Pertenencia He tenido, como cualquiera la tentación de escribir hoy quiero refugiarme en el silencio de la luz de un cuadro de Vermeer lo cual sería, cuando menos, un cliché respetable, un versito lustroso. Pero no he podido porque la luz de Vermeer —al cual adoro— es un hermoso terciopelo que visito pero no me pertenece, al que no pertenezco. Mi refugio verdadero es el recuerdo —tal vez alguna foto— de una calle mexicana de apenas clase media llena de charcos y postes de luz, mi abuelo-padre sentado en la terraza, tomando un café. Entiendo bien que mi silencio jamás tendrá el prestigio de ese otro, pero es verdadero y el poema no puede provenir de un silencio inventado, mucho menos inventado por otro. Ni el latido del verso debe ser el de otro corazón que el corazón de quien lo escribe. | Belonging I have had, like anyone else, the temptation to write Today I want to take refuge in the silence of the light within a Vermeer painting which would be, at least a respectable cliché, a shiny little verse. But I have not been able to make myself do it, because Vermeer’s light —which I adore— is a beautiful velvet which I visit but does not belong to me, to which I do not belong. My true refuge is the memory —maybe a photograph— of a Mexican street of barely middle class, full of puddles and light poles, my Grand-Father sitting on the terrace, sipping his coffee. I understand well that my silence will never have the prestige of that other one, but it is true and the poem cannot come from a made up silence, much less made up by someone else. Nor should the heartbeat of the verse be the one from any heart than the heart of he who writes it. |
Manuel Iris (Mexico, 1983). Poet Laureate Emeritus of the City of Cincinnati, Ohio (2018-2020). He received the “Merida” National award of poetry (Mexico, 2009) for his book Notebook of dreams, and the Rodulfo Figueroa Regional award of poetry for his book The disguises of fire (Mexico, 2014).
In 2016 two different anthologies of his poetic work were published: The naked light, in Venezuela; and Before the mystery, in El Salvador. His first bilingual anthology of poems, Traducir el silencio/Translating silence, was published in New York in 2018. This book won two different awards in the International Latino Book Awards in Los Angeles, California, in that same year.
Iris has published poetry, essay and translation in magazines and literary journals from Mexico, Spain, Chile, Cuba, Colombia, Portugal, France, the United States, and Angola. His poetry has been included in several Mexican, as well as Latin-American, and American, poetry anthologies. He has also given talks, lectures and poetry readings in literary events, academic conferences and cultural centers of Mexico, the United States and Europe. In 2021, he became a member of the prestigious System of Art Creators of Mexico (Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte).
Manuel Iris holds a BA in Latin American Literature from the Autonomous University of the Yucatan (Mexico), a MA in Spanish from the New Mexico State University, and a PhD in Romance Languages from the University of Cincinnati, the city in which he lives.