¡Hola a todos!
As part of my EPQ about love poetry, I’ve been researching into a lot of poets in the English-speaking world. However, because I wanted to have a look at poetry from other cultures, recently my friend from Argentina recommended a famous Uruguayan poet to me – Mario Benedetti – and I find his poetry fascinating.
After researching into his work, I’ve found that despite him being one of the most famous Latin American poets of all time (with over 80 books in 20 different languages), he is not very well known in the English-speaking world.
Benedetti lived a life impacted by war, forcing him to have switched from job to job, being detained and deported, even living for 12 years in exile. However, he always had his poetry. Even through jobs like translating, journalism (until the Newspaper was closed by the military government), broadcasting, and stenography, the only thing which was always there for Benedetti was his poems.
I really don’t think that his poems have enough attention, so here are some of my favourite ones – I’ll attach my English translations as well (they may not be 100% accurate, but you can get the idea).
1. Por qué deberia estar triste?
He perdido gente que no me
amaba, pero ellos perdieron
a alguien que los amaba.
–
Why should I be sad?
I have lost people who
didn’t love me, but they’ve lost
someone who loved them.
I really like this one, because despite it being quite short, it makes us reflect on how, when someone whom we love abruptly chooses to leave, the loss will eventually be felt more by the one who has left. I think it shows that all the sadness and loss is precious, and that the people about whom poets lament in heartbreak are the ones who have lost the most.
2. Te quiero en mi paraíso
Es decir que en mi pais
La gente viva feliz
Aunque no tenga permiso
Si te quiero es porque sos
Mi amor mi cómplice y todo
Y en la calle codo a codo
Somos mucho más que dos.
–
I want you in my paradise –
That is, in my country
The people live happily
Even if they don’t have permission.
If I love you, it’s because you are
My love, my accomplice, and everything,
And in the street side by side,
We are so much more than two.
The English translation really doesn’t do this poem justice! I really like the ABBA rhyme scheme of this one, and also the lack of punctuation. The last line is my favourite – ‘somos mucho más que dos’, which suggests how both huge and powerful love is, making the fact that it being only something abstract between two people seem almost impossible.
More about Benedetti: fortunately, after exile, Benedetti was awarded greatly for his writing – being awarded the Laureate of the International Botev prize in 1986. In 2005, he also received the Menéndez Pelayo international prize. His book, ‘La Tregua’, first published in 1960, has been translated into more than 20 languages and even inspired the 1974 film ’The Truce’. His poetry was also used in the 1992 Argentine movie The Dark Side of the Heart (El lado oscuro del corazón), in which he read some of his poems in German.
I really hope that more people will discover the poems of Benedetti – I think that it’s so interesting to think about how many wonderful undiscovered artists there are in the world, whom we have not discovered simply due to a language barrier. Hopefully his poems will always continue to inspire people.
¡Hasta luego!
