Before the Millennium I studied Spanish for a good five years before I was able speak it. But speak it I do, lapsing into my cousin-tongue when giving birth to Quentin, and slipping into it again as I was dealing with Sarah's death. Under such conditions, one is surprised to get six words out in any language. But then again, I am not known for my taciturnity.
In any case, I thought five years was too damn long. Now that I've pursued French and Greek for the last 3 decades and am still clobbering both languages, I guess five years wasn't that bad.
Initially I wasn't interested in speaking Spanish so much as reading it - particularly the Hispanic and Latin American poets who were wiping the floors with North American modernism. So for the first couple of years my tutorials consisted of memorizing long swathes of novels and poems, most of which are lost to me this year (hypothalamic shrinkage - part of the grieving dealio), but I can recall some of their rhythms...
"Sobre los arcos de la noche
Sus luces llegandos y despidiendos
Sus altiplanos de estrellas verdes..."
The public library in Austin used to have a fabulous section of Spanish-language poets reading their own work - the sounds embedded in huge, black platters of polyvinyl chloride. I would check out a dozen at a time, put one on a record player next to my bed, set it for 'repeat' and drift away to Los Alturas de Macchu Picchu, or Platero y Yo or Fragmentos a Su Iman. The next day a few lines would bubble up, but I remained mostly oblivious to their meaning. No matter. Meaning would come later; for now, a map of the language was being drawn inside my dreams.
Here in Greece, as I struggle with the charitable brain damage that comes with mourning, my handful
of daily demotic seems to scatter 20 minutes after I've gathered it in. But it occurred to me today that I haven't put into play my earlier technique: Read the poem, hear it; write it out and in; sleep with, wake to and ensoul the poem.
The language will follow the music.
"The Little Orange Tree" by Odysseus Elytis (Nobel Laureate, 1979)
In any case, I thought five years was too damn long. Now that I've pursued French and Greek for the last 3 decades and am still clobbering both languages, I guess five years wasn't that bad.
Initially I wasn't interested in speaking Spanish so much as reading it - particularly the Hispanic and Latin American poets who were wiping the floors with North American modernism. So for the first couple of years my tutorials consisted of memorizing long swathes of novels and poems, most of which are lost to me this year (hypothalamic shrinkage - part of the grieving dealio), but I can recall some of their rhythms...
"Sobre los arcos de la noche
Sus luces llegandos y despidiendos
Sus altiplanos de estrellas verdes..."
The public library in Austin used to have a fabulous section of Spanish-language poets reading their own work - the sounds embedded in huge, black platters of polyvinyl chloride. I would check out a dozen at a time, put one on a record player next to my bed, set it for 'repeat' and drift away to Los Alturas de Macchu Picchu, or Platero y Yo or Fragmentos a Su Iman. The next day a few lines would bubble up, but I remained mostly oblivious to their meaning. No matter. Meaning would come later; for now, a map of the language was being drawn inside my dreams.
Here in Greece, as I struggle with the charitable brain damage that comes with mourning, my handful
of daily demotic seems to scatter 20 minutes after I've gathered it in. But it occurred to me today that I haven't put into play my earlier technique: Read the poem, hear it; write it out and in; sleep with, wake to and ensoul the poem.
The language will follow the music.
"The Little Orange Tree" by Odysseus Elytis (Nobel Laureate, 1979)
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