of you chicken-shits even think of moving.

But write something good here and maybe some pretty girl will stand up in the streetcar and read it to the other passengers. That's what happened with Eduardo Galeano's history of South America, Memory of Fire. Your words get on streetcars and go home in hearts.

And if you’re a good enough poet maybe some other poet will write something about YOU. That’s worth something, right writer?

So here’s part of a poem [space considerations again] my drinking buddy Augusto in Cordoba wrote about poet Juan Gelman who this past March was awarded the national poetry prize of Argentina. Gelman is one of the writers who had to suffer the kind of state-sanctioned brutality above described. Many such writers in what Augusto calls "Aina Latino" must suffer as much.

What passed as the "Authorities" at the time (70's "Dirty War") went looking for Gelman, found his son and his pregnant daughter-in-law instead. Murdured him, imprisoned her where she gave birth to a child before being tortured to death. But you know something? Gelman recently found that child.

From "A HAPPY POET"

by Augusto Al Q'adi Alcalde

(translated from Spanish by the author)

...Autumn has definitely come

as every year and sometimes days

as leaves dancing and nights

as days years nights leaves

running slow like a snail

a heart a love a missing a hole

dressed in poetry in faith in the word

that calling the true name sings

bringing forth the mistery of life

the pain the heart the memory the walk

pathless deep track blood searching blood

pulse searching pulse and nothing

no one not the nobodies

that disappeared tortured killed

and many other names that i'll spare the ear of

has stopped, arrested, polluted, weakened

the autumn eyes the poetry dressed heart

the nights the missing the love

today great day humble day justice day

this pulse searching palpitating the hole

has found his blood that is to saysingcry

has found his seed his flower found her wind

and the seed, of all of us seed search

flies fertilized in this sea

in which at least this time this laughter tear

is resting is dancing is shining the past

is unpredictable the future is less misty

like the trees flying as the birds

unclouding the red oceans.

Augusto Alcalde

3/31/2000

Yeah, man. I’ll knock back a shot of tequila for that one. Salud!

-- H. Doug Matsuoka

This is a page from the official vanity site of H. Doug Matsuoka. To go there (if you didn't come in from the front door to begin with) click DougWords. You don't have to if you don't want to and I'm not promising anything. I'm not your mom or dad. Doug.

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