secession
insecession
with
by Chus Pato
by Erín Moure
secession
by Chus Pato
the Erín Moure translation
with
insecession
by Erín Moure
her Chus Pato echolation
A Sample from the text
BookThug · 2014
f ir st e di t i on
Secesión by Chus Pato © 2009 by Chus Pato and Edicións Galaxia, Vigo, Spain
Secession English Translation © 2014 Erín Moure
Insecession © 2014 Erín Moure
a l l rig h ts re se rv e d
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publisher.
The production of this book was made possible through the generous assistance
of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Pato, Chus, 1955–
[Secesión. English]
Secession by Chus Pato : the Erín Moure translation. With, Insecession
by Erín Moure, her Chus Pato echolation.
Translation of Chus Pato’s Secesión with Erín Moure’s Insecession on
opposite pages.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77166-034-1 (bound).–ISBN 978-1-77166-039-6 (pdf)
I. Mouré, Erin, 1955-, author, translator II. Mouré, Erin, 1955- .
Insecession. III. Title. IV. Title: Secesión. English.
PQ9469.2.P37S4213 2014
ePDF: isbn 978-1-77166-059-4
pri n t e d i n c anada
869.1’4
C2013-908725-7
C2013-908726-5
Secession/
Insecession
I NSECE SSIO N
SE C E S SIO N
Erín Moure
Chus Pato
I NSECE SSIO N
SE C E S SIO N
An echolation-homage and biopoetics by Erín Moure, Montreal poet
born the same year as Chus Pato,
in a city traversed by two rivers, just east of the Canadian Rockies.
Each text in Canadian English responds to a Pato text,
with one added Chinook wind.
A biopoetics by Chus Pato, Galician poet from Ourense, Galicia
in the green Atlantic climate of the northwest of Spain, Europe.
Translated from the Galician
into Canadian English
in Montreal and Kelowna
by Erín Moure
Erín Moure thanks Chus Pato and Jay MillAr
6 | moure
pato | 7
A readerly text is one I cannot re-produce (today I cannot write like
Atwood); a writerly text is one I can read only if I utterly transform
my reading regime. I now recognize a third text alongside the readerly
and the writerly: let’s call it the intranslatable. The intranslatable is the
unreaderly text which catches fire, burns in the mouth, an instance
continuously outside any likelihood, whose function – ardently assumed
by its scripter – is to contest the mercantile constraints on what is
written. This text, guided, armed by a notion of material, prompts me
to redact the following words: Dear Chus, I can neither read nor write
what you produce, but I can intranslate it, like a conflagration, a drug, an
insecession, an e(ri)nigmatic disorganization.
A readerly text is one I cannot rewrite (can I write today like Balzac?);
a writerly text is one I read with difficulty, unless I completely transform my reading regime. I now conceive that there may be a third text:
alongside the readerly and the writerly, there would be something like
the receivable. The receivable is the unreaderly text which catches hold,
the red-hot text, a product continuously outside any likelihood, whose
function – visibly assumed by its scripter – would be to contest the mercantile constraint of what is written; this text, guided, armed by a notion
of the unpublishable, would elicit the following response: I can neither
read nor write what you produce, but I receive it, like a fire, a drug, an
enigmatic disorganization.
Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes
Richard Howard translation,
altered by Ruin E. Rome
Roland Barthes by Roland Barthes
Richard Howard translation
8 | moure
pato | 9
We recognize altitude as we ascend, we call the ocean that unfolds below:
Canadian Rockies
We recognize altitude from elevation, we call the most extensive prairie:
Ocean
Translation pivots on the word – as painting does on paint – this word that
is not ours makes us feel, infects us… a translator’s gaze, a painter’s, are
authentic mutations, and thus their works can cross the gap between word
and meaning, paint and gaze
Literature is based on the word – as the visual arts are on the gaze –
this word that is not ours makes us feel, commits us… a painter’s
eyes, a filmmaker’s, are authentic mutations, and thus their works
ring true
translation, to sustain Literature, does not disdain or push away what rejects it
and never disguises silence, it touches our interior, the machine of our organs,
magnetizes the black holes of the language, potentates meaning
the word that sustains Literature does not disdain or push away what
rejects it and must not be confused with silence, it touches animality
and machines, magnetizes the stars of the language, polarizes meaning
because of this, the deer lie in a space of light and murmurs
because of this, lovers lie in the hugest of intervals
—the deer are in the aspens?
—circles mark the grass amid the aspens where they have lain
—did they die?
—no, they awoke to glean
—when you translate Chus Pato, where are you?
—in the startling air, in the no-event: on Air Galicia, for example
—and when you write your own poems?
—in the continual fold of the event
—the lovers are in the circle?
—the circle marks where they had lain
—they died?
—of course
—when you make love, where are you?
—in the unexpected, in what will never occur: being a trapeze artist, for
example
—and when you write?
—in what occurs, in what continually takes place
where words are ecstatic figures and unjudgeable, marred and irretrievable,
which is to say, amid the aspens
10 | moure
so, words are free to be extreme figures and unjudgeable, irreparable
pato | 11
A S P E NS
I
I R R E PA R A B L E
I
THE BRAGG CREEK ICE CAVE 17
Riel 18
River Park 22
Snows 26
Altadore 26
Glenmore 30
Quoth the Magpie 36
Litany from Cassandra 42
Northeast of the Carpathians 56
WHERE THE CAVERNS SING 17
Carral 19
Central Galleries 23
Deserts 27
Egypt 27
Haffa 31
Nevermore 37
Letter from Tangiers 43
The Distant Carpathians 57
FACE AND MOUNTAINS 66
Benito 68
Ottawa 70
Equation 72
Amygdala 76
Hide 78
Afternoon, Swallows 82
Penthesilea 84
Achilleía 86
Yard 90
Walnuts 92
Emotion 94
FACE AND MOUNTAINS 67
Felix 69
Almorfe 71
Equation 73
Amygdala 77
Jekyll 79
This I, Mountain 83
Penthesilea 85
Achilles 87
Garden 91
Daffodils 93
Emotion 95
PIRATES 96
Lgiht’s End 98
Fascination of an ABC 100
The House Which is Not Extension but Dispositio Itself 104
This Dead Woman is Not Much Quieter 108
GHOSTS 97
Finisterra 99
Fragments of an ABC 101
The House, Which is Not Extension but the Body Itself 105
This Dead Woman Who Can’t Stop Talking 109
II
II
WHILE THERE’S STILL INK 116
WHILE I’M WRITING 117
THOUGHTS, MIND YOUR MANNERS! 134
This I is Not a Murderer 136
The I That Writes is… I Forget 138
This I is Hardly Death 142
This Fold Dreams and Undreams Until a Last... 144
Consciousness May Ponder but Does Not Mistake... 158
THOUGHTS, BEHAVE YOURSELVES! 135
This I is not a Murderer 137
The I That Writes is Not The I That Remembers 139
This I is Not Death 143
This I Folds and Unfolds Until a Last Fold Which Is a Dream 145
The I That Ponders is Not Consciousness 159
RUIN E. ROME 164
RUINS 165
~ 48, OR 49 170
ABOUT THIS BOOK 173
ON THIS BOOK 172
I
I
T H E B R AG G C REEK I CE C AVE
W H E R E T H E C AV E R N S SI N G
RIE L
CARRAL
I knew nothing more beautiful and I had no word for beauty. Standing
at the stucco wall of the house, greeting with my arms the blooms that
were my height and bore my name: Erin! Erin! Delicately veined purple
flowers. They grew after the snow, when sun had warmed the stucco
wall that in turn warmed the soil beneath. I did not discern the difference
between my name and theirs until that day.
My mother squatted and her height went small beside me and she
told me in her language: you are Erin; those are Irises. I remember her
size and movement and one word, my name, becoming two words in the
mouth of my mother.
So language comes clear in soft skulls. It is 1956. The anterior
fontanelle gradually ossifies, the last fontanelle to close.
I had never heard of a flower shop. The enigmatic site for me was T.
Eaton’s, the national department store where my mother led me on a
harness lined with green felt (I don’t remember how we traversed the
space between the wall and downtown, perhaps by bus), and I waited
beneath a circular low rack of women’s clothes while she spoke with the
sales clerks who were her height. Women only went out then wearing
hats and white gloves.
Dief the Chief led our Nation’s Parliament. The Canadian Bill of
Rights was passed, the law over all laws. First Nations peoples were
“given” the vote. My mother had showed me how to read the newspaper that year; it held Facts and was delivered to the porch, folded in
on itself. One day, agitated, she pointed at the ink and admonished: “You
are never ever to say the words “Drunken Indian.” Thus the newspaper
spoke not only truth but lies I was forbidden to utter.
When you keep moving, you gain strength. Words and world
coalesce, thanks to this strength.
There was a creek in the space behind the house (gurgle of waters
I was too short to see, fenced with chicken wire) and one day the creek
was filled in. The wire fence vanished. Yellow vehicles moved every
earth. From this a flatland emerged, a plain of gravel and silence. And no
more water running. Infill houses were soon built on the new flats.
For a long time, I didn’t know what the word meant but I still kept
reading the pages where the philosopher repeated, always in English,
daffodils; I realized from the context that for Rancière daffodils was
emblematic of the poet’s writing; in the same way he used hummingbird
for Mandelstam, he used daffodils for the author of the Prelude.
In my youth, in my childhood, there were no daffodils; at least I
don’t remember them, not in the village nor in the flower shops. In the
painter’s city, in the author’s city, I did visit one of those shops on the
cobblers’ street with my mother; it was an enigmatic site, as if it hadn’t
always been a florist’s but was an old-fashioned shop that had once
needed many shelves, for shirts, to keep merchandise where people
could see it, but obviously there were never flowers there.
Fog, this is what the shelves behind the counter held, an L-shaped
counter, dark, of chestnut wood.
There were ghosts, I breathed ghosts, they were very warm.
There were two salesladies, surely the owners of the shop and related
in some way, particularly beautiful, with taut faces, very pale and even
back then they seemed from another era. Perhaps two sisters, two
sisters-in-law, possibly widows, or not, maybe they were friends struck
by misfortune, the death of some family member or beloved friend in
the repression or at the front, perhaps… but there were places like this
all over the city of Auria when I was a child, full of solitude and fog;
Olga’s hat store, near the Lycée, the beauty salon of the two sisters – like a
nightingale and a swallow (they didn’t sing). All these women were slow,
somnolent, pleasant, very pleasant or at least they were with me. On the
corner of the counter, refuting any baleful destiny, were roses in a zinc
pot / hundreds / blood-red, green-leafed and with stems like yews.
There were no daffodils, not under the village trees nor in the
marshes. Only after the death of the dictator did they appear in the
florists’, the first blooms to appear as the days lengthened after Valentine’s
Day, when small birds marry in the open cages of the chestnuts, of
poplars stripped bare by winter; they grow beside the water, near birches,
willows, beside rivers. They are a kind of optical band for the thundering
18 | moure
pato | 19
Each summer, the Calgary Stampede gathered festive crowds at the
Stampede Corral to honour ranchers who had fenced the prairies upon
the vanishing of the buffalo. A small space by the wall held the Indian
Village.
Here there had been no springtime of peoples. Just dry leaves, oil
barons, railway and settlers, my mother’s family from Western Ukraine
who settled where the Dane-zaa had been pushed north and west by
the Cree, for the Cree had also been pushed west by settlement. In the
south, others had signed Treaty 7, then starved.
It was only as an adult that I knew of Riel and the repressed
rebellions against the theft of land, and Riel’s voice gone wild and liquid
as grass breathes in the white spring of
Carnival figures – Peliqueiros, Devils, Cigarróns, Felos and other
masks – that let the animal burst from the human, and together with
the incessant cheeping of the birds, they configure, in the pounding of
feet and the sound of cowbells, the algebra of the temperate zones of the
planet.
…prairie rivers.
and then… Carral.*
We welcome the pulsation of the flowers, the force of the wild beings
of the mountains, who awaken Persephone so that she will return and
realize that, through her, we cry out for fecundity and spring, and to see
the youth of April appear across the Earth.
The Spring of Peoples: daffodils, murmuring pines, hummingbirds,
we’ll soon receive news of the revolution
* On April 15, 1846, the Kingdom of Galicia declared itself independent from Spain. Eight
days later, on April 23, this revolution against centralist Spanish dictatorship in Galicia was
put down by forces from Madrid, and its leaders shot, three days later, after a summary
trial at the town of Carral.
20 | moure
pato | 21
RIVER PAR K
CENTRAL GALLERIES
(…) she wades nearly to her knees in the river. The current presses
the gum boots against her legs and the girl slides one foot forward on
the rocks, which are round and slippery. At times the water reaches the
top of the boots and only surface tension keeps her feet dry. This future
translator hopes the river won’t get deeper for she’s already halfway and
doesn’t want to step back (or she’ll slip and fall) or turn around (or she’ll
break the surface tension and flood the boots). Above her a wind nudges
her downstream, behind her are cliffs she is forbidden to descend, and
before her on the shore are the leafy trees in the yards of the rich,
whose properties extend to the water. They come out to yell sometimes
but she knows the riverbed is Crown Land and anyone can walk there as
people have always walked.
To cut through River Park or play by the Elbow River was a return
to the rurality that was mysteriously the translator’s first home. Muskeg
in one corner, a spring where small runnels seeped through a sponge
of trees until their trickles formed one stream that flowed beneath two
wooden bridges and down a small canyon worn by children’s feet into
the Elbow River right where storm sewers released fetid water. A large
pool there held old tires, boots, a tipped-over grocery cart with three
wheels, all covered in the fur of some dark plant that could thrive in such
garbage water. She never walked in that water, only in the fresh current
that lay further out.
At times older children played and smoked in the sand caves eroded
high in the cliffs above the sewer outlet, and she had to watch out to see
them from far off and run before they reached her.
(…) in fact, these galleries, through which I now take shortcuts to
reach distant points quickly, serve nicely to illustrate what I wish to
expound. Unveiled in my city as part of plans for development, they
were, along with the Tower, a symbol of the comforts that the Regime
offered to the urban middle classes. What I liked was how, after a short
and spacious corridor, your steps could bifurcate toward the second floor
or, descending wide staircases with white marble steps, arrive in a central
courtyard of aquatic columns; this effect of water cascading from roof to
floor came from the emerald green tessera that coated them like vegetal
bark. It also pleased me that streets so different were connected by an
inside passage that completely altered the urban landscape.
We walked there when it rained, on winter afternoons: the passages
were interminable. Under artificial light and the dull darkness of the
skies outside, we loitered, incomprehensible teenagers, rootless and
non-technological, like shades in the circles of the Comedy, somewhere
between the living and the dead. None of the articles displayed in shop
windows fascinated us in the least. Once in awhile I’d venture up to the
second floor; the nothingness was even more explicit there. In the nausea
of those sessions, we learned inertia, submission and guilt. Childhood
hell was, among other apprenticeships, those Sunday afternoons, fascist
as only Sunday afternoons can be fascist under the government of a
capitalist coup d’état and civil war.
Today completely abandoned, more than three thousand square
metres, mostly behind glass – nightmares of the Regime, the
dismembered bodies, as if by inexplicable chance our infant bodies had
burst and been subjected to the most horrendous deformations in the
narrow space inside these display windows, and they look at us as we
pass with all their liquids and internal humours broken into minuscule
coagulates that pass through the glass and darken the worn clay floor
tiles in their planetary proliferation – they testify, as I said, to the failure
of the dictatorship, to its degradation and downfall
(…) and thus, dictatorships in their modifications abandon public
If they reached her, they’d rough her up. Tomboy. Push her down and
tear off her gum boots, cast them into the quicksand alongside the path,
so she couldn’t retrieve them from the suck and had to tread the long
road home in socks to bow her head to parental disappointment or rage.
Trout and whitefish lay in other pools but she was compelled by the
rush of river and the leafy yards beyond. She played with her brothers,
22 | moure
pato | 23
ignoring the lawn parties for dolls conducted by the neighbour girls. And
yes, she did know why girls never went to the river.
and private areas that then dismantle themselves. These zones are true
historical voids and coincide with long periods of my personal existence.
They should stay in the head, where we know and want to know
nothing.
Asphodels cover the most sheltered places, the narcissi are in flower
but, alas! – news of the revolution does not arrive.
24 | moure
pato | 25
COLOPHON
Manufactured as the first edition of Secession/Insecession by BookThug in the
spring of 2014. Set in Minion Pro (Pato) and Gill Sans Pro MT (Moure).
Distributed in Canada by the Literary Press Group www.lpg.ca
Distributed in the United States by Small Press Distribution www.spdbooks.org
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