In a rare act of spontaneity, I decided to crash a poetry reading at Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco. And, wholly on accident, I stumbled upon a showcase of a collection of poems by the Spanish paranoid schizophrenic Leopoldo MarÃa Panero titled “My Naked Brain,” recently translated by Arturo Mantecón.
Poetry has always been the go-to medium for describing emotions and concepts that otherwise leaves a per- son speechless, like love and beauty and even God. To some, poems can seem like a series of unrelated phrases taking the reader down a convoluted detour to a dead-end of shrouded meaning. However, it is my belief that a really good poem is the purest form of language.
Panero’s style of poetry is a good example. His distinct style is an em- bodiment of the insanity distorting his view of the world. Or perhaps it allows him to cut through the illu– sions society has created and see the true nature of life.
In his poem “Serenity,” Panero’s descriptions are anything but serene.
Serenity
There are only two things: my disfigured face and the hard- ness of rock. Consciousness only lights up when confronted with Being; and so it is that all knowledge and the matrix of all forms is the wound, and only that which weeps is im– mortal. And the night, mother of wisdom, has the neverending form of weep- ing.
In the first two lines of the poem he asks, “What is real?” And his answer is only the memories of pain immortalized on his scarred face and the uncompromising hard realities of life.
It is that kind of absolute truth that is often sought by aspiring po– ets. It is when someone can discover the authenticity of his or her own life they can write in the purest form of language, as Leopoldo Panero has.
