Octavio Paz Poems

 

Octavio Paz Poems

 

 

1. The bridge

Between now and now,
between I am and you are,
the word bridge.

Entering it,
you enter yourself:
the world connects
and closes like a ring.

From one bank to another,
there is always
a body stretched:
a rainbow.
I'll sleep beneath its arches

 

2. Last down.

 

Your hair is lost in the forest,
your feet touching mine.
Asleep you are bigger than the night,
but your dream fits within this room.
How much we are who are so little!
Outside a taxi passes
with its load of ghosts.
The river that runs by
is always
running back.
Will tomorrow be another day?

 

3. Spaces

 

Space
No center, no above, no below
Ceaselessly devouring and engendering itself
Whirlpool space
And drop into height
Spaces
Clarities steeply cut
Suspended
By the night's flank
Black gardens of rock crystal
Flowering on a rod of smoke
White gardens exploding in the air
Space
One space opening up
Corolla
And dissolving
Space in space
All is nowhere
Place of impalpable nuptials

4.Across

turn the page of the day,
writing what I'm told
by the motion of your eyelashes.

I enter you,
the truthfulness of the dark.
I want proofs of darkness, want
to drink the black wine:
take my eyes and crush them.

A drop of night
on your breast's tip:
mysteries of the carnation.

Closing my eyes
I open them inside your eyes.

Always awake
on its garnet bed:
your wet tongue.

There are fountains
in the garden of your veins.

With a mask of blood,
I cross your thoughts blankly:
amnesia guides me
to the other side of life.

5. No More Clichés

Beautiful face
that as if a daisy opens its petals to the sun
so do you Open your face to me as I turn the page.

Enchanting smile
Any man would be under your spell,
Oh, beauty of a magazine.

How many poems have been written to you?
How many Dantes have written to you, Beatrice?
To your obsessive illusion
to you manufacture fantasy.

6. Brotherhood

 

I am a man: little do I last
and the night is enormous.
But I look up:
the stars write.
Unknowing I understand:
I too am written,
and at this very moment

 

Someone spells me out.

7. Touch

My hands
Open the curtains of your being
Clothe you in a further nudity
Uncover the bodies of your body
my hands
Invent another body for your body

 

No, no more clichés.
Beautiful face
This poem is dedicated to those women
Whose beauty is in their charm,
In their intelligence,
In their character,
Not on their fabricated looks.

This poem is to you women,
That like a Shahrazad wake up
every day with a new story to tell,
A story that sings for change
That hopes for battles:
Battles for the love of the united flesh
Battles for passions aroused by a new day
Battle for the neglected rights
Or just battles to survive one more night.

Yes, to you women in a world of pain
To you, bright star in this ever-spending universe
To you, fighter of a thousand-and-one fights
To you, friend of my heart.

From now on, my head will not look down to a magazine
Rather, it will contemplate the night
and its bright stars,
And so, no more clichés.

 

 

 

 

8. Two bodies

Two bodies face to face
sometimes it's two waves
and the night is ocean.

Two bodies face-to-face
sometimes two stones
and the desert night.

Two bodies face to face
they are sometimes roots
at night linked.

Two bodies face to face
they are sometimes razors
and the lightning night.

Two bodies face to face
they are two stars that fall
In an empty sky.

9. Brotherhood

I am a man: little do I last
and the night is enormous.
But I look up:
the stars write.
Unknowing I understand:
I too am written,
and at this very moment,
someone spells me out.

 

10. Someone listen to the rain

Listen to me as one listens to the rain,
not attentive, not distracted,
light footsteps, thin drizzle,
water that is air, air that is time,
the day is still leaving,
the night has yet to arrive,
figurations of mist
at the turn of the corner,
figurations of time
at the bend in this pause,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
without listening, hear what I say
with eyes open inward, asleep
with all five senses awake,
it's raining, light footsteps, a murmur of syllables,
air and water, words with no weight:
what we are and are,
the days and years, this moment,
weightless time and heavy sorrow,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
wet asphalt is shining,
steam rises and walks away,
night unfolds and looks at me,
you are you and your body of steam,
you and your face of night,
you and your hair, unhurried lightning,
you cross the street and enter my forehead,
footsteps of water across my eyes,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the asphalt's shining, you cross the street,
it is the mist, wandering in the night,
it is the night, asleep in your bed,
it is the surge of waves in your breath,
your fingers of water dampen my forehead,
your fingers of flame burn my eyes,
your fingers of air open eyelids of time,
a spring of visions and resurrections,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
the years go by, the moments return,
do you hear the footsteps in the next room?
not here, not there: you hear them
in another time that is now,
listen to the footsteps of time,
inventor of places with no weight, nowhere,
listen to the rain running over the terrace,
the night is now more night in the grove,
lightning has nestled among the leaves,
a restless garden adrift-go in,

Your shadow covers this page.

11. Sonnet III

 

Of the green joy of the sky
lights you recover that the moon loses
because the light of itself remember
lightning and autumns in your hair.

The wind drinks wind in its stir,
move the leaves and their green rain
wet your shoulders, your back bites
and it undresses you and burns and returns yelo.

Two ships with unfolded sails
your two breasts. Your back is a torrent.
Your belly is a petrified garden.

It is autumn on your neck: sun and mist.
Beneath the green adolescent sky,
your body gives its love sum.

12. Between going and staying

 

Between leaving and staying doubt the day,
in love with its transparency.
The circular afternoon is already bay:
in its still movement the world rocks.
Everything is visible and everything is elusive,
everything is close and everything is untouchable.
The papers, the book, the glass, the pencil
they rest in the shadow of their names.
Beat of time that repeats in my temple
the same stubborn syllable of blood.
The light makes the wall indifferent
a spectral theater of reflections.
In the center of an eye I discover myself;
He doesn't look at me, I look at me in his eyes.
The instant dissipates. Without moving,
I stay and I go: I am a pause.

13. Scribble

With a lump of coal
with my broken chalk and my red pencil
draw your name
the name of your mouth
the sign of your legs
on nobody's wall

At the forbidden door
engrave the name of your body
until my razor blade
blood
and the stone scream
and the wall breathes like a chest

14. Silence

As well as the background of the music
a note sprouts
that while it vibrates it grows and thins
until in other music it falls silent,
springs from the bottom of silence
another silence, sharp tower, sword,
and rises and grows and suspends us
and while it rises they fall
memories, hopes,
the little lies and the big ones,
and we want to scream and in the throat
the cry fades:
we flow into silence
where silences are mute.

With affection,

Ruben

PD:

The editor have had copy the poems from a source in English, and also recognise the challenge to reconcile the translation with the original words used by the poet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Octavio Paz

 

Octavio Paz

 

Source: The famous people

Aditional photos by editor

 

Octavio Paz Lozano was a Nobel Prize winning Mexican poet, essayist and a diplomat born in the middle of the Civil War that raged through the country in the early twentieth century. As his father was a member of a revolutionary group, young Octavio spent his early childhood under the care of his grandfather, also a noted writer. The elder Paz kept an extensive library and Octavio was introduced to both Mexican and European literature through these books while he was still a child. He began writing at the age of eight and had his first book of poems published at nineteen. Later he joined Mexican diplomatic service and it was during his stint as Ambassador to India that he had the opportunity to study Hindu and Buddhist philosophies which influenced his later writings. Although known as a leftist writer, Paz did not support Cuban leader Fidel Castro or the Sandinista guerrilla movement of Nicaragua. He later said, "Revolution begins as a promise, is squandered in violent agitation, and freezes into bloody dictatorships that are the negation of the fiery impulse that brought it into being."

Quick Facts

Died At Age: 84

Family:

Spouse/Ex-: Elena Garro (m. 1938–1959), Marie-José Tramini (m. 1963–1998)

father: Octavio Paz Solórzano

mother: Josefina Lozano

children: Helena

Died on: April 19, 1998

place of death: Mexico City, Mexico

City: Mexico City, Mexico

Childhood & Early Life

 

tavio Paz Lozano was born on March 31, 1914, in Mexico City into a distinguished family of Spanish and Indian descent. His father, Octavio Paz Solórzano, was a prominent lawyer and journalist. He served as a counsel for Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata and took decisive part in his 1911 agrarian uprising.

With his son away, it fell upon Octavio’s grandfather, Ireneo Paz, also a political activist and writer, to look after the family. In 1915, he took the mother and child to his house in Mixcoac; a pre-Hispanic town, located just outside the Mexican City, but now a part of it.

 

There, young Octavio was brought up by his mother, Josefina Lozano, aunt, Amalia Paz and grandfather. Their big magnificent house, the surrounding garden as well as the cobbled streets of the town left an everlasting impression on his mind and were later reflected in many of his works.

In 1919, after Zapata was killed, Octavio Paz Solórzano relocated to Los Angeles. The following year, he sent for his wife and child and so sometime in 1920, six-year-old Octavio and his mother set off for Los Angeles, where they lived for two years.

At Los Angeles, he was enrolled at a local kindergarten school. Not knowing even a single word of English, he could not communicate with anyone and felt like an outsider. Embarrassed, he took refuge in silence.

Young though he was, he did not miss the cultural difference between the two countries. This feeling would one day be reflected in his writings, especially in ‘El laberinto de la soledad’ (The Labyrinth of Solitude, 1950).

In around 1922, they returned to Mexico and started living with his grandfather and aunt in their house in Mixcoac. Once again, young Octavio found it hard to adjust and started feeling like an outsider.

This time, he took to writing, trying to give expression to his intense feelings both in verse and prose. The sudden death of his grandfather in 1924, also added impulse to his writing. He later wrote, “In death, I discovered language.”

In Mixcoac, Octavio was first enrolled at La Salle brothers’ primary school, located in the centre of the town. Later he was sent to study at Colegio Williams, also in Mixcoac, where he received English public style education.

By now, their financial condition had become so bad that they could not maintain their house. As the rooms became inhabitable one by one, they kept on abandoning them, moving the delicate furniture to other rooms.

However, Octavio still had access to the magnificent library his grandfather had left. There he came across the finest Mexican as well as English classics. Thus he discovered Gerardo Diego, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and Antonio Machado at an early age. Later they would have great influence on his writings.

His life, which was so far centered on the small city of Mixcoac, changed as he started attending ‘Preparatoria Nacional’ in around 1929. For two years, he traveled daily to the centre of the Mexican City, which exposed him to different viewpoints.

College Life

 

 

 

n 1932, Octavio Paz Lozano entered National Autonomous University of Mexico. Here he was drawn to the leftist movement. Along with his studies and political activism, he also concentrated on writing, publishing a number of poems in the same year.

One of the more well-known poems published around that time was ‘Cabellera.’ His first article, ‘Etica del artista’ (Ethics of the Artist), was also published in the same period.

However, his most noteworthy achievement of this period was the founding of an avant-garde literary magazine titled, ‘Barandal’ (handrail) with three friends, Rafael López Malo, Salvador Toscano and Arnulfo Martínez Lavalle.

Paz’s first book of poems ‘Luna silvestre’ (Wild Moon) was published in 1933. Subsequently, he had two more books published; ‘No pasarán!’ in 1936 and ‘Raíz del hombre’ in 1937.

Sometime during this period, he sent some of his works to well-known Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. Neruda not only sent back favorable reviews, but also encouraged him to attend the meeting of leftist writers to be held later in Spain.

 

Attending Writersâ

 

Eventually Octavio Paz became so much involved with his political activism and writing that he could no longer continue with his studies. He abandoned his education and in March 1937, left for Mérida to become a schoolmaster. The school was set up for the children of poor peasants and workers.

Here, his job was not only to teach, but also to recruit pupils. While searching for them, he witnessed how the peasants were dominated by the landlords. What he saw here, inspired him to start on a long poem, later named ‘Entre la piedra y la flor.’

However, he did not continue there for long. Within three months, he left for Spain to attend the Second International Writers Congress in Defense of Culture in Spain at Valencia, never to come back to his teaching post in Mérida.

At that time, the Civil War was raging through the country and Paz identified strongly with the Republicans. What he saw there was reflected in his fourth book of poem, ‘Bajo tu clara sombra y otros poemas sobre España’, published in the same year in Spain. It established him as a promising writer.

In 1938, on his way back to Mexico, he stopped at Paris. Here, he met many surreal artists and was greatly influenced by both surrealism and its proponents.

 

Return to Mexico

 

 

In 1938, on his return to Mexico, Octavio Paz co-founded two literary journals, ‘Taller’ meaning workshop and ‘El Hijo Pródigo’, meaning the child prodigy. Concurrently, he resumed his work on ‘Entre la piedra y la flor’, the long poem he had started at Mérida and had it published in 1941.

In 1943, Paz won a two-year Guggenheim fellowship and used it to study Anglo American Modernist poetry at the University of California. During this period, he also travelled all over the United States of America.

 

As a Diplomat

 

 

In 1945, Octavio Paz Lozano entered into a new phase of his life. That year, he joined the Mexican diplomatic service and was first assigned to New York City and then to Paris.

Paz lived in Paris from 1946 to 1951. Here he met many well-known thinkers and writers like Jean-Paul Sartre, Andre Breton, Albert Camus, Benjamin Peret, etc. and together with them, participated in various activities as well as publications.

This period was very productive for him. Sometime now, he wrote ‘El laberinto de la soledad’ (The Labyrinth of Solitude). Published in 1950, it was a book-length essay dealing fundamentally with Mexican identity. It established him as a major literary figure.

In 1952, he travelled to India for the first time. Later in the same year, he joined the Mexican embassy at Tokyo as the chargé d'affaires and from there he was sent to Geneva, returning to Mexico City in 1954.

He lived in Mexico until 1957 and in the same year, published his great poem ‘Piedra de sol’ ("Sunstone"). After another stint in Paris, he was sent to India in 1962 as Mexico’s ambassador to that country.

He now took the opportunity to study Hindu and Buddhist philosophies. However, his interest was more intellectual than religious. During this period, he also came in close contact with the members of ‘Hungry Generation’, a group of avant-garde poets based in Kolkata and exerted considerable influence on them.

On October 2, 1968, back in Mexico, an estimated 300 students and civilians were killed by Mexican military and police in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City. Hearing this, Paz resigned from his post in protest.

While in India, he also wrote vast numbers of poems. Two of his most important works of this period are ‘Ladera este’ (Eastern Slope, published in 1969) and ‘El mono gramático’ (The Monkey Grammarian, published in 1974).

 

Later Years

 

 

 

After leaving India, Paz spent some time in Paris and returned to Mexico in 1969. In the same year, he was appointed to the Simon Bolivar Chair at Cambridge University where he taught from 1969 to 1970. Thereafter, from 1970 to 1974 he held the Charles Eliot Norton professorship at Harvard University.

Also in 1970, he cofounded ‘Plural’, a literary magazine, with a group of liberal Mexican and Latin American writers. When in 1975, the Mexican government banned ‘Plural’, he founded another cultural magazine called ‘Vuelta’, remaining its editor till his death.

 

Major Works

 

Piedra de Sol’ (Sunstone), published in 1957, is one among Paz’s highly appreciated poems. The work is based on circular Aztec calendar and has 584 lines corresponding to its 584 days. It was later translated into English by Eliot Weinberger and published in 1987 as part of ‘The Collected Poems of Octavio Paz, 1957–1987.’

Among his essays, he is best remembered for ‘El laberinto de la soledad’ (The Labyrinth of Solitude). The work, divided into nine parts, deals primarily with Mexican identity. It also demonstrates how at the end of a labyrinth, there exists an intense feeling of solitude.

 

Awards & Achievements

 

 

In 1990, Octavio Paz Lozano received the Nobel Prize in Literature "for impassioned writing with wide horizons, characterized by sensuous intelligence and humanistic integrity."

Apart from that, he was honored with many other awards, the most significant among them being Jerusalem Prize (1977), Miguel de Cervantes Prize (1981) and Neustadt Internal Prize for Literature (1982).

In 1980, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard University.

 

Personal Life & Legacy

 

 

 

 

n 1937, Octavio Paz married Elena Garro, also a Mexican writer of great repute. The couple had a daughter named Helena Laura Paz Garro. Their marriage broke up in 1959. However, Elena always claimed that they were not officially divorced and if any such paper existed, it was fraudulent.

In 1965, he married Marie-José Tramini, a French lady, with whom he lived until his death.

Towards the end of his life, he was inflicted with cancer and died from it on April 19, 1998, in Mexico City. The body of work he left behind continues to keep his legacy

alive.

 

 

Why did Octavio Paz win the Nobel Prize for Literature? For his passionate and wide-ranging writing, characterized by sensory intelligence and humanistic integrity”, the Swedish Academy awarded the Mexican poet, writer, and essayist Octavio Paz Lozano (Mexico City, March 31, 1914-April 19 1998) 23 years ago the Nobel Prize for Literature

 

 

With affection,

   Ruben