Dream of funeral

 Someone in my university had died, who happened to have the same last and first name as my father, Leon Mayhew. I was at the funeral, and didn't know whether to mention the "coincidence" to anyone there. I wasn't sure why I was there, since I wasn't related to him, and didn't even know him. There was a display of books that had belonged to him. One was Doña Inés. I couldn't see whether it was in English or Spanish. 

I noticed that my nephew and some other family members were at the funeral. I started talking to him.  I asked him whether he had noticed that the deceased had the same name as his grandfather. I said I was going to see him in a few weeks (thinking of my trip to California, though he lives in Michigan and I won't see him on this trip.). He told me my daughter and her husband were buying a house.  I didn't know that and felt out of touch.  

When I woke up, I realized of course that the deceased person in the dream was my father, in that it was my dream, and part of a series of death of father dreams. I had told people in the dream that my father had died 10 years ago (actually 22 years). 

His poetic persona...

 "Mi personaje verbal se considera marxista y pensativo, tiene un carácter fácil, está muy atado a la vida y cuando le preguntas por su trabajo suele responder que es profesor de literatura medieval."  

1st person lyric

 What is the most average, normal idea of a lyric poem? A 1st-person speaker who is a more or less sincere persona in relation to the poet / implied author. An idealized version of the self. That is pretty much the paradigm behind the "poetry of experience" of the Granada. There was a claim that this was supposedly Marxist.  [!!!]

 

An anti-touchstone

 LGM's line "tú me llamas, amor, yo cojo un taxi" is a kind of anti-touchstone. It was singled out by Mainer ("aquel prodigioso endecasílabo...") and then pilloried by Blanca Andreu, Mayhew, Álvaro Salvador, and José Antonio Fortes.  Mainer compared it to Quevedo: "polvo serán, mas polvo enamorado." 

Brecht

Brecht is an avant-garde writer.  The Verfremdungseffekt  is derived from Shklovsky, a Russian formalist. Distancing techniques are essentially meta-theatrical, like the breaking of the 4th wall. Of course, anti-realist techniques are not inherently avant-garde, in the sense that other forms of theater (from Asia, for example), are not avant-garde per se. Placed in a European context, however, they become anti-naturalistic. 

Distancing that doesn't serve a didactic function is not Brechtian. In other words, you could use those techniques simply for their entertainment or surprise value. 

So you need three things: a set of techniques, a cultural context where those techniques would be seen as distancing (not simply the normal practice of a non-naturalistic theater) and a social intent.  

Lorca uses metatheater in the work formerly known as "Comedia sin título." I saw a version that combined this play with a new second act, full of Lorquian kitsch.  Grrrr.   

Fortes

 They guy who sued Luis García Montero for libel (and won) is this insane communist of the old style. I mean this in the best possible way. He has a rhetoric of invective that reminds me of that old Maoist style. Tremendously repetitive. He doesn't like Lorca because Lorca doesn't put the jornaleros in his rural plays. It is actually a good point. But, he has LGM down pat. He puts me in the bibliography as "Mayhem," but doesn't refer to me as far as I can tell in the book itself.  

Contra Luis García Montero

 Ok.  I'm almost done with the article taking down LGM one more time. It probably is unpublishable because it takes on significantly powerful people.  

Some important points that gelled in my mind this morning as I showered and had coffee and drove to work:

1. The poetry of experience abandons Marxism very quickly. But it is a Marxist formalism in the first place, without any content. For example, you cannot have Brechtian estrangement just because; it has to be in the service of something concrete. This is why right-wing poets can also write poetry of experience.   

2. It is this abandonment of Marxism that allows them to pursue power in a society which is de-ideologized. They start out in the Communist party, but the PCE loses voters with every election, becoming Izquierda Unida, also abandoning Leninist principles. The PSOE declares itself socialist, but not Marxist, and Spain joins NATO.  They convert poetry, essentially, into an ideological state apparatus (Althusser).  This is not only non-Marxist, but anti-Marxist.  [rimshot].

This group has pursued institutional power relentlessly.  LGM is on every prize committee for 40 years. He gets paid each time, I'm assuming. He is the director of the Cervantes institute. He writes for the El país. He runs for political office. He has imitators and lackeys. The experiencia group has its own publishers (VISOR, Valparaíso).  

3.  A populism without any social commitment is simply a form of mercantilism.  Whatever sells the most copies is the best.  This leads to a sponsorship of the Rupi Kaur type poets.