CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY FIRE&LOVE By Stephen Wallin BETWEEN FIRE AND LOVE Contemporary Peruvian Writing Lynn A. Darroch, Editor $5, Mississippi Mud “The human spirit that rises above deprivation to affirm the joy and love o f which humanity is also capable is made stronger, sharper, and given a more compelling edge by the adversity it must overcome. ” —Lynn A. Darroch It was the French who started the cerebral nonsense that became surrealism but it took Spanish-speaking poets (Lorca, Neruda, Vallejo) to transform it from the realm of the intellect into the realm of the heart. For them the soul was inseparable from flesh and earth. It was the common experience of common people that concerned them. As long as their race suffered they sang of suffering, of suffering and love — a difficult but absolute combination. What struck me most when I first read Between Fire And Love was the lack of surrealistic style that has become a modern tradition in the Spanish language. Although a thin shadow lingers, it is not pervasive. What has remained and, to me, seems more important, is these young Peruvians’ ability to speak from the bone, from the dust of experience. Unlike North American writers who, from Whitman forward, have opted thematically for the individual as myth, hoping to universalize their personal experiences to touch all humanity, these writers speak not simply for the individual, but directly for their people — both metaphysically and politically. In section five of this book, with romantic love as the theme, a poem by Mario Montalbetti ends: my wife loves of course an industrialist before her father and even before her mother and of course before me. The poem is unassuming, a love poem of sorts, but with the poet’s reference to industrialist, the poem takes on a political flavor. Most of us are aware of the political instability and poverty foreign industrialists have created for South Americans. Montalbetti is aware and his response is one of humor and quiet anger. They are attitudes found throughout Between Fire And Love. It would be wrong to suggest that no North American writers address themselves to the rights of their people. Black writers have. An example is the important but neglected poet, Sterling A. Brown. His Southern Road is a classic. Brown’s tradition, however, is highly different. His poems are narratives, myths about individuals who exemplify their race. His anger and outrage are channeled through his wry sense of humor. He develops an atmosphere quite unlike the Peruvian poet Cesar Vallejo, whose poems create a meditative sense of despair. What Brown has in common with the young Peruvians in Darroch’s book — and with other writers I like — is the ability to throw both joy and sorrow onto the same sheet of paper and develop the tension between them. In such situations, we get a clearer glimpse of what it means to be human. October, a short story by Galvez Ronceros, is perhaps the best piece in the book. It alone would make the book worth buying. A black man who has become drunk is urinating in a city street. He’s come from the country to watch the procession of Christ Crucified. He’s caught by a local cop, refuses to put his penis back in his pants and, of course, draws a crowd. It’s a funny story. But it’s also a story that carries a lot of weight for its few pages. By the act of urinating in the street, the man is made to seem naive yet politically aware. His act is, consciously or not, an act of defiance. The story brings much to mind: the absurdity of too much authority, the differences between town and country, and most importantly, the ambiguous feelings South Americans have toward the Christian religion. The man’s peeing in the street during the procession of Christ Crucified both desecrates the Christian religion and pays homage to Christ. Christ, after all, was a simple man like the protagonist. He would have understood such a natural act and, I assume, performed it himself. One thing Ronceros tells us in this story is that what makes us human makes us holy. There are other stories in Between Fire And Love that promote the same kind of reflections on the part of the reader. Mogollon, a well-written piece by Augusto Higa, is about an amateur soccer team. It’s a story that covers many emotions — greed, loyalty, passion, apathy, desire. Somewhere in it Higa says it was “ a team with heart, tenacity and love” — elements important not only for the survival of a soccer team, but for the survival of humanity. Only two stories fall short in this book. One portrays a poverty- stricken mother and child decaying in the city, and the other deals with the cruelty and indifference shown by the rich for their servants. Both stories are overly sentimental. Like reading a newspaper, I felt sorry for the people who suffered the tragedies, but I walked away unchanged. I was not taken below the surface in these stories. I was given no real understanding of the characters involved. There are injustices, certainly, grave injustices, but in these two stories, the reader is given no gut understanding of what that means, what effect that has on us as human beings. I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys good literature, poetry and prose and wants an idea of what other writers in other worlds are writing. Between Fire And Love was put together by local people who deserve our support. Not only because they live among us but because of the high degree of talent they brought to the project. Thank Darroch first; his abilities as an editor are considerable. He calls the book a sampler, which it is — a truer term in this case than anthology. The manuscript is broken down into seven tightly organized sections covering a variety of themes and held together, as the title suggests, by fire and love. Published by Joel Weinstein’s Mississippi Mud, printed by John Laursen at Press-22, and typeset by Christopher Howell of Lynx House Press, the book was beautifully designed by Susan Gustavson and John Laursen. ADULT, KIDS AND SHORT FOLKS SIZES 242-1188 2ND TIME AROUND JEANS AND CLOTHES HOURS 1100^500 Tuesday -thru Sa+urda / oFF with ad 415 NW 21 ST BETWEEN FLANDERS i GLISAN 34
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