~ Robert Bly ~
“Y era el demonio de mi sueño” (And he was the evil spirit of my dreams) by Antonio Machado
| Y era el demonio de mi sueño, el ángel más hermoso. Brillaban como aceros los ojos victoriosos, y las sangrientas llamas de su antorcha alumbraron la honda cripta del alma. —¿Vendrás conmigo? —No, jamás; las tumbas —Vendrás conmigo… Y avancé en mi sueño (poema de Antonio Machado) |
And he was the evil spirit of my dreams, the most handsome of all angels. His victorious eyes shot fire like pieces of steel, and the flames that fell from his torch like blood lit up the deep dungeon of the soul. “Would you like to come with me?” “No, never! Tombs “You will come with me…” And in my dreams I walked (translated by Robert Bly) |
Eduardo Yagüe (GIFT Producciones) made this videopoem in 2014 as an homage to the great Spanish poet Antonio Machado on the 75th anniversary of his exile and death. Eduardo’s reading is exceptionally good, and slow-paced enough that even those with just a little bit of Spanish should be able to follow along. Music by Jared C. Balogh accompanies the voiceover.
I first learned this poem (number LXIII from Galerías) through Robert Bly’s translation (above) in Roots and Wings: Poetry from Spain 1900-1975. (Alan S. Trueblood also translated it for a bilingual edition of the selected poems, but not quite as effectively.)
The Wind, One Brilliant Day by Antonio Machado
Machado is one of my favorite poets, so I was excited to see this from award-winning filmmaker Chel White, and with the recitation by none other than Alec Baldwin. Here’s White’s description from the Vimeo page:
Based on a one-hundred-year-old poem by the Spanish poet Antonio Machado, “Wind” is an allegorical perspective on climate change. In recent years, a number of films have been made on the topic of global climate change, but few have addressed the issue from a poetic perspective.
“Wind” is constructed with the poem as the film’s nucleus, book-ended by montages of astonishing time-lapse sequences by photographer Mark Eifert. In the film, scenes of the earth, weather, and human interaction, both negative and positive, dominate the film’s imagery. The music consists of a lesser known piece by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, with solo piano played by Thomas Lauderdale (of Pink Martini.)
Though written in the early 20th century, the Machado poem is particularly poignant today, bearing an uncanny relevance for climate change and planet stewardship. This film was commissioned by the environmental organization Live Earth, and is narrated by Alec Baldwin. The English translation is by Robert Bly.
(Thanks to Viral Verse for the introduction to Chel White’s work.)
