DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES
Whatever his quality, his stature, his finesse, his creative capacity, his success, the poet can only be to the bourgeoisie:
SERVANT,
CLOWN or
ENEMY
The clown is an “independent” servant who manages nothing better than the limits of his own “liberty” and who one day will confront the people with the argument that the bourgeoisie “really has sensitivity.” He who is really a servant can wear the uniform of lackey or minister or cultural representative abroad, including silk pajamas for entering the bed of the most distinguished lady. The enemy poet is above all else the enemy poet. He who claims his wages not in flattery or dollars but in persecutions, prisons, bullets. And not only does he lack a uniform or tails or a suit, but every day he ends up with fewer things until the only thing he has is a pair of patched shirts but clean as unparalleled poetry. Paraphrasing Althusser, let’s say of him that “Instructed by crushing reality and the dominant ideological mechanisms, in constant struggle against them, able to use in his poetic discipline—against all ‘official truths’—the fertile paths opened by Marx (forbidden and obstructed by all the reigning prejudices), the enemy poet cannot even think of accomplishing his task, of such a complex nature and requiring such rigor, without a lucid and invincible confidence in the working class and without direct participation in its struggle.”
—THE AUTHORS
THIRD POEM OF LOVE – Vilma Flores
Whoever tells you our love is extraordinary
because it was born of extraordinary circumstances
tell them we’re struggling precisely
so that a love like ours
(a love among comrades in combat)
becomes
the most ordinary and common
almost the only
love in El Salvador
Vilma Flores: was first a law student but abandoned her career to work in a textile factory, and above all, to be able to participate in organizing the working class. She was born in San Salvador in 1945.
LIFE, WORKS – Timoteo Lúe
Inevitable in life,
the new life dawns in me: a small
sun with roots that I will have to water deeply
and push to fight their own battle
against the weeds.
Small and poor bread of solidarity,
flag against the cold, fresh water for the blood:
maternal elements that mustn’t withdraw
from the heart.
And against melancholy, faith; against
desperation,
the people’s voice
vibrating in the windows of this secret house.
Discovering,
deciphering,
articulating,
setting in motion:
the old works of liberators and martyrs
that are our obligations now
and that walk around counting our steps:
from breakfast to sleep,
from secret to secret,
from action to action,
from life to life.
Timoteo Lúe: student of law. Born in Suchitoto in 1950.
SOME OF THE FIRST PROPOSALS FOR THE EPITAPH FOR HIS MOST REVEREND EXCELLENCY MONSIGNOR FRANCISCO JOSÉ CASTRO RAMIREZ, HEAD BISHOP OF THE CITY OF SANTIAGO DE MARIA (QDDG) AND BETTER KNOWN TO THE PEOPLE (WHOM HE CALLED “RABBLE”) BY THE DEFINITIVE NICKNAME “WHITEWASHED TOMB” – Jorge Cruz
1
“Of few men can it be said that they continue existing after death exactly as they were in life.”
2
“A whole part of the being of the Church died with him. So if today, because of changes of liturgy and consciousness, the Church is defined as an institution with its “face to the people”(exactly like the priest in the new mass), Monsignor Castro Ramirez was the prototypical incarnation (that is, in no way symbolic) of a Church with its ass to the people . . .”
3
“Here lies one who, honoring the family tradition, found more than righteous life, found a rectal life . . .”
4
“When they buried Christ, he was a sack of bones due to the starvations and wicked treatments he suffered. The cadaver of Camilo Torres hardly spilled any blood through the holes of his wounds as he was anemic and thoroughly wasted through the rigors of guerrilla life. Traveler, you who’ve arrived at this cemetery: Can anyone relate their names to that of that smutty fatso who lies here, struck down by a gluttony-attack of the heart?”
5
“He was the last true prince of the Church in El Salvador. Too bad that a few little Bonapartes, a few little Mussolinis, a few little Hitlers, and a few little Chele Medranos are surviving him in the Salvadoran Church.”
6
“If St. Peter was the rock of the ecclesiastic foundation of God, and Saint Theresa the poetry of God, and Brother Martin de Porres the little broom of God, Monsignor Castro Ramirez, judging by the tone of his sermons, was an ill-humored fart of God.”
Jorge Cruz: born in San Miguel in 1939. He was a Catholic University student leader and subsequently a volunteer legal advisor to the Catholic Worker movement. Having renounced his university career, he dedicates all his time to the work of Christian-revolutionary conscience among rural workers. Has written an extensive analysis of the work of Paulo Freire and published an underground edition of “Solidarity Ode to Camilo Torres” (1972).
ADVICE THAT IS NO LONGER NECESSARY ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD BUT HERE IN EL SALVADOR . . . – Juan Zapata
Don’t ever forget
that the least fascist
among fascists
also are
fascists.
Juan Zapata: was a student of Sociology in the Faculty of Sciences and Humanities. He also writes short stories. The poems presented here are part of a book in preparation. He was born in San Salvador in 1944, on April 2, to be exact.
PROPHECY ON PROPHETS – Luis Luna
To N. Viera Altamirano and heirs, to the Dutriz family, to the Pinto family.
Since the word should be
like a woman at the moment of love
like what we truly surrender
at the moment of death
(when a way of being is revealed that is the fountain of life
the restoration of purity
the great construction of discovery)
prophets will have to put themselves here
to be judged
each one
waiting his turn to pass before the mirror
to appeal to the great chorus of victims.
Woe then to the cry
not emitted as pity for their brothers
but to corrupt their ears at the same time
as it bragged to their enemy
woe then to the frivolity
that supported the law of the golden calf
woe then to the inconsistencies that imposed conditions
on the identification and execution of hunger
woe to the transfer of crime to the shoulders of the weak
woe to the complicities woe to denunciations
woe to servility
woe to betrayals in the ear of the executioner
woe to indulgences
woe to lies from morning to night.
Because all this miasma spilled out
on the innocence of the people
on their white sincerity fallen from heaven
in the great eviction from paradise
and there won’t be a sufficiently crushing millstone
for the heads of their poisoners
of those who burned with perfume the pupils of their sentries
of those who broke their eardrums
with cries of parrots survivors of the experience of Jericho.
From neither the living nor the dead
will there be pardon for that use of the word.
The just and innocent giant
will awaken from his deafness
will open his deep eye flooded by the prophets
and will strike them from their own seats rooted
at the right hand of the Lord unmasked
for centuries upon centuries
for ever and ever.
Luis Luna: studied architecture and later, sociology. Has published poems in student and independent journals in Venezuela, Peru and the United States. Also writes stories and essays, both political and literary. Finished an essay on the new Latin American narrative subsequent to the boom (of that genre). Born in Sonsonate in 1947.
Historias y poemas de una lucha de clases / Stories and Poems of a Class Struggle is available now from Seven Stories Press. You can order a copy here.
Roque Dalton (1935–1975) was an enormously influential figure in the history of Latin America as a poet, essayist, intellectual, and revolutionary. As a poet who brilliantly fused politics and art, his example permanently changed the direction of Central American poetry. The author of eighteen volumes of poetry and prose, one of which (Taberna y otros lugares) received a Casa de las Américas prize in 1969, his work combines fierce satirical irony with a humane and exuberant tenderness. His legacy extends beyond his achievements as a poet to his political writings and political work in his native El Salvador.
Jack Hirschman (1933–2021) was a poet and translator. Among his recent collections of poetry is The Arcanes #2 (2019). He has translated poets from nine languages. He was an emeritus Poet Laureate of San Francisco.
Barbara Paschke is a translator and member of the Center for the Art of Translation, the Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade, and the Revolutionary Poets Brigade. Her publications include Riverbed of Memory (City Lights Books, 2001), Volcán (City Lights Books, 2001), and New World, New Words (Two Lines Press, 2007).
minor literature[s] 