Striped Sylvia by Natalie d'Arbeloff. “I hope it captures her (Libedinsky's) enquiring, observant, mischievous, funny and melancholy spirit. I'm pleased with its icon-like character, enhanced by the bas-relief and the gold I rubbed on some of the stripes.” (Natalie d’Arbeloff 2014)
Since she was a child, Libedinsky has enjoyed playing with words, turning them upside down, creating puns and twisting their meaning for comment, irony, causing disquiet and above all for fun! For Libedinsky, language is also an art of sounds, rhyme and many layers of meaning that provokes, challenges and explores on many levels. This anthology of 105 poems touch on politics: the Panama Papers, assassinations, corruption, Spain, separatism, Brexit, Trump to the way to Climate Change. Some of the works are intensely personal, others are observations, some play on nonsense verse, but there is always a playfulness, a mischievousness , plenty of satire, irony and lots of humour.
Poems from SOBRETODO- Poem 14 and 15.
Although Sylvia Libedinsky was trained as an architect, she has experimented with all forms of the arts, branching out into painting, satirical strip cartoons, furniture and the creation of 3D quirky objects, many created out of paper. (see https://www.latinolife.co.uk/articles/sylvia-libedinsky-artist-absurd) Now she has turned her hand to the art of words.
This book of poems. SOBRETODO was written in Spanish and it is probably true to say they are un-translatable! The obvious meaning is only one aspect of the work, the beat, combined with the rhyme and the sounds, in themselves suggest other layers that are so complex as to make a translation likely to be too limited, we would need multiple translations to get the total mix!
As she herself describes: -
“Once, my cousin, who is always ‘in the know’ on Argentine politics, sent me a newspaper cutting about a lecture given by Laclau, the renowned theorist of POPULISM. What he was saying was so incomprehensible that its association with ‘populism’ was very funny! This contradiction led me to write poem n°6: “SIGNIFICANTE VACÍO” - (meaningful vacuum) which circulated among my friends who shared the humour. Other writings followed: about Argentine politics in particular, during the Kirchner era, as there was plenty of material to choose from that lent itself to irony. Although my writings don’t delve deeply into each subject, for me that’s a good thing. They’re ‘tongue-in-cheek’ summaries that express a rhyming opinion… (I’ve been told that you only need to set them to music!).”
Libedinsky in her London apartment
The opening poem “CHICHENITZA” is under the heading “In the depths of an Identity Crisis”, one of 14 that include “A Screenwriter proposes ideas to a producer” and “While Argentina experiments with new philosophies”.
“An idea that I have experimented with a few times with the verses, was to reveal the scandals and the things that were happening in Argentina, unusual things… but not to just talk about them, that this or that happened … but [for instance] a screenwriter goes to see a producer and tells him a fictional story, only it’s not fiction, it’s really happening… but the producer says: “NO, that could never happen, it’s totally absurd!” and rejects it.”
There is no beating about the bush with Libedinsky, she confesses that with ‘Chichentitza’ the name of the Mayan city, there is [for her] a family connection: - “This relates to my own surname and is very personal to me. It turns out that my paternal grandmother’s name was ‘Chichenitsky’, therefore I chose to write about the Mayan capital called Chichenitza” [with its echoes of family genealogy in the pre-Colombian culture].
CHICHENITZA (improvised translation)
…
And from the depths of my unconscious
I thought of my origins
Because my paternal grandmother
A model of prudence
had a similar name
that was Rose Chichenitzky.
This has consequences…”
Demonstration in favour of Alberto Nisman :I AM NISMAN -
Poem N° 20 Deals with the murder of Alberto Nisman on January 18th 2015. Just days before he was found dead, he had accused the then Presdient Cristina Fernández of a cover- up of Iran's role in the bombing of the AMIA Jewish Centre in Buenos Aires where hundreds died. He was murdered the day before he was due to present the evidence he had uncovered during his investigation. Initially, his death was announced as a suicide but eventually the authorities conceded it was murder. Cristina Kirchner is currently the vice- president.
Apart from touching the ‘deeper’ subjects of politics, Brexit or Climate Change, she enjoys creating verses about all kinds of zany situations that arise around her with friends and acquaintances: -
“I have a friend called Ricardo Cinalli (a well-known artist). He has a friend … who’s a very flamboyant Colombian, and she is very into him… everyone falls in love with Ricardo… women as well, although they have no hope! She then introduced him to a girl from Ecuador who also fell madly in love with him. He told me that one day, all hell broke loose [between them] a total ‘zarzuela (operetta). I found it incredibly amusing that the two were fighting over his affections. One day the Ecuadorian girl called him and said: Take note! I’m never going to speak to you again! I shall contact my lawyer because you are saying bad things about me and … what not! So, Ricardo told me about it and I felt it was so comical and absurd… pure Almodóvar, that I couldn’t resist writing it up in verse. He was also amused but told me never to tell anyone, but I said it was too hilarious[ to ignore] so I changed it so that it wasn’t so obvious and called the poem the’ Three Divos (Los Tres Divos)… he is definitely a Divo , and so are the Colombian and the Ecuadorian... maybe I should ask permission?... Think of Gary Larsson. An amazing genius. I once read how he wrote his texts. He will change a word over and over again till he finds the right one… everyone wants to do that but while some can make it funny, others cannot!”
Paper audience- paper sculptures.
A long- time admirer of the Spanish Golden Age playwright Calderón de la Barca, she admires the twisted turns of phrase that he uses (which were probably how they spoke at the time), but from our standpoint, she feels it adds another dimension. Adding this to the fact that she is acutely aware of the qualities of the actual ‘sounds’, she confesses that she has been teased that her songs are perfect for rapping.
“Sounds are powerful, for example, if you listen to Gregorian chant, whether you like it or not… [your blood pressure goes down] … and certain lullabies have a somniferous effect, sounds that can put you in a trance or make you go to sleep. Neruda is an example, there is the repetition, the rhyme with the rhythm.”
There is also the 'visual' impact of this book of poems. Like some constructivists before her, the layout of the words is deliberately varied, creating patterns on the page that add yet another layer: When writing about the Catalan Separatist movement, the column of words is ruptured, broken, in image not only in words.
Poems 46 and 47.
“I swapped my sarcastic style for a more realistic and committed one, always in rhyme & rhythm, which seemed to be the form of expression that allowed me to synthesize facts and justify the liberties I was taking, and still take. So, I went on to address other issues. Argentina has no monopoly on corruption and I found inspiration in the current affairs of Spain, like the scandals around the Royal family and the Catalan separatists. Tax havens and Facebook were also good material, as were the Brexit discussions that I am witnessing daily in the UK. I have recently focussed my attention on more global matters such as climate change, the advent of robots and ecology… as well as on my own impressions, stories and personal fears… I have to clarify that the rhyming writings synthesize the facts and so don’t lend themselves to ambiguities or deep analysis, but, for better or worse, they’re suitable to rapping. I also have a confession to make beyond these reasonings: I have become addicted to this form of writing, probably even of thinking!”
Sylvia Libedinsky
Sylvia Libedinksy has a blog (viceverso123.com).
SOBRETODO, the book, can be purchased through her website: libedinsky.com
where there also are numerous recordings of the poems by the author herself.
