[Poetry Chaikhana] Juan Ramon Jimenez - I Am Not I

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I Am Not I By Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881 - 1958) English version by Robert Bly             I am not I.                               I am this one walking beside me whom I do not see, whom at times I manage to visit, and whom at other times I forget; the one who remains silent while I talk, the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate, the one who takes a walk when I am indoors, the one who will remain standing when I die.   -- from The Winged Energy of Delight, Translated by Robert Bly Amazon.com / Photo by Marco Raaphorst /

============ Thought for the Day: All objects, all people that tug at your desire: unzip them. See what tumbles out. ============

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Hi Omss -

I'm running a bit late this morning...

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Juan Ramon Jimenez was the son of a banker. He grew up in Moguer, a beautiful region of Spain that deeply imprinted itself on the poet. Jimenez studied painting at the University of Seville before abandoning his schoolwork to dedicate himself completely to writing.

In the early 1900s, Jimenez composed several collections of poetry, and he also translated the work of Hindu poet Rabindranath Tagore into Spanish (with Zenobia Camprubi, who later became his wife). Later in his career he also became an influential literary critic. (Despite his great poetic work, in the US Jimenez first gained notoriety for his novel Platero y yo/Platero and I.)

When the Spanish Civil War broke out, he was sent by the Republican faction to the US as an honorary cultural attache. When the fascist forces under Franco took control of Spain, Jimenez and his wife became exiles and settled in Puerto Rico and Cuba.

Themes of nature, depths, immensity, death, darkness, secret life, and transcendence appear in many of his poems. The spirituality reflected in his poetry is deeply personal, mystical, and transformative.

In 1956, Juan Ramon Jimenez was awarded the Nobel Prize. He died two years later in Puerto Rico.

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Now there is no mistaking this as a mystic's poem...

I am not I.
I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see

How can "I" not be "I"? And who is this invisible companion whom I really am? Can there be two of me?

Well -- yes. And no. It is not really that there are two selves, but there is a real self, and an illusory self. The illusory self is the self we present to the world, our social self, our seeming self. It is the mask we wear. But we forget that there is a face hidden behind that mask, our real self...

the one who will remain standing when I die.

...our eternal self.


Letting my mask drop to send a warm smile :-) Have a beautiful weekend!

Ivan

 

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