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Contents
editorial
NEVILLE DUBE
“What shall we do with the tools?”
PALESA MOTSUMI & TARIRO MUDZAMIRI
The Impact of Covid-19 on the Arts in South Africa
Theme Africa Synthesized
CARINA VENTER & STEPHANIE VOS
Africa Synthesized: Editorial Note
GEORGE E. LEWIS
Recharging Unyazi 2005
MICHAEL KHOURY
A Look at Lightning – The Life and Compositions of Halim el-Dabh
KAMILA METWALY
A Sonic letter to Halim El-Dabh
SHANE COOPER
Tape Collage
ADAM HARPER
Shane Cooper’s Tape Collage – a living archive
HANS ROOSENSCHOON
Tape loops: Cataclysm (1980)
STEPHANUS MULLER
Hans Roosenschoon's Cataclysm: message in a bubble or mere spectacular flotsam?
SAZI DLAMINI
Composing with Jurgen Brauninger: 1989-2019
LIZABÉ LAMBRECHTS
The Woodstock Sound System and South African sound reinforcement
CATHY LANE
Synthesizer and portastudio: their roles in the Tigrayan People’s Liberation struggle - an audio essay.
MICHAEL BHATCH
Africa Synthesized: A Sonic Essay
NEO MUYANGA
Afrotechnolomagic before the internet came to town – How electrons made Africans in music zing
NIKLAS ZIMMER
Interspeller (some B-sides)
WARRICK SWINNEY
House on Fire: Sankomota and the art of abstraction
MAËL PÉNEAU
Beatmaking in Dakar: The Shaping of a West-African Hip-hop Sound
ARAGORN ELOFF
Materials of Relation: A Sonic Pedagogy of Non-Mastery
BRIAN BAMANYA
Afrorack
ZARA JULIUS
(Whose) Vinyl in (Which) Africa? A Zoom Fiasco
galleri
SLOVO MAMPHAGA
Mandela is Dead
&and
Undercommons
HUGH MDLALOSE
Jazz Speaking
IBUKUN SUNDAY
A Peaceful City
NIKKI SHETH
Mmabolela
PIERRE-HENRI WICOMB
A Composition Machine
SONO-CHOREOGRAPHIC COLLECTIVE
Playing Grounds: a polymodal essay
STELARC & MAURIZIO LAZZARATO
Parasite: A Government of Signs
JURGEN MEEKEL
The Bauhaus Loops
borborygmus
KING SV & MARCO LONGARI
The Black Condition
SIPHELELE MAMBA
Enough is enough
SEGOMOTSO PALESA MOTSUMI
Explaining racism
KHANYISILE MBONGWA
Mombathiseni UnoDolly Wam
PHIWOKAZI QOZA
Choreographies of Protest Performance: 1. The Transgression of Space
TSEPO WA MAMATU
The Colonising Laughter in Leon Schuster’s Mr. Bones and Sweet ’n Short
ANA DEUMERT
On racism and how to read Hannah Arendt
TALLA NIANG
Sembène Ousmane
MAVAMBO CHAZUNGUZA
Sacred Sonic Cosmos
GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN
The Saharan WhatsApp Series - an Experiment in Immediacy
BEN EYES
Cross-cultural collaboration in African Electronica
STEVEN CRAIG HICKMAN
The Listening of Horror
MICHAEL C COLDWELL
The Noise made by Ghosts
GABRIEL GERMAINE DE LARCH
I will not be erased
frictions
JESÚS SEPÚLVEDA
Viaje a Tánatos
KATYA GANESHI
From Beyond the World of Dead Sirens
RIAAN OPPELT
(Ultra) Lockdown
SINDISWA BUSUKU
Let’s Talk Kaffir
JOHAN VAN WYK
Man Bitch
MAAKOMELE R. MANAKA
Four Indigenous Poems
claque
KOLEKA PUTUMA
Language & Storytelling: On Zöe Modiga’s Inganekwane
LINDELWA DALAMBA
After the Aftermath: Recovery?
ATHI MONGEZELELI JOJA
Uninterrogated Phallophilia
HILDE ROOS
Sicula iOpera – a raised fist?
PAUL ZISIWE
19 Feedbacks
TSELISO MONAHENG
How to build a Scene
WAMUWI MBAO
Struggle Sounds
MKHULU MAPHIKISA
Short but not sweet: Skeptical Erections and the Black Condition
MBALI KGAME
Tales from The UnderWorld
ekaya
STEPHANIE VOS
The Exhibition of Vandalizim – Improvising Healing, Politics and Film in South Africa
MARIETJIE PAUW, GARTH ERASMUS & FRANCOIS BLOM
Improvising Khoi’npsalms
off the record
KHADIJA TRACEY HEEGER
Lewis Nkosi – treasured memory
LEWIS NKOSI
Jazz in Exile
EUGENE SKEEF
Chant of Divination for Steve Biko
BRENDA SISANE
How I fell in love with music
SAM MATHE
Skylarks
THOKOZANI MHLAMBI
Early Sound Recordings in Africa: Challenges for Future Scholarship
MARIO PISSARRA
Everywhere but nowhere: reflections on DV8 magazine
DEREK DAVEY
Live Jimi Presley 1990-1995
HERMAN LATEGAN
Pentimento
ARGITEKBEKKE
AFRIKAAPS compIete script deel 3
feedback
PHILLIPPA YAA DE VILLIERS
An urgency to action
PABLO VAN WETTEN
Sort of a ramble
the selektah
PONE MASHIANGWAKO
Artists' Prayer - A Tribute to Motlhabane Mashiangwako
hotlynx
shopping
SHOPPING
Purchase or listen
contributors
the back page
MICHAEL TAUSSIG
Unpacking My Library: An Experiment in the Technique of Awakening
© 2024
Archive About Contact Africa Open Institute
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    #04
  • frictions
  • Spanish
  • English

JESÚS SEPÚLVEDA

Viaje a Tánatos

Journey to Thanatos

These are unpublished poems from the last section (“Journey to Thanatos”) of my new poetry collection Mirror of Details [Espejo de los detalles]. This book is scheduled to be published in the USA by El Sur es América in a bilingual edition illustrated by Ivo Vergara, and in Chile by Calabaza del diablo in a Spanish edition sometime in 2020. They are short poems, except for “Route,” the longest one, whose first version in Spanish appeared in Fabricio Estrada’s blog, Bitácora del párvulo. The translation was made by Elmira Louie, a graduate student of Comparative Literature at UC Davis. “Viaje a Tánatos” is a journey to the region of death. Inhabited by spirits, this region becomes available to the spiritual seeker through a brew made out of a visionary vine that grows in the Amazon basin. Known as “ayahuasca” or “yagé,” this sacred beverage is a medicine that in the tradition of Santo Daime is considered a sacrament. Daimistas walk through the path of truth and consciousness to clean their heart and find healing. Sometimes healing is only possible through purgation. Then the body expels the mariri — the magical phlegm where the spirit of nature lives. Through this cleansing, the divine water connects the human spirit to the sachamama — the spirit mother of the jungle, which raises the vibration of thoughts and talks through songs, hymns and poems.  

DANZA MACABRA

Cuando se danza con los muertos
suena la marimba
el cascabel que le habla al fuego
la liana que entra al cuerpo
y alumbra la serpiente

DANSE MACABRE

When you dance with the dead
the marimba sounds
like a rattle speaking to the fire
the vine that enters the body
and lights the snake

MARIRI

O la manera en que un líquido
susurra a la altura de su columna
Steven White

La abuela canta en el poso
Sedimento que respira en el fondo del recipiente

En un rincón de la noche
anidan ciervos y mapaches

El presente es una elipsis
Luz de focos en la espesura del matorral

Flema donde corren ríos torrentosos
La medicina comienza a hablar

MARIRI

Or the way a liquid 
whispers at the height of its column
Steven White

Grandma sings in the sludge
Sediment that breathes at the bottom of the container

In a corner of night
nest the deer and raccoons

The present is an ellipsis
Spotlight on the dense thicket

Phlegm where torrential rivers run
The medicine starts to talk

SACHAMAMA

El murciélago devora la luz
Sirenas ocultas en enjambre de zumbidos

Eco monocorde en noche de serpientes
Mosquitero que ametralla la tormenta

Un cruce de ríos se forma en el cuerpo
El capullo se apaga

Ha purgado y vaciado su memoria
Ha abierto el pasado y divisado el futuro

Es inmune
La selva lo ha embrujado

SACHAMAMA

The bat devours the light
Sirens hidden in a swarm of buzzing

Repetitive echoes during the night of serpents
Storm that bombards the mosquito net

A confluence of rivers develops within the body
The cocoon fades

Your memory has been purged and emptied
The past has been disclosed and the future discerned

You’re immune
Bewitched by the jungle

JESÚS SEPÚLVEDA 8

LA SELVA

No vayas por esos sitios
en busca de lo que no se te ha perdido
Juan Carlos Galeano

El Amazonas es un lugar para morir
La luz se apaga / se enciende el cuerpo

Haber sido la selva
Haber regresado

Sin marcas de tigre ni besos de serpiente
Sin picaduras ni dengue ni zika

Desnudo en la oscuridad
Un pequeño cambio altera las cosas

El río se bifurca
Evitar el sendero que conduce al pantano

THE JUNGLE

Don’t go searching
for what you haven’t lost
Juan Carlos Galeano

The Amazon is a place to die
The light fades / the body ignites

To have been the jungle
To have returned

Without tiger scars or snake kisses
No bug bites or dengue or zika

Naked in darkness
One small change alters everything

The river splits
Avoid the trail leading to the marsh

ANACONDA

En el fondo espera a su presa
Boa indigesta
Ha dormido y comido
Tiene piernas
Su objetivo es enseñar a soñar

ANACONDA

Awaiting its prey in the deep
Indigestible boa
Has slept and eaten
Has legs
And a goal to teach to dream

PURGA

Por la boca
caen traumas y pecados
El cuerpo muda de piel
Se derrumba el edificio del ego
Es un espectáculo
la fiesta de la muerte

PURGE

Through the mouth
trickle traumas and sins
The body sheds its skin
Tears down the temple of the ego
It’s a spectacle
the feast of death

JESÚS SEPÚLVEDA 3

AVESTRUZ

La verdad cruje
bajo el tambo de la selva
Antonio Escrivania

Entonces me doy vuelta y
vomito
Veo caer la carne de los perros
La historia atiborrada de rosas marchitas
que los buitres robaron del valle
Veo montañas silenciosas y tensas
El bochorno
La luz de las velas
Sepelio sin rumbo
Vomito el rostro abultado de la violencia
La ignominia el resentimiento el descaro
Las armas de guerra
El horror
El monstruo que viola a su hija
y la madre que esconde su cuello

OSTRICH

The truth rattles
Under the tambo of the jungle
Antonio Escrivania

Then I turn around and
vomit
I see the flesh fall off the hounds
History is filled with wilted flowers
stolen from the valley by vultures
I see silent and tense mountains
Muggy weather
Candlelight
Aimless burial
I vomit the hefty face of violence
The disgrace the resentment the audacity
War weapons
Horror
The monster that rapes his daughter
and the mother who buries her head in the sand

JESÚS SEPÚLVEDA 5

NARCISO

Los ojos de la selva
son mariposas que sueñan el presente
y comparten su transparencia con el aliento de las cosas
que empañan el espejo donde un hombre mira su delirio

El aliento del ahora
se posa en los ojos de la selva
que contemplan el vuelo de las mariposas
y ahondan el sueño de un hombre que mira su delirio

La selva se humedece
en el sueño de las mariposas
que contemplan las puertas del presente
y pulsan los ojos de un hombre que mira su delirio

NARCISSUS

The eyes of the jungle
are butterflies that dream the present
and portion their transparency with the breath of things
that fog up the mirror where a man gazes upon his delusion

The breath of the present
rests on the eyes of the jungle
that muse over the flight of the butterflies
and deepen the dream of the man who gazes upon his delusion

The jungle humidifies
in the dream of the butterflies
that muse over the portal of the present
and press down on the eyes of the man who gazes upon his delusion

IQUITOS

La idea de la muerte es más fuerte que la muerte misma
Fantasma que vuelve por amor

Recuerda la sonajera del derrumbe
El miedo convertido en gozo

La selva es un lugar para morir
Después de la muerte solo queda la vida

IQUITOS

The idea of death is stronger than death itself
Ghost returning for love

Remember the rattle of the ruins
Fear turns to joy

The jungle is a place to die
After death only life remains

JESÚS SEPÚLVEDA 9

RUTA

Medellín, 2017

Entro en aquella senda
con cortes en el rostro

La música suena
aunque apagados estén los parlantes

Espíritus monótonos
monopolizan el paisaje

Padre, madre, hermanos
¿dónde dejaron su sombra?

Vuelta de senda
con más chicotazos en el cuerpo

Madre mía
¿cómo se deshizo el mundo?

La flautista traversa
hace un solo en el triángulo de la noche

Entro en el ritmo
Las palabras destilan un nombre fugaz

Sangre de sangres y sangres
La selva tiene huellas circulares

¿Cómo le darás la mano?
¿O un beso?

No es sino con el corazón
que el cuerpo cavila

Y oye con los oídos
que cuelgan de la techumbre del cerebro

La senda es larga como una carreta
pero caminando se anda

Coagulemos todos con fuerza
¡Vamos, dale, puja!

Por cada parto caen lágrimas
que se transforman en hongos al borde del camino

¿Cómo hacerse gigante o pequeño
sin ser mísero ni mezquino?

El sendero tiene ojos
y las paredes orificios donde entran las estrellas

Vestido rojo en penumbra de balcón
De lo obvio ni hablar

¿Cuántos trajes yo no diera?
¿cuántos mandamases y estafetas?

Dolor de la montaña y colmenas humanas
No hay imaginación

El río se seca
y los árboles raquíticos se pronuncian con angustia

Soplan los abuelos el recuerdo

que se esfuma con el viento del sur

“Lo esencial es invisible al estado”
Caos orgánico

Yo pensaba que los ciegos no miran
Habitantes del misterio

Estar satisfecho es estar muerto
Ríos de palabras y hormigas de cartulina

Los cortes en el rostro desaparecen
Pintura ritual

Bajo la suela se alisa la senda
Caminando se anda

ROUTE

Medellín, 2017

I begin that path
with cuts on the face

Music plays
although the speakers are off

Monotonous spirits
monopolize the countryside

Father, mother, siblings
where have you left your shadow?

The path contorts
as the body endures lashes

Holy shit
how did the world come undone?

The well-versed flutist
performs a solo in the triangle of night

I get in rhythm
the words distill into a fleeting name

Blood of bloods and bloods
the jungle has circular footprints

How would you offer a hand?
Or a kiss?

Is it not with the heart
that the body ponders

And listens with the ears
that hang from the dome of the brain

The path is long like a caravan
but by walking we proceed

Let us unite and gain strength
¡Vamos, dale, puja!

For each birth fall tears
that turn into fungi on the edge of the road

How can you become big or small
without being pitiful or petty?

The trail has eyes
and walls where stars enter through the holes

Red dress in the balcony’s twilight
Don’t state the obvious

How many suits would I not give?
how many barons and couriers?

Mountain pains and human hives
There’s no imagination

The river dries up
and the stunted trees scream in anguish

Elders blow the memory
that fades away with the southern wind

“The essential is invisible to the state”
Organic chaos

I thought the blind couldn’t see
Residents of mystery

To be satisfied is to be dead
Rivers of words and ants of cardboard

The cuts on the face disappear
Ritual painting

The path smooths beneath the sole
By walking we proceed

JESÚS SEPÚLVEDA

Dear Jesús,

I am curious about one thing – why have you chosen not to translate your poems yourself?

As I read you (your mails) it strikes me that your command of English would easily enable that decision.

Do you find something precisely valuable in having the work translated by (presumably) an English native speaker?

Or is it the poetic register that you do not feel comfortable enough with in English, as opposed to prose that is, possibly, “easier” to translate?

Respectfully,
Aryan

Dear Aryan,

English is my second language, French my third one, Portuguese my fourth, and then I can navigate the world through Italian and a little bit of German. I regret not knowing Mapudungun or Arabic. Lately, I have been trying to teach myself Mandarin. The world of Dao is beautiful to me, especially after 14 years of practicing Taiji. So, languages…mmm….I love them and respect them. I’m currently writing a poetry collection in English. It took me a while to channel poems in English, but voilà! There they come.

I have certainly translated myself but I have the impression my translations are sometimes too literal. If I let myself freely translate my own poems, I normally end up writing a different poem, or a version of a poem. Period. A translator is perhaps more objective than me. I have also worked closely with some of my translators, which has been a sweet experience and possibly a preferable way to go.

When Elmira read my manuscript in Spanish, she asked me if she could translate it. I accepted right away, especially after I realized she was writing about Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad, whom I quote at the beginning of the collection. That was a sort of serendipity. After our first meetings, I handed her the few poems I had already translated myself and she polished them and then translated the rest of the book. She worked hard and did a great job.

Also, for me writing poetry has a different taste than essay or prose writing. When I wrote Poets on the Edge (2016) I also translated poems by César Vallejo, Vicente Huidobro, Juan Luis Martínez and Néstor Perlongher. There I have no problems translating poems by other authors. But I truly believe my poetry is channeled and not written in the traditional way — or the way writing poetry is generally conceived. Here I interconnect certain Romanticism (perhaps) regarding the inspired poem vis-a-vis Shamanism, the voice that channels the spirits.

So, my decision to let others translate my work has nothing to do with my command of English but with certain mental disciplines or, perhaps, indisicipline as an idiosyncratic way of being that I’ve been following since I was a teenager. Having said that, maybe it’s time for me to start translating myself to see what happens–perhaps versions of the originals. Why not? Free translations are also fun to read.

Wishing you much love, health, happiness, and freedom!
Jesús

PS. I’m also copying a video of a reading I did of my poem “Insurrection.” I wrote this poem-manifesto two days after the uprising in Chile (I’m also copying a link to an article I wrote for the magazine Fifth Estate about the situation in Chile before the pandemic). I hope you enjoy them. Cheers!

“They gave their eyes”

Doll by Françoise Duvivier
Illustrations by Abraxas

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