FRANCISCO ARAGÓN’S PUERTA DEL SOL AS A POST-QUEER RESPONSE TO FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA’S POETA EN NUEVA YORKJana F. Gutiérrez, Auburn University

2013 NYC: Haciendo Caminos: Mapping the Futures of U.S. Latina/o Literatures

Side X Side

Poeta en Nueva York(Lorca)

Puerta del sol (Aragón)

2 editions simultaneously published posthumously in 1940 bilingual The Poet in New York

and other poems (Norton) Translations by Rolfe Humphries Spanish edition published by

Séneca

completed 1935-36 and based on author’s time in North America, 1929-30 (9 months)

Lorca was 32 during composition and 38 at publication

Bilingual Press, 2005 English poems self-translated

into Spanish & an “elaboration” of Rubén Darío’s “Lo fatal”

Author’s note, 2004 Managua is Madrid. Thesis for

MFA, Notre Dame, 2003 Genesis = decade-long residence

in Madrid as an undergraduate and post-graduate

Poems composed in Aragón’s mid-20’s to age of 32 though not published as collection until a decade later

Three-part structure

Poeta en Nueva York(Lorca)

Puerta del sol (Aragón)

New York City Rural Vermont Havana, Cuba Overall, a hostile abroad

experience with small interludes of peace

Truly pleasant only when back to the Spanish-speaking world (Cuba)

Madrid Other Spanish cities United States (west coast) Overall, a positive abroad

experience with momentary flashes of pain

Most pleasant when fully immersed in Spanish-speaking world (Spain)

Queriendo (deseando) lo queero

xx

xx

Searching for definition > Self-definition

xx x

“‘Latino’ and ‘queer’ as sites of translation” ~María Amelia Viteri

“The imagined gay ‘Latino’ community identity is strongly racialized, genderized and marked by class particularly when migration and sexual identity converge. “‘Queer’ fits uneasily in these narratives. That is to say, there’s no room for ‘queer’ when race, ethnicity, class and sexuality converge and intersect” (83)

“‘Latino’ and ‘queer’ as sites of translation” ~María Amelia Viteri

“I believe we are finally analyzing these lines as not only blurred but constantly subject to change and re-signification without the illusory character of distinct and monolithic entities that occur in what has been traditionally conceptualized as ‘fixed’ spaces” (83).

HOW DO WE TRANSLATE THIS “LANGUAGE OF BELONGING” IN POETIC TERMS?

Points of Intersection

The writer’s relationship to a “foreign” world (the stranger in a strange land)

Language choice Spanish / English Word choice

The hero’s urban journey Intertextual footprints The poetic hero

Outsider / Insider

Points of diversion

Establishing otherness Writer “Latino” “Homosexual”

Negotiating the city as a queer hero (queero)

Language as a tool of belonging Spanish / English Literary / Everyday

Aragón’s SLOW process of embracing his status as/through lo queero

The Wind Shifts 2000-2007

Interview 10/17/2012

“On the contrary, one of the arguments I would like to make is that the field of Latino poetry ,where subject matter and aesthetics are concerned, has widened. And yet, I make this statement in full recognition that the principal lineage of this poetry is one that emerged from the social, political, and familial.” (3)

“We’re beginning to take consciousness of ourselves as a group.”

(Lorca) “A lot of Gay Latino writers in the U.S., we claim him.”

“an area of research that’s just ripe for being explored is this phenomenon of the Gay Latino writer”

“no one’s written criticism about it in a systematic way”

Glow of Our Sweat 2009-2010

“Flyer, Closet, Poem” 45-55 Creative essay + poetry + translation

(Post)Queer-Latino?/¡Quiero conversar queero!

David Ruffalo, 2009

Harold Augenbraum

to Ilan Stavans, 2006

The post- of the title is interruptive, anticipatory

The post-queering of queer shifts all the cornerstones, shapes a new ontology

Latinos have their place at the table, and the literature has begun to reflect the new age, a sort ofpost-Latino consciousness.

Conclusion

Reader identification with queeros [Queer Latino (reading) heroes] allows universalizing co-construction