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Being: word and time

This week, Miren Estruch Santamaría, student of Degree in Literature and Creative Writing (LEC), introduces us to one of the great poets of the twentieth century: Octavio Paz. Miren introduces us to his thought and sample the conception that this great writer had of poetry. But this is not all: our student shares with us a suggestive reflection on her own vision of this art inspired by the Mexican poet.

André Pieyre de Mandiargues and Octavio Paz in Venice, ca. 1959. file Mandiargues. Contributed by Alain-Paul Mallard

"The poet does not choose his words. When it is said that a poet searches for his language, it does not mean that he wanders through libraries or markets collecting old and new turns of phrase, but that, undecided, he hesitates between the words that really belong to him, that are in him from the beginning, and the others learned in books or in the street. When a poet finds his word, he recognizes it: it was already in him. And he was already in it. The poet's word is confused with his very being. He is his word. At the moment of creation, the most secret part of ourselves comes to consciousness. Creation consists in bringing to light certain words inseparable from our being. Those and not others. The poem is made of necessary and irreplaceable words. That is why it is so difficult to correct a work already made. Any correction implies a re-creation, a retracing of our steps, back into ourselves. The impossibility of poetic translation also depends on this circumstance. Each word of the poem is unique. There are no synonyms. Unique and immovable: impossible to wound a word without wounding the whole poem; impossible to change a comma without upsetting the whole edifice. The poem is a living totality, made of irreplaceable elements." "The bow and the lyre" by Octavio Paz, 1956.

Who are you?

I have always believed that it is difficult to define oneself, it is difficult to give oneself an identity and explain it. Maybe you define yourself by adjectives or by actions, but could a solution be to define yourself with poetry? Even if it is more complex, poetry should be the closest thing to the reality of who we are.

The excerpt on the poet and the word by Octavio Paz can be interpreted in many ways and, of course, all valid. Each opinion takes a different path, as the author's opinion suggests different ideas in each of us. In my case, I reflect on Octavio Paz's words by going down the path of identity because, as he says, if "he is his word", he is word. So, we are words, words with our own meanings. The skill of transforming everyday language into poetic is the only thing that allows this to be true. That is, to empty the word of its meaning and fill it with another meaning. If we could not endow words with the meanings we carry within us, that reflect our feelings, we could not be words.

The word is, in essence, what makes up both poetry and any text, be it a essay or a article. Creation, be it subject , is an act of revelation to oneself, a moment in which "the most secret part of ourselves comes to consciousness. Creation consists in bringing to light certain words that are inseparable from our being. Those and not others." In poetry the approach is in the word: not just any word will do, not just any word can transmit what your mind configures as you write, because something in you, that dense air that snakes through your body, is always looking for the right word and when it finds it you shape it. Without this being a poem, I meeting feeling the air, moving with it to write these words, in order to get a reflection on something I did not know I thought, but thanks to the word I discover it. Therefore, it is not only poetry that searches for the exact word. Since one is a word, the search is constant, no matter what is written, no matter what is said.

Focusing on the latter, I can link to the last part of Octavio Paz's reflection in which he argues that it is difficult to correct a work that has been done, because it involves re-creationIt is true, all correction means change, but it is necessary. True, all correction means change, but it is necessary. Creation entails a destructiondestruction of previous thoughts and concepts, of what we were. We were in the past tense, because even if we want to ignore time, we are time. We, the words, are time. Time is intrinsic to everything we know, beginning and ending with us.

Being is the search for the word and in turn is the word. The poem is a living construction because it is composed by the set of words that compose the poet at the moment he writes, it is composed by him. So, if the poem is him, he is the only one who can destroy a whole word in search of a new one, the one that best defines him 'now'.

So, should we answer 'who are you', or should we grant a question of such magnitude a lifetime to be able to give an absolute answer, close to your reality? Perhaps the best option is to search in the interludes of our time for the set of words that best defines us, accepting that with each passing second, that construction collapses into itself without being aware of it, because we are only able to perceive it by allowing time to pass, for us to pass.

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