*****
Luis García Montero: A Year and Three Months (pub. Tusquets, Barcelona 2022) translated by Anna Crowe
A Year and Three Months brings together the poems written by Luis García Montero after the death, due to cancer, of his wife, Almudena Grandes, in November 2021. She was one of Spain’s best-loved novelists. They are poems which describe, with delicacy and emotion at times contained, at others unrestrained, the trajectory of the illness and the couple’s combined resistance, and the loneliness and intensity of living through it. In this collection the poet unfolds the story of their final summer stroll, the unexpected diagnosis, the many ostensibly grim and intimate aspects of care, New Year’s Eve in hospital, the crushing pain of grief, the empty house, the memories summoned by loss, the moments in a long love story brought together here in all their significance.
This is perhaps the most moving of all Luis García Montero’s books of poems for its restraint, for its calm evocation of moments of great anguish, and for the immense tenderness in the way he records and celebrates the shared life and memory of one who is no longer there. I believe that these are poems which, in their honesty, plain-speaking, and unsentimental approach to illness and death, offer powerful consolation and sympathy to all who have to face loss and grief at some point in our lives.
Octavio Paz has described his writing as having: ‘Sustained tone, powerful nostalgia, delicate emotion that never raises its voice, poetry that is plain and reined-in.’
Luis García Montero and his wife, Almudena Grandes, who became one of Spain’s best-loved novelists, had shared a life of political activism, fighting against fascism throughout Franco’s dictatorship and beyond, and had always dedicated their books to each other. Montero’s other poetry collections include Habitaciones separadas, Completamente viernes, La intimidad de la serpiente, Vista cansada, among others, which have brought him the most prestigious awards, such as the Premio Nacional de Poesía (1994), El Premio de la Crítica (2003), the Premio Carlo Betocchi (2020) and many others. He has adapted classics such as Othello (Otelo) and La Celestina for the stage, and has published critical editions of the works of Bécquer, Federico García Lorca, and Rafael Alberti. Born in 1958 in Granada, he is a Professor of Spanish literature at the university of that city. He divides his time between Granada and Madrid since he is also the present director of the Instituto Cervantes.
*****
Anna Crowe
I am a poet with four full collections, two from Peterloo Poets (Skating Out of the House 1997; Punk with Dulcimer 2006), Not on the Side of the Gods (Arc Publications, 2019); Paraules al Vent / Words on the Wind, (in a bilingual edition by Ensiola, Mallorca in 2022, with art work by Andreu Maimó); three chapbooks all published by Mariscat Press (A Secret History of Rhubarb, 2004, Finding my Grandparents in the Peloponnese, 2013, and Figure in a Landscape, 2011, which was awarded the Callum Macdonald Memorial Award, was a Poetry Book Society Choice, and translated into Spanish by the Mexican poet, Pedro Serrano. Other work has been translated into Catalan, Italian and German. I co-founded StAnza, Scotland’s International Poetry festival in 1998, which takes place in St Andrews every March.
I am a translator of poetry, primarily from Catalan, having translated four books of poetry by Joan Margarit for Bloodaxe Books, Tugs in the Fog, 2006, being a PBS Recommended Translation, then Strangely Happy, Love is a Place, and Wild Creature, completed two weeks before his death in 2021. It was a huge privilege to work with this eminent poet, who became a close friend. Joan Margarit translated Punk with Dulcimer into Spanish as Punk con salterio for 4 Estaciones in 2008, and together we translated a large number of poems by RS Thomas into Catalan, published by Proa in 2013. For Arc I have translated an anthology of Catalan poetry, Six Catalan Poets, 2013, and books of poetry by Pedro Serrano, Peatlands, by Luís Aguiló, Lunarium, and Manuel Forcano, Maps of Desire, also a PBS Recommended Translation, 2019. The Conjuror, by Pedro Serrano is forthcoming from Arc.
I received a Travelling Scholarship from the Society of Authors in 2005, and my work has been recorded for the Poetry Archive. When Luis Montero came to give a reading in Edinburgh and St Andrews, I was asked to provide translations. My career is built on happy accidents like this.
*****
Luis García Montero: Eight Poems translated by Anna Crowe
I
THE MYSTERY AND THE SECRET
We are walking on our own along the shore
in the falling light of evening,
while footprints come and go.
What comes in with the foam goes out with the undertow.
So that the sun won’t hurt you
we have walked out almost at dusk,
when feelings unclothe themselves
on sand that’s still warm
and a murmur of light
writes the horizon gazing back at us.
Like a busy road,
where the red lights are night’s brakes,
we see questions passing slowly,
without knowing what to say.
A mystery is not the same as a secret,
but they mingle, one with the other:
our withheld conversations
have now learned this.
How hard it is to walk barefoot
fearful of what might cut. How hard
to know what’s hiding in this shell.
Shores of the sea,
allow us to dream.
*
EL MISTERIO Y EL SECRETO
Por nuestra orilla caminamos solos
bajo el atardecer,
mientras las huellas van y vienen.
Lo que acerca la espuma se va con la resaca.
Para que no te dañe el sol
hemos salido casi en el crepúsculo,
cuando los sientimientos se desnudan
sobre la arena todavía cálida
y un murmullo de luz
escribe el horizonte que nos mira.
Como una carretera,
donde las luces rojas son frenos de la noche,
vemos pasar las preguntas
sin saber qué decir.
No es lo mismo un misterio que un secreto,
pero los dos se mezclan:
lo han aprendido ahora
nuestras conversaciones contenidas.
Qué difícil andar con pies descalzos
y miedo a lo que corta. Qué difícil
sbaer lo que se esconde en esta caracola.
Orillas del mar,
dejadnos soñar.
***
READERS
But love is also an exchange of light.
We are night-sailing ships that anchor
in this room
beside a bed that might be a harbour.
I don’t mind if you’re late in turning off the light
if I remain asleep in your reading.
A lighthouse blinks very close to your body
so that Odysseus can mete out justice,
while Fortunata
is shipwrecked in the streets of Madrid
and hope defends itself
with claws and with joy
in the science fiction of any body.
Nor do you protest
if I turn the light on early.
I don’t sleep much. Let’s say that at five
my bedside table is a dock
where there’s loading and unloading of words
going into your dream.
Baudelaire strolls through New York,
Federico through Paris,
while Machado crosses the frontier
and Cernuda talks to us about Galdós
under a Mexican sky.
Love is also an exchange of light.
You give me your dreams while you live mine.
I give you my dreams while keeping yours.
Stories that entwine like bodies.
*
LECTORES
También es el amor una luz negociada.
Somos barcos nocturnos que fondean
en esta habitación
junto a una cama que parece un puerto.
No me importa que tardes en apagar la luz
si me quedo dormido en tu lectura.
Un faro parpadea muy pegado a tu cuerpo
para que Ulises pueda hacer justicia,
mientras que Fortunata
naufraga por las calles de Madrid
y la esperanza se defiende
con uñas y alegría
en la ciencia ficción de cualquier cuerpo.
Tampoco tú protestas
si yo enciendo la luz antes de hora.
Duermo poco. Digamos que a las cinco
mi mesita de noche es una ársena
donde hay carga y descarga de palabras
que pasan a tu sueño.
Por Nueva York camina Baudelaire,
Federico en París,
mientras Machado cruza la frontera
y Cernuda nos habla de Galdós
bajo el cielo de México.
El amor es también una luz negociada.
Me das tus sueños al vivir los míos.
Te doy mis sueños al guardar los tuyos.
Historias que se enlazan como cuerpos.
***
TRUTH IN FICTIONS
I see her in the mirror
while she does her hair
like someone queuing at a departure-gate
in search of a destination.
I don’t know what her patience is shuffling,
nor what fits into my silence.
The mannequins stare at me
with their eye-shadow
and their well-behaved wigs
in the verb to search and in the meaning of art.
Locks of hair in life’s wind,
tresses of sadness, blonde, auburn, black,
styled by chemotherapy.
You are you, I offer, and she smiles at me.
Neither of us two had ever, ever
felt that in this way
there is truth in fictions.
Never did our two glances hold
so much love for life.
*
LA VERDAD DE LAS FICCIONES
La veo en el espejo
mientras se arregla los cabellos
com quien hace cola en la puerta de embarque
en busca de un destino.
No sé lo que baraja su paciencia,
ni lo que cabe en mi silencio.
Me vigilan a mí los maniquíes
con su sombra de ojos
y sus pelucas educadas
en el verbo buscar y en la razón del arte.
Cabellos en el viento de la vida,
tristezas rubias, rojas, negras,
ordenadas por la quimio terapia.
Eres tú, le comento, y me sonríe.
Ninguno de los dos, ninguno, nunca,
habíamos sentido de este modo
que existe la verdad en las ficciones.
Nunca tuvieron las miradas
tanto amor a la vida.
***
RESISTANCE
A beautiful word
that comes to us so many times
borne in the hands of history.
It’s the driving force
in almost all your novels.
The city resisting a bombardment,
they shall not pass, the secret networks
struggling against Nazism,
the general strikes,
the rebellion of anonymous people
under a dictatorship.
You didn’t want to be re-admitted tonight,
so it’s back to barracks
and the taxi-driver doesn’t look welcoming
as we come with the wheelchair
towards where he’s parked.
The hospital, the hill, the boot of the taxi,
the difficulty with your knees
as you climb into the car,
all try his patience.
I don’t blame him for this, we don’t know
what his own battles might be,
while history goes back to being summed up in us
and in your hand which I hold clasped in mine.
Coming back from the front
on the waning moon are drawn
the words love and resistance.
They know nothing of gunpowder or secret networks.
With little strength today,
the Madrid sky gazes sadly back at us.
Once again we’re short of allies
in the final trenches of our hearts.
*
LA RESISTENCIA
Una hermosa palabra
que tantas veces llega hasta nosotros
en manos de la historia.
Es la razón del viento
en casi todas tus novelas.
La ciudad que resiste un bombardeo,
no pasarán, las redes clandestinas
que luchan contra el nazi,
las huelgas generales,
la rebeldía de la gente anónima
en una dictadura.
No has querido quedarte ingresada esta noche,
así que regresamos al cuartel
y el taxista no pone buena cara
cuando nos acercamos en la silla de ruedas
hasta su posición.
El hospital, la cuesta, el maletero,
la lentitud de tus rodillas
al entrar en el coche,
asaltan su paciencia.
Y no se lo reprocho, no sabemos
cuáles son sus batallas,
mientras la historia cae resumida en nosotros
y en tu mano que guardo entre las mías.
Al regresar del frente
en la luna menguante se dibujan
las palabras amor y resistencia.
Nada saben de pólvora ni redes clandestinas.
Con pocas fuerzas hoy,
el cielo de Madrid nos mira triste.
Una vez más nos faltan aliados
en la trincheras últimas de nuestros corazones.
***
IN BODY AND SOUL
Can one make love in your heaven?
I’m asking just because,
because hands too weep tears
and search with their fingers beneath a heartbeat
and speak slowly
in the mother tongue of lovers.
They mean well.
Sometimes they stop me in the street,
sharing my grief so as to tell me
at last she rests in peace, she’s gone to heaven.
But the months still wear
the light of difficult condolences.
With the best of intentions
there are some who talk of angels,
of eternal life, of mercy,
of the god who died for us,
of the paradise where those
who have already departed wait for us.
A strange world to comfort me
with an eternal life that is not life.
Can one make love in your heaven?
Are there sun-drenched caresses at midnight?
Lips that waken to say I love you
and insist on skin,
the body below on the path to a glorious hell?
If it were so, if it were
to be spring for the tree of knowledge,
then maybe I could negotiate with faith
and be ready to comfort myself with superstitions.
Because my hands weep tears
and feel with their fingers
and speak with the tongue of lovers.
That’s all I’m asking for:
a resurrection and an apple.
One on top of the other,
that might allow you to die as you ought.
*
EN CUERPO Y ALMA
¿Puede hacerse el amor en vuestro cielo?
Pregunto porque sí,
porque también las manos tienen lágrimas
y miran con sus dedos debajo de un latido
y hablan lentamente
con la lengua materna de los enamorados.
Son buenas intenciones.
Alguna vez me paran por la calle,
comparten mi dolor para decirme
por fin descansa en paz, está en el cielo.
Pero los meses todavía
tienen la luz de un pésame difícil.
Con buenas intenciones
hay quien habla de ángeles,
de vida eterna, de misericordia,
del dios que ha muerto por nosotros,
del paraíso en el que nos esperan
los que ya se han marchado.
Un mundo extraño para consolarme
con una vida eterna que no es vida.
¿Puede hacerse el amor en vuestro cielo?
¿Hay caricias de sol a media noche?
¿Labios que se despiertan para decir te amo
e insistir en la piel,
cuerpo abajo camino de un infierno glorioso?
Si fuese así, si fuese
primavera en el árbol de sabiduría,
tal vez yo negociase con la fe
dispuesto a consolarme entre supersticiones.
Porque mis manos tienen lágrimas
y sienten con sus dedos
y hablan con la lengua de los enamorados.
Es todo lo que pido:
una resurección y una manzana,
el uno sobre el otro,
que permitan morir como solía.
***
HISTORY OF A DISORDER
The bottles are in the pantry,
clothes in the wardrobe,
the hours in their days,
cars moving through the streets
in the usual direction traffic takes,
memories sharper than ever,
each in its year and its city,
lands and seas on the maps,
the panther in the jungle, the moon in its poems,
ideas, doubts, passions
made to resist are with themselves,
books according to subject,
numbers arranged alphabetically
in the telephone directories,
letters along with numerals in computers,
the two pillows on the bed,
slippers pretending to wait
with their well-behaved-flock-of-sheep look…
For everything to be in its place
is the most enormous disorder imaginable.
*
HISTORIA DE UN DESORDEN
Las botellas están en la despensa,
la ropa en el armario,
las horas en sus días,
los coches circulando por las calles
con un sentido regular del tráfico,
más precisos que nunca los recuerdos,
cada uno en su año y su ciudad,
las tierras y los mares en los mapas,
la pantera en la selva, la luna en sus poemas,
las ideas, las dudas, las pasiones
hechas a resistir consigo mismas,
por géneros los libros,
los números por orden alfabético
en las agendas del teléfono,
las letras como cifras en los ordenadores,
las dos almohadas en la cama,
las zapatillas simulando espera
con su tranquilidad de buen rebaño…
Que todo esté en su sitio
es el mayor desorden que pueda imaginarse.
***
CARE
Looking with new eyes
at T-shirt sizes.
Listening with different ears
to sounds from the bathroom.
Putting up with unknown calls, advice,
through not having the mobile on silent.
Being alive to the ground, monitoring an order
to avoid falls and sudden shocks.
To think about food
with no appetite for it,
chewing on the word nutrition,
fear of diarrhoea,
haemoglobin-levels.
Dirty clothes no longer smell bad
because they have already entered
into all that we are and feel.
They are part of life,
suburbs of the here and now, love’s dwellings
to be lived in like a memory.
And I wanted nothing other than to care for you.
*
LOS CUIDADOS
Mirar con otros ojos
las tallas de las camisetas.
Escuchar con oídos diferentes
los rumores del baño.
Soportar las llamadas ajenas, los avisos,
por no dejar el móvil en silencio.
Vivir el suelo, vigilar un orden
que evite las caídas y los sustos.
Pensar en la comida
sin ganas de comer,
masticar la palabra nutrición,
el miedo a la diarrea,
los horizontes de la hemoglobina.
La ropa sucia deja de oler mal
porque ya se ha mezclado
con todo lo que somos y sentimos.
Son cosas de la vida,
suburbios del presente, domicilios de amor
que se habitan lo mismo que un recuerdo.
Y nada quise más que tus cuidados.
***
III
A year and three months
‘I offer them to you today as a year ends
that has been one of the happiest of my life.’
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxJoan Margarit
Like the stories told by rain
or the ship’s log,
the illness had its own narratives.
I don’t complain about anything. I still maintain
the bitter optimism with which we responded,
in September 2020,
when the medical appointments and the ocean of tests
mingled from one day to the next
with the grit of living.
I will never complain about the disciplined
way you had of tracking our steps
so as to see the city with fresh eyes,
the physical and mental resistance
that chemo demanded.
I don’t complain about your failing strength
or about Christmas with no hair
or about the strange way of seeing out the year
when love travelled via the surgeon.
The pandemic forbade visits.
Disguised as a doctor with no gown,
I climbed the stairs to hide myself in room
5427.
Between us we shared the grapes of your dessert,
listening hand in hand to those bells pealing out
from the television,
bells that weren’t yet tolling for a death.
I don’t complain about everything we did later,
about the body’s being totally overwhelmed,
about the hospital windows,
the wheelchair in 2021,
exhausted November shadows,
eight o’clock in the morning in the noise of the Clinic
with the final results in the waiting-room.
I don’t complain about the fear of falling,
about the difficulty of the shower,
about the awkward ferryings to reach the bathroom.
I don’t complain either about palliative care,
remembering nappies,
the unavoidable conversation.
I don’t complain at seeing you die in my arms.
I understood that our travels and our books
with their dedications
have always been ways of caring for each other.
I understood our militancy,
I understood love’s invoice
in a completely Friday way.
I understood the plot of this story
in the night with its stars,
a love-story,
this year and three months,
these final days that are already,
now, remembered,
the happiest of my life.
*
III
‘Te los ofrezco hoy, acabando este año,
que para mí ya está entre los que fueron
los más felices de mi vida.’
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxJoan Margarit
Un año y tres meses
Como las narraciones de la lluvia
o los cuadernos de la bitácora,
tuvo la enfermedad sus argumentos.
No me quejo de nada. Hoy sostengo
el optimismo amargo con el que respondimos,
septiembre 2020,
cuando las citas médicas y el mar de los análisis
se mezclaron de un día para otro
con las arenas de la vida.
Nunca me quejaré de la disciplinada
manera que tuviste de contar nuestros pasos
para ver la ciudad con otros ojos,
la resistencia física y mental
que exigía la quimio.
No me quejo de las debilidades
o de la Navidad sin cabellera
o de la extraña forma de despedir el año
cuando el amor pasó por el quirófano.
La pandemia prohibía las visitas.
Disfrazado de médico sin bata,
subí para esconderme hasta la habitación
5427.
Dividimos por dos las uvas de tu postre,
oyendo de la mano aquellas campanadas
de la televisión
que no sonaban todavía a muerto.
No me quejo de todo lo que hicimos después,
del cuerpo poco a poco tan vencido,
de las ventanas de los hospitales,
de la silla de ruedas en 2021,
penumbras fatigadas de noviembre,
ocho de la mañana en el rumor del clínico
con resultados últimos en la sala de espera.
No me quejo del miedo a la caída,
de la ducha difícil,
de los duros transbordos para llegar al baño.
No me quejo tampoco
de los cuidados paliativos,
la memoria con gasas
y la conversación inevitable.
No me quejo de verte morir entre mis brazos.
Comprendí que los viajes y los libros
con sus dedicatorias
siempre han sido maneras de cuidarnos.
Comprendí las raíces de nuestra militancia,
comprendí la factura de querer,
de un modo completamente viernes.
Comprendí el argumento de esta historia
en la noche estrellada,
una historia de amor,
este año y tres meses,
estos días finales que ya son,
ahora, recordados,
los más felices de mi vida.
(De Un año y tres meses)
The High Window 