de PERSONISMO: UN
MANIFIESTO
Todo está en el poema, pero a riesgo de sonar como el Allen
Ginsberg del millonario pobre te escribo porque acabo de escuchar que uno de
mis colegas poetas cree que un poema mío que no se entiende a la primera lectura
es porque yo también estaba confundido. Pero oíme. Yo no creo en dios, así que
no tengo que hacer estructuras elaboradamente sólidas. Odio a Vachel Lindsay,
siempre lo odié, ni siquiera me gusta el ritmo, la asonancia, toda esa
cuestión. Uno sigue su impulso. Si alguien te está persiguiendo con un cuchillo
te ponés a correr, no te das vuelta y le gritás “¡Terminala! Fui campeón de
atletismo en la secundaria!”.
Eso en cuanto a la
parte de escribir. En cuanto a la recepción de un poema, suponete que estás
enamorado y alguien te está tratando mal (mal aimé), no le decís “¡Oíme, no me
podés herir así, yo te quiero!”. Sólo dejás que cada cuerpo caiga donde caiga,
y siempre caen tras un par de meses. Pero no es por eso que te enamoraste en
primera instancia, sólo para aferrarte a la vida, así que hay que aprovechar la
oportunidad y evitar ser lógico. El dolor siempre produce lógica, lo cual es
muy perjudicial.
No digo que no
tenga las ideas más elevadas de todos los que escriben hoy en día, pero ¿qué
diferencia hace? Son solamente ideas. Lo único de bueno es que cuando estoy lo
suficientemente elevado es que paré de pensar, y ahí es cuando llega el
refrigerio.
Pero ¿cómo puede
importarte de verdad si alguien lo entiende, o entiende su sentido, o si el poema
mejora a la gente? ¿Los mejora para qué? ¿Para la muerte? ¿Para qué hacerlos
apurar? Hay demasiados poetas que se comportan como una madre de mediana edad,
tratando de que sus hijos coman demasiada carne asada, y papas con salsa
(lágrimas). Me importa un carajo si se come o no se come. La alimentación
forzada lleva a la delgadez extrema (effete). Nadie tendría que experimentar lo
que no necesita, si no necesitan poesía bien por ellos; a mí también me gusta
el cine. Y todo; sólo Whitman, Crane y Williams, de los estadounidenses, son
mejores que el cine. En cuanto a la métrica y otros aparatos técnicos, no es
más que sentido común: si vas a comprarte pantalones, tienen que quedarte bien
ajustados para que todos quieran acostarse con vos. No tiene nada de
metafísico. A menos, claro, que te halagues pensando que lo que sentís es
“anhelo”.
La abstracción en
poesía, que Allen comentó recientemente en It
is, es intrigante. Creo que aparece más que nada en los detalles mínimos,
donde es necesaria una decisión. La abstracción (en la poesía, no en la
pintura) implica la supresión personal del poeta. Por ejemplo, la decisión
implicada en la elección entre “la nostalgia del infinito” y “la nostalgia por
el infinito” define una actitud en cuanto al grado de abstracción. La nostalgia
del infinito representa el mayor grado de abstracción, supresión y capacidad
negativa (como en Keats y Mallarmé). El personismo, un movimiento que fundé
recientemente y del que todavía nadie se enteró, me interesa muchísimo, siendo
totalmente opuesto a este tipo de supresión abstracta que realmente, por
primera vez en la historia de la poesía, está cercana a la verdadera
abstracción. El personismo es a Wallace Stevens lo que la poésie pure era a
Béranger. El personismo no tiene nada que ver con la filosofía, es puro arte.
¡No tiene que ver con la personalidad o la intimidad, muy lejos de eso! Pero
para darte una vaga idea, uno de sus aspectos mínimos es dirigirse a una
persona (más allá del poeta mismo), evocando así matices de amor sin destruir
la vulgaridad vivificante del amor, y sosteniendo los sentimientos del poeta
hacia el poema mientras evita que el amor lo distraiga y lo haga sentir cosas
por la persona. Eso es parte del personismo. Lo fundé yo después de almorzar
con LeRoi Jones el 27 de agosto de 1959, un día que estaba enamorado de alguien
(no Roi, ya que estamos; un rubio). Volví al trabajo y escribí un poema para
esa persona. Mientras lo escribía me di cuenta de que si quería podía usar el
teléfono en vez de escribir el poema, y así nació el personismo. Es un
movimiento apasionante que sin duda tendrá un montón de adherentes. Pone el
poema directamente entre el poeta y la persona, al estilo Lucky Pierre, y el
poema queda, por tanto, gratificado. Por fin el poema está entre dos personas
en vez de estar entre dos páginas.
(9/3/59)
Frank O’Hara, “Personism: A manifesto”. Yugen n°7, 1961.
Traducción: Laura Wittner.
Everything is in the poems, but at the risk of sounding like the poor wealthy man’s Allen Ginsberg I will write to you because I just heard that one of my fellow poets thinks that a poem of mine that can’t be got at one reading is because I was confused too. Now, come on. I don’t believe in god, so I don’t have to make elaborately sounded structures. I hate Vachel Lindsay, always have, I don’t even like rhythm, assonance, all that stuff. You just go on your nerve. If someone’s chasing you down the street with a knife you just run, you don’t turn around and shout, "Give it up! I was a track star for Mineola Prep."
That’s for the writing poems part. As for their reception, suppose you’re in love and someone’s mistreating (mal aimé) you, you don’t say, "Hey, you can’t hurt me this way, I care!" you just let all the different bodies fall where they may, and they always do ‘flay after a few months. But that’s not why you fell in love in the first place, just to hang onto life, so you have to take your chances and try to avoid being logical. Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you.
I’m not saying that I don’t have practically the most lofty ideas of anyone writing today, but what difference does that make? they’re just ideas. The only good thing about it is that when I get lofty enough I’ve stopped thinking and that’s when refreshment arrives.
But how can you really care if anybody gets it, or gets what it means, or if it improves them. Improves them for what? for death? Why hurry them along? Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don’t give a damn whether eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don’t need to, if they don’t need poetry bully for them, I like the movies too. And all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American are better than the movies. As for measure and other technical apparatus, that’s just common sense: if you’re going to buy a of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There’s nothing metaphysical about it. Unless of course, you flatter yourself into thinking that what You’re experiencing is "yearning."
Abstraction in poetry, which Allen recently commented on in It is, is intriguing. I think it appears mostly in the minute particu1ars where decision is necessary. Abstraction (in poetry, not in painting) involves personal removal by the poet. For instance, the decision involved in the choice between "the nostalgia of the infinite" and "the nostalgia for the infinite" defines an attitude toward degree of abstraction. The nostalgia of the infinite representing the greater degree of abstraction, removal, and negative capability (as in Keats and Mallarmé). Personism, a movement which I recently founded and which nobody yet knows about, interests me a great deal, being so totally opposed to this kind of abstract removal that it is verging on a true abstraction for the first time, really, in the history of poetry. Personism is to Wallace Stevens what la poésie pure was to Béranger. Personism has nothing to do with philosophy, it’s all art. It does not have to do with personality or intimacy, far from it! But to give you a vague idea, one of its minimal aspects is to address itself to one person (other than the poet himself), thus evoking overtones of love without destroying love’s life-giving vulgarity, and sustaining the poet’s feelings towards the poem while preventing love from distracting him into feeling about the person. That’s part of personism. It was founded by me after lunch with LeRoi Jones on August 27, 1959, a day in which I was in love with someone (not Roi, by the way, a blond). I went back to work and wrote a poem for this person. While I was writing it I was realizing that if I wanted to I could use the telephone instead of writing the poem, and so Personism was born. It’s a very exciting movement which will undoubtedly have lots of adherents. It puts the poem squarely between the poet and the person, Lucky Pierre style, and the poem is correspondingly gratified. The poem is at last between two persons instead of two pages.
That’s for the writing poems part. As for their reception, suppose you’re in love and someone’s mistreating (mal aimé) you, you don’t say, "Hey, you can’t hurt me this way, I care!" you just let all the different bodies fall where they may, and they always do ‘flay after a few months. But that’s not why you fell in love in the first place, just to hang onto life, so you have to take your chances and try to avoid being logical. Pain always produces logic, which is very bad for you.
I’m not saying that I don’t have practically the most lofty ideas of anyone writing today, but what difference does that make? they’re just ideas. The only good thing about it is that when I get lofty enough I’ve stopped thinking and that’s when refreshment arrives.
But how can you really care if anybody gets it, or gets what it means, or if it improves them. Improves them for what? for death? Why hurry them along? Too many poets act like a middle-aged mother trying to get her kids to eat too much cooked meat, and potatoes with drippings (tears). I don’t give a damn whether eat or not. Forced feeding leads to excessive thinness (effete). Nobody should experience anything they don’t need to, if they don’t need poetry bully for them, I like the movies too. And all, only Whitman and Crane and Williams, of the American are better than the movies. As for measure and other technical apparatus, that’s just common sense: if you’re going to buy a of pants you want them to be tight enough so everyone will want to go to bed with you. There’s nothing metaphysical about it. Unless of course, you flatter yourself into thinking that what You’re experiencing is "yearning."
Abstraction in poetry, which Allen recently commented on in It is, is intriguing. I think it appears mostly in the minute particu1ars where decision is necessary. Abstraction (in poetry, not in painting) involves personal removal by the poet. For instance, the decision involved in the choice between "the nostalgia of the infinite" and "the nostalgia for the infinite" defines an attitude toward degree of abstraction. The nostalgia of the infinite representing the greater degree of abstraction, removal, and negative capability (as in Keats and Mallarmé). Personism, a movement which I recently founded and which nobody yet knows about, interests me a great deal, being so totally opposed to this kind of abstract removal that it is verging on a true abstraction for the first time, really, in the history of poetry. Personism is to Wallace Stevens what la poésie pure was to Béranger. Personism has nothing to do with philosophy, it’s all art. It does not have to do with personality or intimacy, far from it! But to give you a vague idea, one of its minimal aspects is to address itself to one person (other than the poet himself), thus evoking overtones of love without destroying love’s life-giving vulgarity, and sustaining the poet’s feelings towards the poem while preventing love from distracting him into feeling about the person. That’s part of personism. It was founded by me after lunch with LeRoi Jones on August 27, 1959, a day in which I was in love with someone (not Roi, by the way, a blond). I went back to work and wrote a poem for this person. While I was writing it I was realizing that if I wanted to I could use the telephone instead of writing the poem, and so Personism was born. It’s a very exciting movement which will undoubtedly have lots of adherents. It puts the poem squarely between the poet and the person, Lucky Pierre style, and the poem is correspondingly gratified. The poem is at last between two persons instead of two pages.
[9/3/59]
