Some poems writhe,
some poems suffer,
some just bump along for the fun of it.
As does love,
as does life.
After all they too
are only
poems.
De amor y vida / De amor e vida
/ Of Love and Life
OF LOVE AND LIFE was born from an idea
conceived by Fernando Bores, the
publisher and editor-in-chief of the
Sociedad de Cultura Valle-Inclán, in the
city of Ferrol, in Galicia, Spain. It
was early in 2005, and I had lived in
Spain for four years. Fernando had
wanted, for some time, to publish a
handmade book of poems and original
prints for his Solaster Collection. He
proposed that I author such a book,
bilingual in Galician and English, for
which I would make original prints in a
variety of techniques: etching, aquatint,
woodcut, linocut, and carborundum, as
illustrations for the poems. The book
would be hand-made and hand bound, in a
small and limited edition, with the
original prints, and with an original
painting for each cover.
Many of the poems were already on paper,
in very rough form; others were just the
germ of an idea, hastily scrawled on a
page; others were almost finished; all
were filed away in my “in progress”
drawers. During the next year and a half,
I wrote and made sketches for the
illustrations, going to the places
celebrated in the poems and letting
inspiration flow from them. Through this
process, not only were the poems in
progress finished, but new poems were
born, with new sketches to accompany
them. For example, returning from a walk
to the port, I stopped to visit a friend
who was sewing (and still sews) fishing
nets for her husband, and after drinking
coffee, chatting, and watching her work,
I left and continued my hike back to the
town. Halfway there, I sat on the
concrete wall of the dike that borders
the road, and wrote a description of
her, of her lilting giggle, her curly
and unruly red hair, the blur of her
hands as she wove her net; those were
the first lines written for “The Saint
John.” Even before all the poems were
finished, I began the printing process
in my studio. It was a wonderful time in
my life, creativity flowed, and at the
same time I felt that I was perhaps
giving something back to Cedeira, to
Galicia, where I was receiving so much.
The book took its form easily: three
chapters, the first devoted to poems
about Cedeira, my new home; the second
addressing the enigmas that swam, and
still swim, around inside my head; and
the third, poems I had written in Texas,
my native land. Fernando introduced me
to the extraordinarily gifted poet
Vicente Araguas, who agreed to translate
the poems into Gallego. And during our
work together on these poems, great
friendships with Fernando and with
Vicente came into being and grew, and
today still light my life.
The majority of the work is
autobiographic. I mention that here
because it is the question I am most
frequently asked. The places and events
in “Galicia Beloved”- Castro Field, the
guard house, the park where I picked up
the fallen leaf, the beach where I
returned the starfish to the sea, the
port, the sea, the St. John - all exist,
they are all real, as are the stories
told in “Enigmas” and “… and Three from
Texas.” It all really happened, there is
no fiction.
Finishing poems and writing new ones, as
well as making the prints, unfolded over
a period of almost two years. Finally,
the poems and prints were ready. The
texts were laser-printed with
magnificent craftsmanship, page by page,
in the local print shop by Quique
Vázquez. Local artist and craftsman
Andrés Urrutia taught me bookbinding. I
painted a little image for each book
cover, sometimes figurative, sometimes
based on symbols found in the
prehistoric petroglyphs which abound
here in Galicia. And in December of
2006, the book was ready, a handmade,
hand bound edition of 20 with two artist
proofs, of 21 poems and 21 prints.
Since that time, Fernando and I had
talked about someday producing a more
accessible offset edition of the book,
also to include the poems in Spanish as
well as the Galician and English of the
original edition. Although the town
council acquired a book for our library,
generosity for which I am deeply
grateful, I particularly wanted the
poems and prints to be privately
accessible to the people of Cedeira and
Galicia, where so many of the poems are
set, to take home, to rumple and write
on the pages if they wanted to, perhaps
to give to a son or daughter or spouse,
or neighbor, or friend. Now they are
available and accessible to these
wonderful people, and that is a dream
come true for me.
My heartfelt gratitude to Fernando Bores
and Vicente Araguas, for all the effort
and talent and support they put into the
original edition and into this offset
edition. And my deep gratitude goes to
Antonio Loureiro, my husband, Galician
through and through, with the soul of a
poet, and to Chema Sanz, friend, poet,
and retired professor. They read my
manuscript, and without their
corrections, suggestions, friendship,
and moral support these poems would not
exist in the Spanish language.
Jane Danko
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