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 Entertainment | Books | March 2006 
Mexican Poet Spent 27 Years Composing Book-Length Work
 David Gaddis Smith - Union-Tribune
| | Gloria Gervitz is a lifelong resident of Mexico City, where she was born in 1943. A recipient of fellowships in poetry from the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes for 1993 and 1997 to 2002, she has been publishing her poetry since 1979. |
After 27 years, Gloria Gervitz's poem is finished.
And an audience of more than 60 people at the University of San Diego got to hear the final product last week.
Asked how she felt about finishing the poem, Gervitz replied, “I feel great!” and said she was looking forward to her next project.
The book-length poem, “Migrations / Migraciones,” has been published by Junction Press in San Diego. The poem, in Spanish, is more than 60 pages. Each verse is translated into English on the opposite page.
Gervitz, 63, lives in Mexico City, but she spends a lot of time in San Diego.
Writer Marjorie Agosín has described Gervitz's voice as “one of the most powerful and original voices of contemporary Jewish Latin American literature.”
Three of Gervitz's grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Russia and Poland, and the fourth was a Catholic from Puebla who converted to Judaism. Gervitz said her grandmother from Puebla would often use Catholic terminology.
Gervitz also said her Catholic nanny used to surreptitiously take her to Mass, “and I loved that.”
In the book's afterword, Gervitz says, “I was simply Mexican and Jewish. There was no contradiction.”
At USD, she said, “During 27 years I was in my poem 'Migraciones,' waiting for it, receiving it in its own time that it imposed on me.”
The poem is divided into seven parts, many of which were published previously. The first is titled “Shaharit” and the seventh “September.”
One fragment of “September” she read at USD's Founders Hall on Wednesday went like this:
here where I feel
tall
indomitable
like a sequoia
like a young mare
fleet
unpredictable
and in full flight
Gervitz and her translator, Mark Schafer, made a whirlwind tour of Southern California last week, conducting readings in Santa Barbara, Irvine and Los Angeles.
Schafer, of Cambridge, Mass., also has translated the novels of Alberto Ruy-Sánchez, who delivered a lecture on the late Mexican poet Octavio Paz at the San Diego Museum of Art on Tuesday.
Ruy-Sánchez, 54, chief editor of the magazine Artes de Mexico, spoke about the many influences on Paz, who won the 1990 Nobel Prize for literature. He said Paz's father was fascinated with Mexican Revolution figure Emiliano Zapata, and Paz's grandfather was fascinated with history.
“Paz passionately wanted to know who the Mexican is,” said Ruy-Sánchez, speaking as part of the Mexican Consulate's “Faces of Mexico” series.
Ruy-Sánchez said Paz's book of penetrating essays, “The Labyrinth of Solitude: Life and Thought in Mexico,” was rejected initially by U.S. publishers because it defied categorization. “It wasn't nonfiction, nor a novel, nor a short story nor a poem,” he said.
Gervitz said Paz was a major influence on her.
“Octavio Paz used to say writing poems is a job or duty, a mystery, a hobby, a sacrament, a profession and a passion,” she said. “I would add that it is also an act of faith. We never know for sure that what is written has value.” |
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