Translator: Gisela Giardino Reviewer: Sebastian Betti
Slums.
Life in a separate world.
Single mothers rowing in a sea of stone.
The culture of the absent father, of the imprisoned father,
of the riddled father,
of the present father but with his back dissected.
The rubble that invent roads so the mud doesn’t bite your ankles.
Carcasses of cars stolen and set on fire.
Neighbors talking across the wiring while hanging clothes to dry on a rope.
The police, hunting amidst sparkling laughter.
Policemen who are relatives of their target.
The dining room and its pale snack surrounded by colored sorrow.
Those going to work with their little bags, their bikes and tired eyes.
Mothers mourn the death of their thief son at their own and others’ wakes.
The evangelists and their false screams.
The dogs chasing the bikes.
The lifesaver stew of midday.
The same stew at night.
And its leftovers for tomorrow.
The bus that drives through prisons overflowing with relatives.
Cumbia putting some rhythm to the misery.
The dawn and the carts.
The sunrise and those who are still on tour.
Many skinny salaries destined to disguise poverty.
Maradonas who were killed by the police,
who are workers squandering their magic,
but in a small muddy field full of broken glass.
The avenue is the frontier that divides the village from the world.
That’s why prayers offer even blood
for the miracle of the exile.
Symphony of the rain mistreating the corrugated metal roofs.
Middle class foreigners coming to buy drugs,
leaving barefoot and crying.
Candles melting in the small sanctuaries
with the photos of lads who died.
Walls with memories of their deeds.
The smiling corners, with bad boys and chicks,
splashing cosmic sparks.
Children who become parents.
Inhabitants who all know each other.
Secrets everyone knows.
Deceits impossible to hide.
Where the class with no class lives.
The sole owner of all brooms.
Where meritocracy awards never make it.
Where the horizon always smells like jail.
Smells like a bullet.
Smells like precarious work.
Smells like a janitor’s suit.
It’s the slum. It’s another world. It is living apart.
(Applause)
Thank you.
Max Goldenberg: César, when, how and why did you write this poem?
César González: Well, this poem was written almost about 10 years ago.
I was 19 at the time.
I was in jail, in Marcos Paz prison.
I was imprisoned for five years.
It was a way to go for a walk in my neighborhood without having to move,
because I couldn’t either, right?
A way to recreate the experience from my memory,
with my imagination.
It was going around the neighborhood, in an imaginary way,
but not just going around the neighborhood and describe it.
I was not interested in just describing
but to add a filter to that description,
that is my concept of what it’s like to live in the slums.
Many people don’t live it like I do,
with the words that I put to the life in the slum,
so they were philosophical, political, ideological filters
of things that happen in the slum that are unfair, that should not happen.
That is, not to romanticize life in the slum, but at the same time,
to rescue all the beauty that emerges amidst so much death, right?
Max Goldenberg: César González, people.
César González: Thank you very much.
(Applause)
Slums.
Life in a separate world.
Single mothers rowing in a sea of stone.
The culture of the absent father, of the imprisoned father,
of the riddled father,
of the present father but with his back dissected.
The rubble that invent roads so the mud doesn’t bite your ankles.
Carcasses of cars stolen and set on fire.
Neighbors talking across the wiring while hanging clothes to dry on a rope.
The police, hunting amidst sparkling laughter.
Policemen who are relatives of their target.
The dining room and its pale snack surrounded by colored sorrow.
Those going to work with their little bags, their bikes and tired eyes.
Mothers mourn the death of their thief son at their own and others’ wakes.
The evangelists and their false screams.
The dogs chasing the bikes.
The lifesaver stew of midday.
The same stew at night.
And its leftovers for tomorrow.
The bus that drives through prisons overflowing with relatives.
Cumbia putting some rhythm to the misery.
The dawn and the carts.
The sunrise and those who are still on tour.
Many skinny salaries destined to disguise poverty.
Maradonas who were killed by the police,
who are workers squandering their magic,
but in a small muddy field full of broken glass.
The avenue is the frontier that divides the village from the world.
That’s why prayers offer even blood
for the miracle of the exile.
Symphony of the rain mistreating the corrugated metal roofs.
Middle class foreigners coming to buy drugs,
leaving barefoot and crying.
Candles melting in the small sanctuaries
with the photos of lads who died.
Walls with memories of their deeds.
The smiling corners, with bad boys and chicks,
splashing cosmic sparks.
Children who become parents.
Inhabitants who all know each other.
Secrets everyone knows.
Deceits impossible to hide.
Where the class with no class lives.
The sole owner of all brooms.
Where meritocracy awards never make it.
Where the horizon always smells like jail.
Smells like a bullet.
Smells like precarious work.
Smells like a janitor’s suit.
It’s the slum. It’s another world. It is living apart.
(Applause)
Thank you.
Max Goldenberg: César, when, how and why did you write this poem?
César González: Well, this poem was written almost about 10 years ago.
I was 19 at the time.
I was in jail, in Marcos Paz prison.
I was imprisoned for five years.
It was a way to go for a walk in my neighborhood without having to move,
because I couldn’t either, right?
A way to recreate the experience from my memory,
with my imagination.
It was going around the neighborhood, in an imaginary way,
but not just going around the neighborhood and describe it.
I was not interested in just describing
but to add a filter to that description,
that is my concept of what it’s like to live in the slums.
Many people don’t live it like I do,
with the words that I put to the life in the slum,
so they were philosophical, political, ideological filters
of things that happen in the slum that are unfair, that should not happen.
That is, not to romanticize life in the slum, but at the same time,
to rescue all the beauty that emerges amidst so much death, right?
Max Goldenberg: César González, people.
César González: Thank you very much.
(Applause)
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