At the foot of the Spanish Steps in Rome

At the right foot of the Spanish Steps, in the very heart of Rome, I´ve just visited the Keats-Shelley House, a museum dedicated to the second generation of the English Romantic poets. It preserves the memory of Keats, Shelley and, to a less extent, Byron. All of them, geniuses who have attained an iconic status, died very young. In fact, it was as if the Romantic spirit and its intensity of feelings had to be associated with youth and that peculiar and sublime immaturity. 

The house was the final dwelling place of Keats, who had travelled to Italy with symptoms of consumption, in vain hope of a better climate to alleviate his poor health, but who would finally die here at the tender age of 25. He was the archetype of the young, beautiful and doomed Romantic writer. On his gravestone (also on one of the walls of the building) a Greek lyre was carved with four of its eight strings broken, in order to "show his classical genius cut off by death before its maturity".

Devastated by his death, Shelley wrote the elegy Adonais. A year later, he would drown off the coast of Tuscany at the age of 29. A volume of Keats´ poetry was found in his pocket. Both are buried in Rome´s Protestant cemetery.

Also imbued by the classical mythology, but having the epic ancient Greece in his imagination, the aristocratic Lord Byron would die (from a fever) for the cause of Greek independence against the Turks, in an adolescent attempt at making himself a Homeric hero.

Definetely, the museum was worth the visit. And a great pleasure to leave, at least for just half an hour, the hustle and bustle of the overcrowded Piazza di Spagna outside. I could enjoy the quiet solitude of the library, full of first editions, and, strolling around the rooms, gaze not only at original letters (by authors like Mary Shelley or even Oscar Wilde or Borges, who adored Keats) but also at a variety of memorabilia such as a lock of Keats´ hair or a carnival mask Byron once bought in Venice.

These tortured poets were dreamers who created a religion from the spirituality of their own experiences. And it is inspiring and overwelming to believe that the fellowship and reciprocal admiration they maintained was genuine and sincere. Nothing to do, I´m afraid, with the so often recurring rivalry between some green-eyed authors nowadays.

Leonard Cohen turns 80

Leonard Cohen, the often labelled "poet laureate of pessimism", turns 80 today. His mournful and gravelly voice, his warmth and elegance and his heart-rending songs still inspiring and enchanting so many.

Federico García Lorca was a poet who touched him deeply, even naming his own daughter Lorca after him. The lyrics of the widely acclaimed Take this Waltz derive from the  Little Viennese Waltz part of theSpaniard´s collection A poet in New York.

Here is my humble tribute to this musical icon, a spiritual songwriter for such unspiritual times.

Seamus Heaney, Dante and Asturias

Seamus Heaney, who was born Catholic in a predominantly Protestant Northern Ireland, never forgot the world where he came from. He was intensely aware of the often violent political and religious struggles that plagued his country and the unrest and oppression it entailed. At the same time, his roots and poetry lay deep and were grounded in that Irish rural countryside. 

The Little Canticles of Asturias is a beautiful tribute to a region he loved and used to visit because one of his sisters-in-law lived here. Besides, Asturian landscape lovingly evoked his homeland. This work is also a version of The Divine Comedy, the well-known 14th c. epic poem where Dante describes his journeys through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, an allegory of the soul´s pilgrimage towards God. Like the Italian genius, Heaney looks into human experience trying to explain the mystery of our own identity. 

All along three stanzas, he renders a splendid account of a drive in Asturias. In the first one, it is midnight, they are driving through an industrial area among furnaces and hot refineries and they curse the hellish roads. (And then at midnight as we started to descend / into the burning valley of Gijón, / .../ for we almost panicked there in the epic blaze / of those furnaces and hot refineries / ... / and gathered speed and cursed the hellish roads.). 

In the second canticle, during the purgatorial next morning, the farmers who are working in the fields on both sides of the road wave at him. Their rural labour brings him memories of his childhood in Ireland. (Next morning on the way to Piedras Blancas / I felt like a soul being prayed for, / ...). In the third and last stanza, he arrives at a paradise of rivers under sunlight. (At San Juan de la Arena / it was a bright day of the body. / Two rivers flowed together under sunlight. / ...). The final words (of distant Compostela, stela, stela) emulate the Italian stelle which also finish the three canticles of Dante´s masterpiece.

Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize in 1995, and one of the most productive, lauded and beloved of the living poets, has passed away. Ireland, Asturias and the whole world mourn his death. Life is ephemeral, we know,  but let's remember poetry is not. Cherished and celebrated, his verses will remain forever.

American elections, presidents and ... poetry!

In the USA, and every leap year, the general elections have been held on the first Tuesday following the first Monday of November since 1845. Due to the fact that the country was mainly an agrarian society, November was considered the most suitable month. The autumn harvest was over and the weather conditions were still mild for farmers to travel to the polling stations. This journey could take rural residents a whole day, so Monday was a convenient day to do it once they had attended their religious services on Sunday. The first Tuesday after the first Monday was chosen in order to prevent it from falling on November 1st, All Saints Day, a holy day of obligation for Catholics. A second reason was that it was on the first day of each month when merchants did their books from the preceding one.

Whatever the results, the presidential swearing ceremony does not take place until January. And, on this day of hope and introspection, poetry has been read on some occasions. At Kennedy´s inauguration, 87-year-old Robert Frost recited one of his poems. Maya Angelou did the same when Bill Clinton took his oath of office. 

Plenty of American presidents have been captivated by poetry. Jefferson often quoted the classics, mainly Homer, Virgil and Milton. Lincoln was keen on Robert Burns. T. Roosevelt was a devoted reader of poetry and he even wrote essays about it. Jimmy Carter, who adored Dylan Thomas, published a book with his own verses. W. Wilson was fond of limericks and he composed love poems. G. Ford knew Rudyard Kipling´s If by heart and it was his inspiration.

In one of his speeches Kennedy pointed out that "When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the areas of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of his existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses"

Good reasons to read biographies

There is nothing more enlightening and inspiring than reading the life and work of great people. We live in a world built by the genius and creativity of human beings who have had the ability of achieving extraordinary triumphs and it may be instructive to know how their interesting careers have developed. In fact, their priceless lessons of experience can encourage us to start working for greatness on our own. Biographies remind us that history repeats itself. Even if the person we are reading about is unworthy of praise or admiration - we don't read about Martin Luther King or Hitler for the same reason - their real stories can be instructive and valuable.

When it comes to writers, analyzing their lives may help us understand their literary work better. Their experiences usually shape what they create. Let´s take the most intellectual and revolutionary of the British romantic poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley, for instance.

Heir of a rich estate and educated in Eton and Oxford, he gave up everything to liberate humanity from misery. An atheist and anarchist, he was considered a pariah for his lifestyle. His first wife committed suicide by drowning in the Serpentine, in Hyde Park, when he ran away with 16-year-old Mary. Shelley was only 29 when he also drowned during a sudden storm while sailing in Italy. His unrecognizable fisheaten body was found on a beach. They knew it was him because of a volume of Keats' poems in his pocket. The corpse was burnt right there in presence of Byron and Leigh Hunt and his heart was given to his second wife, who would carry it with her in a silken shroud everywhere for the rest of her life. Mary Shelley, best known for her Frankestein, would work tirelessly to edite and promote his poetry.

Apart from getting a glimpse into the minds of these two artists, these are only a few facts which will certainly make us pay attention to certain aspects of their poems and stories we might otherwise miss or consider unimportant. Now we know that his obsession with thunders, water and evil images turned out to be prophetic. Her interest in the supernatural, the weird and the horrible also had an explanation.

Poetry is necessary

"We don´t read and write poetry because it is cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race, and the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering... these are noble pursuits to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love... these are what we stay alive for."     
Professor Keating, Dead Poets´ Society                                                           

I wish there were more literature teachers like Keating, someone who used poetry to inspire their students to seize the day, carpe diem, to suck out all the marrow of life, as Thoreau put it. He talked to these teenagers about Whitman, Byron, Tennyson,  Shakespeare... encouraging them to struggle to make their dreams come true.

Poems are made of the deepest secrets of the soul that need to come out. They tell about identity, discovery, survival, mortality, feelings, hopes, loss... things of primary interest to everybody in this uncertain world.