“In That Luminous Darkness”: The Poetry of Vicente Pascual Rodrigo
2015; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 15; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/scs.2015.0020
ISSN1535-3117
Autores Tópico(s)Literary and Philosophical Studies
Resumo“In That Luminous Darkness”:The Poetry of Vicente Pascual Rodrigo William Wroth (bio) And these stones.How much love did they already waste?In wanting to be pebbles.1 There are a few poets who don’t wear the mask. They present little or no outer persona to the world, their urgency and honesty is too great for such pretenses. One is reminded in their work of the words of the Japanese poet Ryōkan (c. 1758–1831): “If you don’t write of things deep inside your own heart/ What’s the use of churning out so many words?”2 One is also reminded of death poems of Zen monks, poignant last words when none of the rest of it matters. The work of such a rare poet as Vicente Pascual Rodrigo mirrors these deep concerns. It deals not only with death but encompasses a universe of being and becoming in which we all live and die and love, as the title of the book that includes the poem above suggests: a la Vida, a la Muerte y a mi Bienamada (“To Life, to Death and to my Beloved”). In this essay I want to introduce the reader to the work of a Spanish poet who, although highly regarded in his native land, is little known in the English-speaking world. At a time when much poetry is self-concerned, topical, or mundane—or worse, lacks meaning or means of access, Vicente Pascual Rodrigo’s work is refreshing in its contrast to more superficial verse and refreshing in the sense of revitalizing—a refreshment to the spirit and the soul. In Pascual’s work one may find a teaching which contemplates the most elemental questions of life, love, and death—yet it is neither didactic nor sectarian. His verse does not give final answers to these questions—for who can presume to do so?—but vividly presents them to the reader. Through his evocative and musical language he communicates these timeless human issues which concern all of us regardless of language or culture. Vicente Pascual Rodrigo was both poet and painter. He was born in 1955 in Zaragoza, Spain. He studied at the Escuela de Artes of Zaragoza and at the Escuela de Bellas Artes of Barcelona and held his first solo painting exhibition in 1971. From 1970 to 1988, he worked with his brother Ángel Pascual Rodrigo in the two-man collective, La Hermandad Pictórica. After travels to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India in 1974 and 1975, Pascual established his [End Page 61] own studio in Campanet, Mallorca. In 1992, he moved to the United States and lived there until 2003 when he moved back to Spain. He died in Zaragoza in 2008. Click for larger view View full resolution Through the Nothing Glass. Courtesy of Joël Dézafit His work is held in many public and private collections in Spain and the United States.3 In 2009 a major retrospective exhibition of his paintings was mounted in Zaragoza, accompanied by a catalogue raisonné of 240 pages.4 This catalogue includes, in addition to scholarly essays on his work, a selection of 45 of his poems. In 2006 his book of poems and paintings, Las 100 vistas del Monte Interior: En Recuerdo de los Antiguos Locos, was published by the Government of Aragón, in collaboration with Olifante Ediciones de Poesía. It was followed in 2007 by a la Vida, a la Muerte y a mi Bienamada: Cancioncillas y cancionejas (Papeles de Trasmoz, Olifante Ediciones de Poesía). A third book, De la Nada Nada Viene, was published in 2010 (Colección Veruela Poesía de Olifante). [End Page 62] His book a la Vida, a la Muerte y mi Bienamada has a prologue by the renowned Spanish poet José Corredor-Matheos (winner of the Premio Nacional de Literatura in 2005), and was edited by another leading Spanish poet, Ángel Guinda. Concerning Pascual, Guinda suggests that “Vicente Pascual, in addition to being an ineffable painter, has always been a worthy and exemplary secret poet. His paintings enclose an atmosphere of profound and transcendent lyricism. The secret of his poetry was only revealed when his precarious physical...
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