Journal articles on the topic 'Bolivian Poets'


 Un signo de interrogación. Un signo que guarda un enigma a su vez escondido entre montañas. Así suele verse a la poesíaboliviana desde fuera. Y aun esto es un decir, pues casi no se la ve. O no se la ve en absoluto, pese a que Bolivia tiene una rica,fecunda –y sobre todo vital- tradición poética. Y pese a que las montañas andinas son solo la porción occidental de un vastoterritorio de valles y selvas, que baja hacia el naciente con los ríos (y el idioma) abiertos. La nuestra es una poesía atípica, la insularidad de la poética boliviana ha cuajado no pocas veces en una valiosa originalidad y en una gran potencia creativa. A lolargo de esta conferencia se presentará a los poetas bolivianos del siglo XXI.


 Propone una visión de la cultura oriental de Bolivia como una cultura amazónica y la contextualiza como parte de unavisión panamazónica. Define el concepto de lo que es ser amazónico, refiriéndose a su múltiple identidad, y aboga que la categoría de literatura y cultura amazónica boliviana sea igualmente reconocida como lo es la cultura andina. Aboga por la inclusión de la literatura oral indígena como parte de la literatura amazónica. Analiza el poema de Raúl Otero Reiche, El bosque, como paradigmático de las estrategias al tratar el tema amazónico, entre otros poetas. Confronta la realidad de una memoria fragmentaria y parcial de la historia de la tierra amazónica boliviana.

Este artículo propone un análisis comparativo del vídeopoema Ella es frontera/Border She Is (1995-2001) de la poeta mexicana Pilar Rodríguez Aranda, y del poema “Instan” (2002) escrito e interpretado en una performance por la artista chilena Cecilia Vicuña. Estas dos obras experimentales usan el multilingüismo para explorar la situación fronteriza de las identidades mestizas en el continente americano. Con base en las teorías de la socióloga boliviana Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui y de la filósofa chicana Gloria Anzaldúa, se realiza un estudio detallado de la hibridez lingüística adoptada por las dos poetas, con el fin de demostrar que sus obras se pueden leer en adecuación con las líneas directrices del feminismo decolonial.

Prólogo
 Corría el año 1965; mi familia compuesta por mi señora y dos hijos Ivonne y Guillermo. Los niños iban a sus colegios; mi señora se había conectado, hacía pocos años, con poetas reconocidos, y yo era conocido como psiquiatra y psicoanalista, preocupado por la salud mental; escribía cortos artículos en la página editorial de El Tiempo. Entre nuestro círculo social de amigos, existía un famoso cirujano, culto, escritor de relatos, poesía y ciencia; los dos compartíamos la franja de la medicina, cada uno en su especialidad; sin embargo, para él, yo debía tener respuestas a incógnitas de los principios de causalidad provenientes de la mente. Un sábado fuimos invitados a la casa de un poeta amigo con distintas personas, entre ellos: Alfonso Bonilla médico y su señora Fanny Gómez que era ama de casa; Luis Carlos López, abogado de las Altas Cortes y su señora Matilde Ospina, poeta de gran renombre. Igualmente estaba Jaime Paredes también poeta y quien era escritor columnista de El Tiempo y había sido Embajador en Bolivia en los años 1946; es decir, hacía 28 años; allí nos habíamos conocido y él había sido muy cortés y amable en mi corta permanencia en La Paz; también estaba su señora, mi esposa, en ese entonces, era María Luisa Barea, española y también poeta. En ese entonces yo iba a cumplir 38 años; y, era como ahora lo sigo siendo, un enamorado de la vida. Ese día, después del almuerzo salimos a un patio; y, Alfonso pidió que le dejaran leer un verso sobre “la muerte de un árbol”; y, así se hizo. Cada poeta leyó sus versos; los de Matilde, María Luisa, Alfonso y Jaime (ver Cap. VII de esta obra). 
 

El presente estudio analiza la literatura indígena contemporánea en general, y la poesía en particular, a la luz de la producción de dos poetas aymaras: Clemente Mamani y Mauro Alwa. Su producción se manifiesta a fines del siglo XX y lo que corre del XXI, con la nota común de que ambos traducen su obra al castellano. Son escritores provenientes de comunidades indígenas, con residencia en las ciudades del país tienen un capital simbólico acumulado en sus actividades académicas, profesionales y en otras artes. Su producción se expone en el mercado global por lo que acuden a la estrategia de autotraducción. Su voz poética expresa su doble pertenencia cultural; pero se dice desde un espacio mezclado, misturado, que toma como materia prima los desórdenes que produce el colonialismo en su lengua madre, pero especialmente en el español.

Este artículo presenta los encuentros con Elvira Espejo Ayca, aymara, sabedora, artista plástica, cantadora, narradora, cuentista, poeta, ensayista, textilera, investigadora y directora del Museo Nacional de Etnografía y el Folclore de la Paz (Bolivia). Indaga sobre su propuesta decolonial en torno a las mujeres en la ciencia, a partir de los conocimientos y técnicas del textil andino que realizan las mujeres. Resalta la importancia que la artista da al trabajo colectivo y a las luchas milenarias de sus antepasados, en defensa de su territorio, como alternativa a las políticas globales.


 La presente es una crónica/entrevista al poeta brasileño Amadeu Thiago de Mello, a propósito de la realización de la Jornada Amazónica y la entrega de Distinción Honorífica al Mérito Literario a Nicomedes Suárez Araúz, que se desarrolló el 30 de abril de 2014 en la UPSA. En la misma se destaca el rol de la literatura brasileña como una literatura de los márgenes, razón que le permite la posibilidad del desarrollo de expresiones locales como lo amazónico. Se habla también de la función moral y social de la poesía, así como su vinculación con un discurso centrado en la búsqueda de un sistema universal de justicia que denuncie las miserias de la humanidad, dentro de una cultura en la que prima el desarrollo tecnológico y el consumismo. Al mismo tiempo, se narran algunas anécdotas del escritor respecto a su historia personal y su quehacer literario, con énfasis en su trabajo por los derechos humanos, la preservación de la región amazónica y la amistad con el poeta boliviano Nicomedes Suárez Araúz.

El siguiente texto explora la vinculación entre el discurso de Julieta Paredes -feminista indígena aymara, y una de las fundadoras del Colectivo Mujeres Creando Comunidad en Bolivia-, con algunas de las poetas mapuche, quienes sitúan el ‘cuerpo’ como topos de resistencia activa a la normatividad social, proponiendo no solo rupturas al canon tradicional, sino también realizando una crítica a la cultura patriarcal indígena y un cuestionamiento activo al feminismo occidental. Estos discursos van tensionando esa suerte de ‘deber ser’ que se transfiere a las mujeres de estos pueblos al representar una cultura en estado prístino, como expresión de aquello que se denomina tradición y que ha sido mantenido por la “colonialidad”.

“De tu misma especie”, cuento perteneciente al libro Para comerte mejor (2015) de la escritora boliviana Giovanna Rivero, implica la reescritura de uno de los relatos míticos más prolíficos para el imaginario occidental, el de Orfeo, héroe que desciende al mundo de los muertos, retorna con la pérdida a cuestas y la mirada trastocada, la cual se conjuga con la figura del poeta melancólico de tipo simbolista, hundido en los misterios de las angustias del espíritu. Estas estructuras simbólicas y poéticas son encarnadas por el personaje suicida del relato, quien es una reescritura del fracaso que signa la “mirada órfica”, aquella de la que habla Maurice Blanchot, transportando el plano de lo simbólico del héroe mítico a la carnalidad del revenant.

La revista Casa de las Américas, en su edición de enero-febrero de 1968, publica un número dedicado al Che Guevara, asesinado en octubre del año anterior, en Bolivia. Juan Gelman y Francisco Urondo escriben para esta convocatoria: el primero, “Pensamientos”, que publicará luego en su libro Cólera Buey de 1971; el segundo, “Descarga”. Ambos poetas se incorporarán finalmente a las FAR. Ernesto Che Guevara en “El Socialismo y el hombre en Cuba” había convocado especialmente a artistas e intelectuales a salir de su “jaula invisible”, autoeducar su propia subjetividad egoísta y trabajar para la revolución socialista. Pero no eran solo ellxs quienes debían modificarse permanentemente, sino todxs. No alcanzaría con la construcción de las bases económicas y sociales hacia un nuevo orden material, sino que debían revolucionarse en el ser colectivo. También sostenía el Che que el momento era siempre: que la humanidad había dicho basta puesto que la ignominia había llegado a su fondo. El tiempo-ahora y la nueva subjetividad construida pacientemente y de forma individual y colectiva convocaba a artistas, poetas e intelectuales a realizar su aporte. De allí el desconsuelo y desamparo ante su asesinato.

Investigación enfocada en la primera etapa poética del poeta, pintor, cuenta cuentos, titiritero y militante político boliviano Luis Luksic (Potosí, 1911-Caracas, 1988). El objetivo es relacionar los poemarios Cantos de la ciudad y el mundo (1948) y Cuatro poemas y ocho dibujos (1958), con el arte pictórico generado por Luksic en ese periodo de su producción artística. La pintura de Luksic (que comprende desde obras individuales hasta ilustraciones de libros y portadas de discos), correlacionada con la poética, muestra que la vanguardia es una crisis que no se resuelve, pero que se alimenta desde la hibridación entre contrarios, y así derrumba todo orden y parámetros. La investigación muestra que en la vanguardia existe un “monstruo” de dos cabezas: la revolución política-grupalcomunitaria- colorida y la revolución política-personal-psicológica-surrealista.

This article-interview with the poet Elvira Espejo Ayca discusses the process of recovering the sacred songs of the Aymara and Quechua indigenous communities through the oral tradition from her grandmother Gregoria Mamani and her great-great-grandmother Martina Pumala. The song-poems preserve Inca meanings and aesthetics that the indigenous people used during Colonization to maintain good relations with the Spanish domain and, in turn, mask those referring to the Inca deities. Some songs have been taken up to unravel the lyrical resources of colonial times and recreate the original songs of the ancestors with the community of Kurmi Wasi School in Bolivia, a musical production that was recorded under the name of Sami Kirki in 2018, which was included in the last Espejo’s book Kirki Qhañi (2022).

A preocupação com a devastação ecológica da região amazônica é uma dos eixos centrais do livro de poemas Recetuario Amazónico de Dios (2002), do poeta e crítico boliviano Nicomedes Suárez Araúz, que recria as receitas familiares misturando ingredientes culinários com a paisagem, as populações indígenas, a história e algumas pitadas de ironia. Com o intuito de abordar como as relações entre poesia, história e ecologia são representadas no referido livro, realiza-se um breve comentário do percurso literário do autor, passando por sua concepção estética da Amnésia, em seguida apresenta-se suas contribuições com a visão literária pan-amazônica e, por fim, analisa-se alguns poemas, focalizando os elementos de suas composições que propiciam o desvelar de um fazer literário crítico em relação à natureza e à alteridade, com embasamento nos Estudos Descoloniais (QUIJANO, 2005) e na Ecocrítica (GARRARD, 2006).

Este es un estudio sobre el valor simbólico y literario del patrimonio cultural inmaterial, su relación con el patrimonio natural de la ecorregión chiquitana de Bolivia. Se analiza el impacto del patrimonio inmaterial en la vida política y cotidiana, con énfasis en la tradición oral, los axiomas y hechos literarios en diálogo con el patrimonio arqueológico, natural. Asimismo, se analiza la relación de la praxis cultural chiquitana con la cultura digital. El estudio está basado en archivos orales y escritos, en entrevistas dialógicas a gestores, educadores, poetas, artesanos, guardianes del patrimonio chiquitano. Se realizó el análisis de los datos con base en la teoría de representación cultural y el hecho literario. El resultado es una lectura filológica del patrimonio chiquitano destacando el poder político, epistémico y cultural de sus habitantes en la divulgación de su cosmología mediada por la cultura digital.

El poeta arequipeño Gamaliel Churata generó un proyecto cultural indoamericano que atravesó varias geografías tales como el sur de Perú, la ciudad de La Paz en Bolivia y Buenos Aires. Su trayectoria poética tiene varios momentos (Mamani Macedo, 2013, pp. 22-50). En este caso, tomamos el andino en el que ubicamos el poemario en cuestión, que resulta curioso y novedoso por los tópicos que desarrolla y el lenguaje heterogéneo utilizado que parece combinar formas lingüísticas del espa- ñol con el “runasimi” o creando neologismos que pueden derivar en una “cosmología poética” (Lienhard, 1996, pp. 353-367). La estética churatiana aborda la percepción y producción del sonido, el animismo y las interacciones entre humanos y no humanos e impulsa a cuestionarnos el rol de la figura de la sirena dentro del conjunto, del canto y la música, y la concepción tanática que maneja el autor y cuyas referencias en distintos poemas no tienen un tono trágico.

In this paper a new species of Cryptachaea Archer, 1946 based on males and females is described from Brazilian caves: Cryptachaea pilar Santanna & Rodrigues, new species from the states of Minas Gerais and São Paulo. The females of Cryptachaea parana (Levi, 1963) and C. schneirlai (Levi, 1959) are described and illustrated for the first time. Cryptachaea uviana (Levi, 1963) is synonymized with C. migrans (Keyserling, 1884). The species Cryptachaea alacris (Keyserling, 1884), C. benivia Rodrigues & Poeta, 2015, C. parana (Levi, 1963) and C. schneirlai (Levi, 1959) are recorded for the first from Brazil; and C. migrans for the first time from Bolivia. Additionally, new records from Brazilian caves are provided for Cryptachaea parana, from the states of Tocantins, Goiás, Minas Gerais, Mato Grosso do Sul and São Paulo; C. schneirlai and C. alacris from the state of Pará; C. dea (Buckup & Marques, 2006) and C. rioensis (Levi, 1963) from Pará and Minas Gerais, C. jequirituba (Levi, 1963) from Minas Gerais and C. benivia from São Paulo.

Manuel GonzÁlez prada (1844-1918), like inca garcilaso de la vega, César vallejo, josé marÍa arguedas, and mario vargas llosa, ranks among the top Peruvian literary figures, but only in Peru, where his work is hotly debated by literati, social scientists, historians, politicians, and journalists. Outside Peru he rates no more than the inclusion in anthologies of one of his poems; his most famous essay, “Nuestros indios” (“Our Indians”); or the occasional critical article on his work. However, with the Cuban José Martí (1853-95), González Prada is a founder of Latin American modernism, a movement that critics generally accept as running roughly from the publication of Rubén Darío's Azul, in 1888, to Darío's death, in 1916. Gordon Brotherston notes that Darío coined the term modernismo the same year he published Azul (vii). There are many reasons there has been less interest in González Prada than in Martí and other modernists. To begin with, Darío, in an 1888 visit to Peru, met with Ricardo Palma but not González Prada (Castro). Palma, writing in a more traditional style—even though he invented a genre, tradiciones—was the establishment's literary darling, while González Prada, always the innovator in style and an agitator in subject matter, remained largely unknown outside his native land. Thus, it made perfect sense that the maker of literary movements would visit the internationally known Palma but not González Prada, who could not add to his fame and expanding literary networks. Furthermore, when Darío later went to New York he turned his epistolary relationship with Martí into a personal friendship (Henríquez Ureña 93). In the United States there is much more interest in Martí, who lived here, than in González Prada, who did not. Hispanic modernism is typically understood to include the like-minded people whom Darío knew personally, such as Martí, Julián del Casal (Cuba), Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (Mexico), Ricardo Jaimes Freyre (Bolivia), and Juan Ramón Jiménez (Spain), and to exclude those whom he did not, such as Adela Zamudio (Bolivia) and González Prada. Finally, González Prada's anarchism, his feminism, and his tell-it-like-it-is essays did not endear him to many people.

El artículo se centra en la investigación lingüística de la palabra tunante, elemento de la identidad cruceña que está en proceso de desuso en el discurso cotidiano. El objetivo es analizar el cambio lingüístico de tunante desde una perspectiva diacrónica y sincrónica. En el análisis diacrónico se investiga cómo ha evolucionado el uso y significado de la palabra a lo largo del tiempo, mientras que en el análisis sincrónico se explora la variación en su uso y significado en diferentes contextos socioculturales en un momento dado. La referencia literaria fundamental proviene de la canción “El trasnochador”, del poeta Raúl Otero Reich (Otero Añez, 2018), donde la palabra Tunante se encuentra como: “Yo soy el trasnochador / tunando en la oscuridad…”. Sin embargo, la coexistencia de diferentes conceptualizaciones de tunante en un mismo territorio y tiempo genera posibles malentendidos. Por lo que se empleará como método el análisis de corpus lingüístico, la teoría de los prototipos de la Lingüística Cognitiva y la Teoría Variacionista de la Sociolingüística como fundamentos metodológicos para desarrollar un enfoque objetivo que contribuya a la redacción de un diccionario que rescate y preserve las diferentes conceptualizaciones. Para la muestra se utiliza como fuentes el Corpus Diacrónico del Español (CORDE), el Corpus de Referencia del Español Actual (CREA), el Corpus del Español del Siglo XXI (CORPES) V. 1.0 de la RAE, así como novelas, antologías y otros trabajos de investigación producidos en Bolivia. Los hallazgos diacrónicos abordarán el cambio lingüístico y los contextos históricos de tunante, mientras los sincrónicos explorarán las variaciones sociolingüísticas en uso y significado.

RésuméJadis, un jeune home en quête de sagesse, s’enquit auprès d’un maître taoïste : « Quelle est la forme de l’eau ? ». Le maître répondit : « L’eau n’a point de forme ; elle prend la forme qu’on lui donne ».Andrea Camilleri, un écrivain originaire de la si méditerranéenne Sicile, s’est souvenu de cette anecdote. Il avait intitulé l’un de ses premiers romans consacrés au commissaire Montalbano La Forme de l’eau. Le dialogue taoïste semble en effet apte à définir la Méditerranée : une mer dépourvue de forme au milieu de beaucoup de terres dont chacune s’efforce paradoxalement d’établir des identités stables. Dans mon article, je vais tenter de rendre ce paradoxe plus explicite. En fait, la question sera de savoir s’il peut vraiment être résolu ou s’il s’agit d’une aporie, autrement dit d’un paradoxe insoluble. Au cours de cette exploration menée le long des côtes de la Méditerranée, plusieurs questions vont émerger : Quel est le lien entre une culture européenne eurocentrique et la Méditerranée ? Combien de rivages y a-t-il ? Par ailleurs, y a-t-il une relation entre la crise européenne (pas seulement financière) et la Méditerranée ?Qu’en est-il de l’unité de la Méditerranée ? Qu’en est-il des multiples frontières qui en font un lieu hétérogène ? (Cette réflexion nous conduira à suivre le performer mexicain Francis Alÿs.)Qu’y a-t-il au-delà du mythe idyllique d’une Méditerranée bleue ensoleillée et harmonieuse ? Que dire des guerres et des tragédies qui l’endeuillent aujourd’hui ? La question sera abordée à travers le cinéma et, encore une fois, l’œuvre de Francis Alÿs.Quel est le sens de la mer aujourd’hui ? On sollicitera quelques avis autorisés, comme celui du philologue Predrag Matvejević, et l’on réfléchira à la forme liquide des visages que décrit Yoko Tawada.Quel est en outre le rôle du design dans tous ces processus ? Plusieurs questions sont soulevées à ce propos par Giò Ponti, Mona Hatoum et Francis Alÿs. Pour conclure, on se demandera si Homère aurait pu être bolivien. La Méditerranée est-elle toujours dans la Méditerranée ? Abstract Once, a young man who was in search of wisdom asked a Dao master: “What is the shape of water?” The master answered: “Water has no shape; it takes on the shape that it is given.” Andrea Camilleri, a very Mediterranean writer from Sicily, remembered this Chinese anecdote, entitling one of the first books in his Montalbano series La forma dell’acqua. Indeed, the Daoist conversation seems appropriate for defining the Mediterranean: a sea without a shape in the middle of many lands, each aspiring paradoxically to establish stable identities. Through my paper, I will try to make this paradox more explicit, exploring if it may be solved or if, on the contrary, it constitutes an aporia, i.e. a paradox without solution. During this roundtrip along the shores of the Mediterranean, some questions will emerge: What is the link between Eurocentric European culture and the Mediterranean? How many shores are there? Furthermore, is there a link between the European crisis (not only the financial one) and the Mediterranean? What about the unity of the Mediterranean? What about the multiple frontiers which make it a heterogeneous place? (This reflection will bring us to the path of the Mexican performer Francis Alÿs.) Is there something beyond the idyllic myth of a sunny and harmonious blue Mediterranean? What about today’s wars and tragedies? We will take a quick survey via cinema and, once again, Francis Alÿs. What is the meaning of the sea today? This question will be explored with the help of some friends: Mediterranean philology and Predrag Matvejević, as well as the watery shape of the face according to Yoko Tawada. What is the role of design in the above processes? More questions arise among Giò Ponti, Mona Hatoum and… Francis Alÿs. In turn, we are lead to some concluding questions: Could Homer have been a Bolivian poet? Is the Mediterranean still in the Mediterranean? Resumen Una vez, un joven que iba en busca de la sabiduría preguntó a un maestro Dao: “¿Cuál es la forma del agua?” El maestro contestó: “El agua no tiene ninguna forma; toma la forma que se le da.” Andrea Camilleri, un escritor siciliano muy mediterráneo, recordó esta anécdota china, al titular uno de sus primeros libros en la serie de Montalbano La forma dell'acqua. Efectivamente, la conversación Daoista parece apropiada para definir el Mediterráneo: un mar sin forma en el medio de muchos países, cada uno de los cuales, paradójicamente, aspira a establecer identidades firmes. Con mi ponencia trataré de hacer más explícita esta paradoja, investigando si es posible resolverla o si, por contra, se trata de una aporía, o sea de una paradoja insoluble. Durante este viaje a lo largo de las costas del Mediterráneo, surgirán algunas preguntas: 1. ¿Qué relación existe entre la cultura europea eurocentrica y el Mediterráneo? ¿Cuántas costas hay? Y además: ¿hay un nexo entre la crisis europea (no sólo la crisis financiera) y el Mediterráneo? 2. ¿Qué pasa con la unidad del Mediterráneo? ¿Y las múltiples fronteras que lo convierten en un lugar heterogéneo? (Esta reflexión nos llevará a seguir las huellas/encontrar el camino* del artista mexicano Francis Alÿs.) 3. ¿Hay algo más allá del mito idílico de un Mediterráneo azul, solar y armonioso? ¿Qué decir de las guerras y las tragedias de nuestros días? Vamos a echar un vistazo vía cinema y, una vez más, Francis Alÿs. 4. ¿Cuál es el significado del mar, hoy? Este asunto se explorará con la ayuda de algunos amigos: la filología mediterránea y Predrag Matvejević, y también la forma acuosa de la cara, según Yoko Tawada. 5. ¿Que papel cumple el diseño en los procesos citados arriba? Más preguntas se entrelazan entre Giò Ponti, Mona Hatoun y... Francis Alÿs. A nuestra vez, somos inducidos a poner unas preguntas conclusivas: ¿Homero pudiera haber sido un poeta boliviano? ¿El Mediterráneo está todavía en el Mediterráneo?

El artículo recupera la idea de “los mundos posi-bles” porque permite pensar el mundo como una pluralidad. En este sentido, ilumina la realidad plural de América, donde existen otras “experiencias sensitivas” expresadas en el lenguaje poético, que históricamente se han visto confinadas. Por consiguiente, se analiza el lenguaje poético de dos poetas de Bolivia: el aimara Clemente Mamani y la quechua aimara Elvira Espejo. Su propuesta poética expresa la cosmovisión aimara, donde la noción de tiempo y espacio corresponden al tiempo ancestral. En la poética de Clemente Mamani circulan elementos que expresan poder, fuerza y coraje del mundo de arriba, siendo media-dores entre la parcialidad de arriba y de abajo. De otro lado, la poética de Elvira Espejo pone en circulación los poderes del mundo de abajo, es la mediadora entre el mundo de abajo y arriba a través del canto, la música, la palabra, la fertilidad y la reproducción.

Sphincter I hope my good old asshole holds out 60 years it's been mostly OK Tho in Bolivia a fissure operation survived the altiplano hospital -- a little blood, no polyps, occasionally a small hemorrhoid active, eager, receptive to phallus coke bottle, candle, carrot banana & fingers -- Now AIDS makes it shy, but still eager to serve -- out with the dumps, in with the condom'd orgasmic friend -- still rubbery muscular, unashamed wide open for joy But another 20 years who knows, old folks got troubles everywhere -- necks, prostates, stomachs, joints -- Hope the old hole stays young till death, relax -- March 15, 1986, 1:00 PM, Allen Ginsberg Lucky to the end, Allen Ginsberg (1926-97) achieved his first and final wish. Despite the constipation mentioned occasionally in his later poems, the anus of the grand gay father of the Beats remained relatively healthy until his death while other vital organs failed. Ginsberg, who had also described the erectile misfunction of his penis in mid-to-late career poems, died from a heart attack brought on by liver cancer. While the poet fleshed out references to the male anus in at least fifty of his poems, his "Sphincter" comprises the chronological climax in the development of both his anal and erotic verse. The poem was written just months after the beginning of the global media demonisation of Hollywood star Rock Hudson who was found in late 1985 to be both gay and to have died from AIDS complications. Ginsberg's timely "Sphincter" reflects on the poet's survival as an anally-active gay man through both the pre-AIDS and AIDS eras. While criticism of the (homo)eroticism in Ginsberg's verse ranges from utter denial to near hagiography, overall the significance of his musings on male ani has been avoided. The rather anal-retentive Thomas Merrill claims that, "even sophisticated readers of Ginsberg's poetry are apt to be put off, perhaps bored by, his obsession not only with four-letter words, but with the clinical, strikingly nonerotic descriptions of his homosexuality" (24). For the far less uptight John Tytell, on the other hand, "Ginsberg has always reveled in the divinity of his own sexuality, his homosexuality, adorning his own physical propensities and urging the life of the body on his readers" (245). However, "Sphincter" which is an intensely erotic (albeit anti-Romantic) poem, contains none of the expletives (apart from "asshole") nor divine associations used repeatedly by the poet elsewhere to represent the (homo)eroticised male body, and his anus in particular. Six decades of anal health and recovery aside, Ginsberg packs a suggestive lot into his "Sphincter" with the list of objects wielded during the pre-AIDS period as the means to his erotic end. The term "phallus" -- while suggesting the penis and allo-erotic activity -- may also mean dildoes with certain tactile qualities and anus-fitting shapes and sizes ideal for auto-erotic delight. Indeed, the "coke bottle, candle, carrot/banana & fingers" -- with their smooth to slightly rough texture, stiff to pliable constituency, hard to semi-hard density, and rounded pointedness -- offer more reliable potential for sustained anal stimulation than the occasionally tumescent penis. These objects may answer the decades-old queries in "Iron Horse" (1966): "What can I shove up my ass?" and "Oh if only somebody'd come in &/shove som'in up that ass a mine" (432). The bottle and candle are appropriated from a passage in Ginsberg's signature poem, "Howl" (1955), about the "best [male] minds" (126) of the poet's generation, "who copulated ecstatic and insatiate with a bottle of beer a sweetheart a/package of cigarettes a candle . . . and ended fainting on the wall with/a vision of ultimate cunt and come..." (128). In his "Sphincter", Ginsberg reminisces about the pleasurable insertion into his anus of such props to heterosexual romance. The coke (rather than beer) bottle signifies the contemporary product probably most commodified along with youthful images of (compulsory) heterosexuality in global mass media advertising. Through sodomy with that iconic item of American capitalist cultural imperialism, the poet's jingle valorises his rectum as one of the most fitting and wonderfully subversive "things" that "go better with coke!" As items usually for oral insertion rather than anal penetration, the carrot and banana (and bottle) here play on a subtle metaphor of "receptive"-anus-as-"active"-mouth. Allusions to the (frequently 'cock-hungry') oral-anal configuration of the anus denatus are more explicit in other Ginsberg poems. In "Journal Night Thoughts" (1961) the poet awaits as "a cock throbs I lie still my/mouth in my ass" (271). Ginsberg asks his sexual partner in "Please Master" (1968) to "make me wriggle my rear to eat up the prick trunk", and describes his anus as his "hairmouth" (494). In "Sweet Boy, Gimme Yr Ass" (1974) he desires a young man's "soft mouth asshole" (613). While containing "phallus" and "fingers", there is no tongue nor other oral referent in the rather clean "Sphincter". By contrast, "Iron Horse" (1966) includes the growly request: "Sweet Prince --/open yr ass to my mouth" (433-4). Ginsberg's Pre-AIDS poems frequently celebrate the joining of the uncondomed penis, anus and body fluids in sensational detail. In "This Form of Life Needs Sex" (1961) "joy" comes to mean the very act of joining male anus with penis: "You can joy man to man but the Sperm/comes back in a trickle at dawn/in a toilet on the 45th floor" (285). "Please Master" (1968) includes the demand, "fuck me more violent ... & throb thru five seconds to spurt out your semen heat over & over" (495). In "Love Comes" (1981) the period of the sex act and whether condoms are used is not stated: "I relaxed my inside/loosed the ring in my hide ... He continued to beat/his meat in my meat" (11). The memorial "'What You Up To?'" (1982) recaptures his most scatological unsafe copulation: "That white boy ... one night in 1946/he fucked me naked in the ass/till I smelled brown excrement/staining his cock" (29). While "Sphincter" marks the chronological peak in the development of Ginsberg's erotic poetry, the unbroken line, "unashamed wide open for joy", comprises the structural and thematic climax within the poem itself. This current of anal-erotic joy traces back to "Howl" (1955) with its passage about those men, "who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists/and screamed with joy" (128). Ginsberg has said that he wrote "joy" here instead of the expected "pain" as a reaction to the "James Dickey film Deliverance where [receptive anal sex] is supposed to be the worst thing in the world" (Young 103). In the inter-male rape scene in the 1972 film version of Dickey's 1970 novel, actions indicate that one man uses his penis to penetrate the anus of another who is held at gunpoint and ordered to squeal like a pig throughout the assault. Prior to this the raped man is taunted with female names. The consensual 'safe' gay anal joy exhibited by Ginsberg's "Sphincter" counters such homo-, gyno- and porcine-phobic violence. While the anal-erotic jouissance in poems that preceded "Sphincter" was overshadowed at times by non-reproductive aims and scatological themes, "Sphincter" delivers the explicit message that consensual protected anus-around-penis eroticism (particularly for actively "receptive" men) creates penultimate emotional and physical pleasure. The "phallus/coke bottle, candle, carrot/banana & fingers" leave any specified penis out of the pre-AIDS picture. By contrast, "Now" as Ginsberg states "[in the mid-Eighties age of] AIDS", at a time when auto-eroticism, digital/dildo stimulation and other penetrations without penis mean the safest anal sex, the poet himself celebrates contact with the safe sex penis -- "the condom'd/orgasmic friend" -- for which he is "unashamed wide open for joy". The preceding phrase, "out with the dumps", refers to the expulsing of two combined types of "dumps". Firstly, the mental depression about the end of skin-to-skin anus-penis sex and secondly, defecated matter which brings not only physical relief but an anus open to penetration. Unlike "Sphincter", later poems do not specify whether sexual encounters are 'safe' or 'unsafe'. In "The Guest" (1992) the question of whether condoms are used is open but the consensual status of the encounter is stressed: "I ask permission, he says 'yes,'/I pull his hips up, hold his breast,/spurt my loves deep in his bum" (78). Other poems such as "Violent Collaborations" (written with Peter Hale, 1992) humorously relish sadomasochistic and coprophilic pleasure: "Fuck me & fist me/in your army enlist me/Poop on me when you're at ease" (92). Again there is no specification that condoms are used nor that there is 'unsafe' contact. With its "shy" but "eager" anus and "condom'd/orgasmic friend", "Sphincter" marks not so much an end to 'unsafe' sex as an end to the specification of 'safe' sex in Ginsberg's poetry. No Ginsberg poem specifically addresses his penis (and/or testicles) in the way that "Sphincter" is devoted to his anus. In his poetry he does not epitomise himself as any libidinous body part other than his anal hole. In "Please Master" (1968) the poet conflates his anus with his selfhood when exclaiming: "touch your cock head to my wrinkled self-hole/... please please master fuck me again" (494-5), and "Please call me ... a wet asshole" (495). In Ginsberg's "Sphincter" moreover, his anus synecdochically represents not only his whole person but a type of gay Everyman. His sphincter is "active" and "receptive", "old" and "young", "shy" and "unashamed", and "rubbery" and "muscular". These antithetical qualities also characterise the male body idealised in gay culture (in reaction to media images of decaying 'plague victims') during the AIDS-era. This body is sexually 'versatile' (as both 'bottom' and 'top'), boyish-looking but sexually mature, introspective but assertively 'out', and physically toned but flexible. The "rubbery muscular" qualities of Ginsberg's anus are focal, because -- apart from the "blood" and "hemorrhoid" which evoke colours and shapes -- "Sphincter" contains no other physical representations of his anal orifice nor any of the myriad hyperbolic metaphorisations found in his earlier visceral verses. Anal-roseate associations appear in "A Methedrine Vision in Hollywood" (1965) and "Hiway Poesy" (1966). In the first there is wind of the floral: "one-eyed sparkle, giant glint, any tiny fart/or rose-whiff before roses were/Thought Impossible" (381). In the second, the anus-as-flower manifests through ambiguous layers. The word "rose" may be read as noun, adjective or verb: "Oh that I were young again and the skin in my anus folds/rose" (386). "Kaddish" (1959) draws on topographical metaphors: "a mortal avalanche, whole mountains of homosexuality, Matter-/horns of Cock, Grand Canyons of Asshole" (214). Manifestations of the anus as a cosmic portal or eye appear in several poems, but not in "Sphincter". Ginsberg draws on Yogic beliefs to cast the anus as the source of the enlightening kundalini in "Iron Horse" (1966): "Muladhara sphincter up thru/mind aura/Sahasrarapadma promise/another universe" (435). In the only reference to the anus in the copious footnotes to his Collected Poems, the editors explain 'Muladhara Sphincter' simplisticly as "anal chakra (one of seven bodily centers of spirit energy in Orient [sic] yoga practice)", while 'Sahasrarapadma' is described in detail as "Seventh chakra, 'thousand-petal lotus' at skulltop" (781). Ginsberg, however, seems to have placed his stress on these first and last chakras more equally or in reverse. In "Scatalogical Observations" (1997) he declares, "The Ass knows more than the mind knows" (85-6). In "Journal Night Thoughts" (1961) the poet's anus comprises a universal 'third eye' through which he comes to 'know' and 'see'. This anus/eye in the formulation of "the eye in the center of the moving/mandala -- the/eye in the hand/the eye in the asshole" (267) is later eroticised as "I prostrate my sphincter with my eyes in/the pillow" (271). As we have seen, Ginsberg's erotic poetry frequently features imagery of the sexual orifice that is beyond any man's individual scope and culturally most proscribed from public view. While many passages in his verse evoke the male anus as a subject worthy of versification and visualisation, Ginsberg's "Sphincter" comprises an ode which literally and literarily presents the poet's anus to the audience as a poetic vision in itself. The succinctly anti-analphobic and anti-homophobic "Sphincter" finely balances critical aspects of the ars poetica. Devoid of signature tropes such as the anus/mouth, anus/I and anus/eye, "Sphincter" with its relative lack of euphemism and clever mix of metonymy and metaphor nonetheless merges antithetical themes to relay a profound spiritual message. The poet's ode to his ageing anus matter-of-factly and humorously revels in memories of auto- and allo-erotic 'phallo-morphous' perversity and celebrates the anal-erotic joy in being 'fucked safely' as a personal and political act. As this millennium closes, we could do worse in our 'anal-retentive' culture than following one of the century's wisest poetic ends: "till death, relax". References Deliverance. Dir. John Boorman. U.S.A.: Warner Bros., 1972. Dickey, James. Deliverance. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 1970. Ginsberg, Allen. Collected Poems 1947-1980. New York: Viking Penguin, 1985. ---. Cosmopolitan Greetings: Poems 1986-1992. London: Penguin, 1994. ---. Death and Fame: Poems 1993-1997. London: Penguin, 1999. ---. White Shroud: Poems 1980-1985. New York: Harper and Row, 1986. Merrill, Thomas F. Allen Ginsberg. Boston, MA: Twayne, 1988. Tytell, John. Naked Angels: The Lives and Literature of the Beat Generation. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. Young, Allen. "Allen Young Interviews Allen Ginsberg." 1973. Gay Sunshine Interviews. Ed. Winston Leyland. San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1978: 96-128. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Simon-Astley Scholfield. "A Poetic End: Allen Ginsberg's 'Sphincter'." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2.8 (1999). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/sphincter.php>. Chicago style: Simon-Astley Scholfield, "A Poetic End: Allen Ginsberg's 'Sphincter'," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2, no. 8 (199x), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/sphincter.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Simon-Astley Scholfield. (1999) A poetic end: Allen Ginsberg's "Sphincter". M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 2(8). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/9912/sphincter.php> ([your date of access]).

Introduction
 «I have never worked in the technocratic exaltation, solving a constructive problem and that’s it. I’ve always tried to interpret the space of human life» (Vittorio Garatti).
 Vittorio Garatti (Milan, April 6, 1927) is certainly one of the last witnesses of one “heroic” season of Italian architecture. In 1957 he graduated in architecture from the Polytechnic of Milan with a thesis proposing the redesign of a portion of the historic centre of Milan: the area between “piazza della Scala”, “via Broletto”, “via Filodrammatici” and the gardens of the former Olivetti building in via Clerici. These are the years in which Ernesto Nathan Rogers established himself as one of the main personalities of Milanese culture. Garatti endorses the criticism expressed by Rogers to the approval of the Rationalist “language” in favour of an architecture that recovers the implications of the place and of material culture. The social responsibility of architecture and connections between architecture and other forms of artistic expression are the invariants of all the activity of the architect, artist and graphic designer of Garatti. It will be Ernesto Nathan Rogers who will offer him the possibility of experiencing these “contaminations” early: in 1954, together with Giuliano Cesari, Raffaella Crespi, Giampiero Pallavicini and Ferruccio Rezzonico, he designs the preparation of the exhibition on musical instruments at the 10th Milan Triennale. The temporary installations will be a privileged area in which Garatti will continue to experiment and integrate the qualities of artist, graphic designer and architect with each other. Significant examples of this approach are the Art Schools in Cuba 1961-63, the residential complex of Cusano Milanino in 1973, the Attico Cosimo del Fante in 1980, the fittings for the Bubasty shops in 1984, the Camogli residence in 1986, his house atelier in Brera in 1988 and the interiors of the Hotel Gallia in 1989. 
 True architecture generates itself1: an approach that was consolidated over the years of collaboration with Raúl Villanueva in Venezuela and is fulfilled in Cuba in the project of the Art Schools, where Garatti makes use of a plurality of tools that cannot be rigidly confined to the world of architecture. 
 In 1957, in Caracas, he came into contact with Ricardo Porro and Roberto Gottardi. Ricardo Porro, who returned to Cuba in 1960, will be the one to involve Vittorio Garatti and Roberto Gottardi in the Escuelas Nacional de Arte project.
 The three young architects will be the protagonists of a happy season of the architecture of the Revolution, they will be crossed by that “revolutionary” energy that Ricardo Porro has defined as “magical realism”. 
 As Garatti recalls: it was a special moment. We designed the Schools using a method developed in Venezuela. We started from an analysis of the context, understood not only as physical reality. We studied Cuban poets and painters. Wifredo Lam was a great reference. For example, Lezama Lima’s work is clearly recalled in the plan of the School of Ballet. We were pervaded by the spirit of the revolution. 
 The contamination between knowledge and disciplines, the belief that architecture is a “parasitic” discipline are some of the themes at the centre of the conversation that follows, from which a working method that recognizes architecture as a “social transformation” task emerges, more precisely an art with a social purpose. Garatti often cites Porro’s definition of architecture: architecture is the poetic frame within which human life takes place. To Garatti architecture is a self-generating process, and as such it cannot find fulfilment within its disciplinary specificity: the disciplinary autonomy is a contradiction in terms. Architecture cannot be self-referencing, it generates itself precisely because it finds the sense of its social responsibility outside of itself. No concession to trends, to self-referencing, to the “objectification of architecture”, to its spectacularization. Garatti as Eupalino Valery shuns “mute architectures” and instead prefers singing architectures.
 
 A Dialogue of Luigi Alini with Vittorio Garatti
 Luigi Alini. Let’s start with some personal data. 
 Vittorio Garatti. I was born in Milan on April 6, 1927.
 My friend Emilio Vedova told me that life could be considered as a sequence of encounters with people, places and facts. My sculptor grandfather played an important role in my life. I inherited the ability to perceive the dimensional quality of space, its plasticity, spatial vision from him.
 
 L.A. Your youth training took place in a dramatic phase of history of our country. Living in Milan during the war years must not have been easy. 
 V.G. In October 1942 in Milan there was one of the most tragic bombings that the city has suffered. A bomb exploded in front of the Brera Academy, where the Dalmine offices were located. With a group of boys we went to the rooftops. We saw the city from above, with the roofs partially destroyed. I still carry this image inside me, it is part of that museum of memory that Luciano Semerani often talks about. This image probably resurfaced when I designed the ballet school. The idea of a promenade on the roofs to observe the landscape came from this. 
 
 L.A. You joined the Faculty of Architecture at the Milan Polytechnic in May 1946-47.
 V.G. Milan and Italy were like in those years. The impact with the University was not positive, I was disappointed with the quality of the studies.
 
 L.A. You have had an intense relationship with the artists who gravitate around Brera, which you have always considered very important for your training.
 V.G. In 1948 I met Ilio Negri, a graphic designer. Also at Brera there was a group of artists (Morlotti, Chighine, Dova, Crippa) who frequented the Caffè Brera, known as “Bar della Titta”. Thanks to these visits I had the opportunity to broaden my knowledge.
 As you know, I maintain that there are life’s appointments and lightning strikes. The release of Dada magazine provided real enlightenment for me: I discovered the work of Kurt Schwitters, Theo Van Doesburg, the value of the image and three-dimensionality. 
 L.A. You collaborated on several projects with Ilio Negri.
 V.G. In 1955 we created the graphics of the Lagostina brand, which was then also used for the preparation of the exhibition at the “Fiera Campionaria” in Milan.
 We also worked together for the Lerici steel industry. There was an extraordinary interaction with Ilio.
 L.A. The cultural influence of Ernesto Nathan Rogers was strong in the years you studied at the Milan Polytechnic. He influenced the cultural debate by establishing himself as one of the main personalities of the Milanese architectural scene through the activity of the BBPR studio but even more so through the direction of Domus (from ‘46 to ‘47) and Casabella Continuità (from ‘53 to ‘65).
 V.G. When I enrolled at the university he was not yet a full professor and he was very opposed. As you know, he coined the phrase: God created the architect, the devil created the colleague. In some ways it is a phrase that makes me rethink the words of Ernesto Che Guevara: beware of bureaucrats, because they can delay a revolution for 50 years.
 Rogers was the man of culture and the old “bureaucratic” apparatus feared that his entry into the University would sanction the end of their “domain”.
 
 L.A. In 1954, together with Giuliano Cesari, Raffella Crespi, Giampiero Pallavicini and Ferruccio Rezzonico, all graduating students of the Milan Polytechnic, you designed the staging of the exhibition on musical instruments at the 10th Milan Triennale. 
 V.G. The project for the Exhibition of Musical Instruments at the Milan Triennale was commissioned by Rogers, with whom I subsequently collaborated for the preparation of the graphic part of the Castello Sforzesco Museum, together with Ilio Negri. We were given a very small budget for this project. We decided to prepare a sequence of horizontal planes hanging in a void. These tops also acted as spacers, preventing people from touching the tools. Among those exhibited there were some very valuable ones. We designed slender structures to be covered with rice paper. The solution pleased Rogers very much, who underlined the dialogue that was generated between the exhibited object and the display system.
 
 L.A. You graduated on March 14, 1957.
 V.G. The project theme that I developed for the thesis was the reconstruction of Piazza della Scala. While all the other classmates were doing “lecorbusierani” projects without paying much attention to the context, for my part I worked trying to have a vision of the city. I tried to bring out the specificities of that place with a vision that Ernesto Nathan Rogers had brought me to. 
 I then found this vision of the city in the work of Giuseppe De Finetti. I tried to re-propose a vision of space and its “atmospheres”, a theme that Alberto Savinio also refers to in Listen to your heart city, from 1944.
 
 L.A. How was your work received by the thesis commission? 
 V.G. It was judged too “formal” by Emiliano Gandolfi, but Piero Portaluppi did not express himself positively either. The project did not please. Also consider the cultural climate of the University of those years, everyone followed the international style of the CIAM. 
 I was not very satisfied with the evaluation expressed by the commissioners, they said that the project was “Piranesian”, too baroque. The critique of culture rationalist was not appreciated. Only at IUAV was there any great cultural ferment thanks to Bruno Zevi. 
 L.A. After graduation, you left for Venezuela.
 V.G. With my wife Wanda, in 1957 I joined my parents in Caracas. In Venezuela I got in touch with Paolo Gasparini, an extraordinary Italian photographer, Ricardo Porro and Roberto Gottardi, who came from Venice and had worked in Ernesto Nathan Rogers’ studio in Milan. Ricardo Porro worked in the office of Carlos Raúl Villanueva. The Cuban writer and literary critic Alejo Carpentier also lived in Caracas at that time.
 
 L.A. Carlos Raul Villanueva was one of the protagonists of Venezuelan architecture. His critical position in relation to the Modern Movement and the belief that it was necessary to find an “adaptation” to the specificities of local traditions, the characteristics of the places and the Venezuelan environment, I believe, marked your subsequent Cuban experience with the creative recovery of some elements of traditional architecture such as the portico, the patio, but also the use of traditional materials and technologies that you have masterfully reinterpreted. I think we can also add to these “themes” the connections between architecture and plastic arts. You also become a professor of Architectural Design at the Escuela de Arquitectura of the Central University of Caracas.
 V.G. On this academic experience I will tell you a statement by Porro that struck me very much: The important thing was not what I knew, I did not have sufficient knowledge and experience. What I could pass on to the students was above all a passion. In two years of teaching I was able to deepen, understand things better and understand how to pass them on to students. The Faculty of Architecture had recently been established and this I believe contributed to fuel the great enthusiasm that emerges from the words by Porro. Porro favoured mine and Gottardi’s entry as teachers. Keep in mind that in those years Villanueva was one of the most influential Venezuelan intellectuals and had played a leading role in the transformation of the University. Villanueva was very attentive to the involvement of art in architecture, just think of the magnificent project for the Universidad Central in Caracas, where he worked together with artists such as the sculptor Calder. 
 I had recently graduated and found myself catapulted into academic activity. It was a strange feeling for a young architect who graduated with a minimum grade. At the University I was entrusted with the Architectural Design course. The relationships with the context, the recovery of some elements of tradition were at the centre of the interests developed with the students. Among these students I got to know the one who in the future became my chosen “brother”: Sergio Baroni. Together we designed all the services for the 23rd district that Carlos Raúl Villanueva had planned to solve the favelas problem. In these years of Venezuelan frequentation, Porro also opened the doors of Cuba to me. Through Porro I got to know the work of Josè Martì, who claimed: cult para eser libre. I also approached the work of Josè Lezama Lima, in my opinion one of the most interesting Cuban intellectuals, and the painting of Wilfredo Lam.
 
 L.A. In December 1959 the Revolution triumphed in Cuba. Ricardo Porro returned to Cuba in August 1960. You and Gottardi would join him in December and begin teaching at the Facultad de Arcuitectura.
 Your contribution to the training of young students took place in a moment of radical cultural change within which the task of designing the Schools was also inserted: the “new” architecture had to give concrete answers but also give “shape” to a new model of society.
 V.G. After the triumph of the Revolution, acts of terrorism began. At that time in the morning, I checked that they hadn’t placed a bomb under my car.
 Eisenhower was preparing the invasion. Life published an article on preparing for the invasion of the counterrevolutionary brigades. 
 With Eisenhower dead, Kennedy activated the programme by imposing one condition: in conjunction with the invasion, the Cuban people would have to rise up. Shortly before the attempted invasion, the emigration, deemed temporary, of doctors, architects, university teachers etc. began. They were all convinced they would return to “liberated Cuba” a few weeks later. Their motto was: it is impossible for Americans to accept the triumph of the rebel army. As is well known, the Cuban people did not rise up. The revolutionary process continued and had no more obstacles.
 The fact that the bourgeois class and almost all the professionals had left Cuba put the country in a state of extreme weakness.
 The sensation was of great transformation taking place, it was evident. In that “revolutionary” push there was nothing celebratory. All available energies were invested in the culture. There were extraordinary initiatives, from the literacy campaign to the founding of international schools of medicine and of cinema. In Cuba it was decided to close schools for a year and to entrust elementary school children with the task of travelling around the country and teaching illiterate adults. In the morning they worked in the fields and in the evening they taught the peasants to read and write. In order to try to block this project, the counter-revolutionaries killed two children in an attempt to scare the population and the families of the literate children. There was a wave of popular indignation and the programme continued.
 
 L.A. Ricardo Porro was commissioned to design the Art Schools. Roberto Gottardi recalls that: «the wife of the Minister of Public Works, Selma Diaz, asked Porro to build the national art schools. The architecture had to be completely new and the schools, in Fidel’s words, the most beautiful in the world. All accomplished in six months. Take it or leave it! [...] it was days of rage and enthusiasm in which all areas of public life was run by an agile and imaginative spirit of warfare»2. You too remembered several times that: that architecture was born from a life experience, it incorporated enthusiasm for life and optimism for the future.
 V.G. The idea that generated them was to foster the cultural encounter between Africa, Asia and Latin America. A “place” for meeting and exchanging. A place where artists from all over the third world could interact freely. The realisation of the Schools was like receiving a “war assignment”. Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara selected the Country Club as the place to build a large training centre for all of Latin America. They understood that it was important to foster the Latin American union, a theme that Simón Bolivar had previously wanted to pursue. Il Ché and Fidel, returning from the Country Club, along the road leading to the centre of Havana, met Selma Diaz, architect and wife of Osmany Cienfuegos, the Cuban Construction Minister.
 Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara entrusted Selma Diaz with the task of designing this centre. She replied: I had just graduated, how could I deal with it? Then she adds: Riccardo Porro returned to Cuba with two Italian architects. Just think, three young architects without much experience catapulted into an assignment of this size. The choice of the place where to build the schools was a happy intuition of Fidel Castro and Ernesto Che Guevara.
 
 L.A. How did the confrontation develop?
 V.G. We had total freedom, but we had to respond to a functional programme defined with the heads of the schools. Five directors were appointed, one for each school. We initially thought of a citadel. A proposal that did not find acceptance among the Directors, who suggest thinking of five autonomous schools. We therefore decide to place the schools on the edge of the large park and to reuse all the pre-existing buildings. We imagined schools as “stations” to cross. The aim was to promote integration with the environment in which they were “immersed”. Schools are not closed spaces. We established, for example, that there would be no doors: when “everything was ours” there could not be a public and a private space, only the living space existed.
 
 L.A. Ricardo Porro recalled: I organised our study in the chapel of the former residence of the Serrà family in Vadado. It was a wonderful place [...]. A series of young people from the school of architecture came to help us […]. Working in that atmosphere, all night and all day was a poetic experience (Loomis , 1999).
 V.G. We felt like Renaissance architects. We walked around the park and discussed where to locate the schools. Imagine three young people discussing with total, unthinkable freedom.
 We decided that each of us would deal with one or more schools, within a global vision that was born from the comparison. I chose the Ballet School. Ivan Espin had to design the music school but in the end I did it because Ivan had health problems. Porro decided to take care of the School of Plastic Arts to support his nature as a sculptor. Gottardi had problems with the actors and directors, who could not produce a shared functional programme, which with the dancers was quite simple to produce. The reasons that led us to choose the different project themes were very simple and uncomplicated, as were those for identifying the areas. I liked hidden lands, I was interested in developing a building “embedded” in the ground. Ricardo, on the other hand, chose a hill on which arrange the school of Modern Art. Each of us chose the site almost instinctively. For the Classical Dance School, the functional programme that was provided to me was very meagre: a library, a deanery, an infirmary, three ballet classrooms, theoretical classrooms and one of choreography.
 We went to see the dancers while they were training and dancing with Porro. The perception was immediate that we had to think of concave and convex spaces that would welcome their movements in space. For a more organic integration with the landscape and to accommodate the orography of the area, we also decided to place the buildings in a “peripheral” position with respect to the park, a choice that allowed us not to alter the nature of the park too much but also to limit the distances to be covered from schools to homes. Selma Diaz added others to the first indications: remember that we have no iron, we have little of everything, but we have many bricks. These were the indications that came to us from the Ministry of Construction. We were also asked to design some large spaces, such as gyms. Consequently, we found ourselves faced with the need to cover large spans without being able to resort to an extensive use of reinforced concrete or wood.
 
 L.A. How was the comparison between you designers?
 V.G. The exchange of ideas was constant, the experiences flowed naturally from one work group to another, but each operated in total autonomy. Each design group had 5-6 students in it. In my case I was lucky enough to have Josè Mosquera among my collaborators, a brilliant modest student, a true revolutionary. 
 The offices where we worked on the project were organised in the Club, which became our “headquarters”. We worked all night and in the morning we went to the construction site. 
 For the solution of logistical problems and the management of the building site of the Ballet School, I was entrusted with an extraordinary bricklayer, a Maestro de Obra named Bacallao. During one of the meetings that took place daily at the construction site, Bacallao told me that in Batista’s time the architects arrived in the morning at the workplace all dressed in white and, keeping away from the construction site to avoid getting dusty, they transferred orders on what to do. In this description by we marvelled at the fact that we were in the construction site together with him to face and discuss how to solve the different problems.
 In this construction site the carpenters did an extraordinary job, they had considerable experience. Bacallao was fantastic, he could read the drawings and he managed the construction site in an impeccable way. We faced and solved problems and needs that the yard inevitably posed on a daily basis. One morning, for example, arriving at the construction site, I realised the impact that the building would have as a result of its total mono-materiality. I was “scared” by this effect. My eye fell on an old bathtub, inside which there were pieces of 10x10 tiles, then I said to Bacallao: we will cover the wedges between the ribs of the bovedas covering the Ballet and Choreography Theatre classrooms with the tiles. The yard also lived on decisions made directly on site. 
 Also keep in mind that the mason teams assigned to each construction site were independent. However the experience between the groups of masons engaged in the different activities circulated, flowed. There was a constant confrontation. For the workers the involvement was total, they were building for their children. A worker who told me: I’m building the school where my son will come to study. Ricardo Porro was responsible for the whole project, he was a very cultured man. 
 In the start-up phase of the project he took us to Trinidad, the old Spanish capital. He wanted to show us the roots of Cuban architectural culture. On this journey I was struck by the solution of fan windows, by the use of verandas, all passive devices which were entrusted with the control and optimisation of the comfort of the rooms. 
 Porro accompanied us to those places precisely because he wanted to put the value of tradition at the centre of the discussion, he immersed us in colonial culture.
 
 L.A. It is to that “mechanism” of self-generation of the project that you have referred to on several occasions?
 V.G. Yes, just that. When I design, I certainly draw from that stratified “grammar of memory”, to quote Luciano Semerani, which lives within me. The project generates itself, is born and then begins to live a life of its own. A writer traces the profile and character of his characters, who gradually come to life with a life of their own. In the same way the creative process in architecture is self-generated. 
 
 L.A. Some problems were solved directly on site, dialoguing with the workers.
 V.G. He went just like that. Many decisions were made on site as construction progressed. Design and construction proceeded contextually. The dialogue with the workers was fundamental.
 The creative act was self-generated and lived a life of its own, we did nothing but “accompany” a process. The construction site had a speed of execution that required the same planning speed. In the evening we worked to solve problems that the construction site posed. The drawings “aged” rapidly with respect to the speed of decisions and the progress of the work. The incredible thing about this experience is that three architects with different backgrounds come to a “unitary” project. All this was possible because we used the same materials, the same construction technique, but even more so because there was a similar interpretation of the place and its possibilities.
 
 L.A. The project of the Music School also included the construction of 96 cubicles, individual study rooms, a theatre for symphonic music and one for chamber music and Italian opera. You “articulated” the 96 cubicles along a 360-metre-long path that unfolds in the landscape providing a “dynamic” view to those who cross it. A choice consistent with the vision of the School as an open place integrated with the environment.
 V.G. The “Gusano” is a volume that follows the orography of the terrain. It was a common sense choice. By following the level lines I avoided digging and of course I quickly realized what was needed by distributing the volumes horizontally.
 Disarticulation allows the changing vision of the landscape, which changes continuously according to the movement of the user. The movements do not take place along an axis, they follow a sinuous route, a connecting path between trees and nature. The cubicles lined up along the Gusano are individual study rooms above which there are the collective test rooms. On the back of the Gusano, in the highest part of the land, I placed the theatre for symphonic music, the one for chamber music, the library, the conference rooms, the choir and administration.
 
 L.A. In 1962 the construction site stopped.
 V.G. In 1962 Cuba fell into a serious political and economic crisis, which is what caused the slowdown and then the abandonment of the school site. Cuba was at “war” and the country’s resources were directed towards other needs. In this affair, the architect Quintana, one of the most powerful officials in Cuba, who had always expressed his opposition to the project, contributed to the decision to suspend the construction of the schools. 
 Here is an extract from a writing by Sergio Baroni, which I consider clarifying: «The denial of the Art Schools represented the consolidation of the new Cuban technocratic regime. The designers were accused of aristocracy and individualism and the rest of the technicians who collaborated on the project were transferred to other positions by the Ministry of Construction [...]. It was a serious mistake which one realises now, when it became evident that, with the Schools, a process of renewal of Cuban architecture was interrupted, which, with difficulty, had advanced from the years preceding the revolution and which they had extraordinarily accelerated and anchored to the new social project. On the other hand, and understandably, the adoption of easy pseudo-rationalist procedures prevailed to deal with the enormous demand for projects and constructions with the minimum of resources» (Baroni 1992).
 
 L.A. You also experienced dramatic moments in Cuba. I’m referring in particular to the insane accusation of being a CIA spy and your arrest.
 V.G. I wasn’t the only one arrested. The first was Jean Pierre Garnier, who remained in prison for seven days on charges of espionage. This was not a crazy accusation but one of the CIA’s plans to scare foreign technicians into leaving Cuba. Six months after Garnier, it was Heberto Padilla’s turn, an intellectual, who remained in prison for 15 days. After 6 months, it was my turn. I was arrested while leaving the Ministry of Construction, inside the bag I had the plans of the port. I told Corrieri, Baroni and Wanda not to notify the Italian Embassy, everything would be cleared up.
 
 L.A. Dear Vittorio, I thank you for the willingness and generosity with which you shared your human and professional experience.
 I am sure that many young students will find your “story” of great interest.
 V.G. At the end of our dialogue, I would like to remember my teacher: Ernesto Nathan Rogers. I’ll tell you an anecdote: in 1956 I was working on the graphics for the Castello Sforzesco Museum set up by the BBPR. Leaving the museum with Rogers, in the Rocchetta courtyard the master stopped and gives me a questioning look. Looking at the Filarete tower, he told me: we have the task of designing a skyscraper in the centre. Usually skyscrapers going up they shrink. Instead this tower has a protruding crown, maybe we too could finish our skyscraper so what do you think? I replied: beautiful! Later I thought that what Rogers evoked was a distinctive feature of our city. The characters of the cities and the masters who have consolidated them are to be respected. If there is no awareness of dialectical continuity, the city loses and gets lost. It is necessary to reconstruct the figure of the architect artist who has full awareness of his role in society.
 The work of architecture cannot be the result of a pure stylistic and functional choice, it must be the result of a method that takes various and multiple factors into analysis. In Cuba, for example, the musical tradition, the painting of Wilfredo Lam, whose pictorial lines are recognisable in the floor plan of the Ballet School, the literature of Lezama Lima and Alejo Carpentier and above all the Cuban Revolution were fundamental. We theorised this “total” method together with Ricardo Porro, remembering the lecture by Ernesto Nathan Rogers.