2. Put your junk in that box.

M.A.-in-a-box

Some days (like today) I just want to pack it all in. Throw it in the trunk and pull out of Parking Lot 5 and speed Westward without looking back.

But then, something like Sor Juana's El divino narciso, her unique, theatrical re-interpretation of El cantar de los cantares (Song of Songs) pulls me right back in. I realize that there is no way I can drive or walk away from a world that contains something like this, as transgressive as this 16th century nun was in her description of the beauty of la Virgen....(I'm not even going to apologize for my clumsy translation)

Recien abierta granada Pomegranate newly opened
sus mejillas sonrosea; her cheeks blush;
sus dos labios hermosea her two lips beautiful,
partida cinta rosada a pink ribbon parted in two,
por quien la voz delicada an insult to coral,
haciendo el coral agravio, through whom the delicate voice,
despide el aliento sabio sends forth wise breath
que así a sus claveles toca; that like this touches carnations
leche y miel vierte la boca, her mouth spills milk and honey
panales destila el labio. her lips filtering the honeycomb

I'm so glad I took the Literatura erótica de los siglos de oro my first quarter. San Juan de la Cruz smoothed over any uneasiness about reading such sensuality written by the religious.

AND! So much of Sor Juana prefigures Federico Garcia Lorca! Packing it up would probably mean not learning anything more about FGL. There are so many others I'm not ready to pack away - Borges, Achy Obejas, Roberto Bolaño, Gabriela Vallejo Cervantes, CRG, Delmira Agustini, Cabrera Infante, Galdós...Wow, I haven't even read any Pardo Bazán yet! (shh..don't tell anyone that!) Yes, I'll have to temper my reading of them now with some Theory and some Cultural Studies. If When I manage to get a handle on that. But for now, I think I'll just let literature pull me wherever (whenever) it wants...I hope it always will.