OCTAVIOPAZ
605
journey was the idea of progress, our polar star. For some years now, this
star has been growing dimmer, and the present has been inheriting its
brightness. But our present is a weightless thing: it floats along, it does
not rise, it moves but makes no headway.
It
thinks it is going everywhere
but is going nowhere: it has lost its sense of direction. The ends evapo–
rate, and in compensation the mean increase. Our present is a time that
has no north to guide it. The expansion of the present, in the domain of
literary tradition, manifests itself in the trend toward instantaneous com–
munication. Endurance, that attribute of perfection, yields its place to
quick consumption. The past and future vanish, and the present intensifies
into a single instant: the three times are exhaled in one breath. The in–
stant explodes and dissipates.
Poets have been the memory of their peoples. Homer sang of the
deeds of a heroic age and told of what took place many years before:
For him, the future did not exist; he lived in a static society whose eyes
were focused on a past that was the model and source of the present.
Later, the Greek poets were inspired by Homer, the Romans by the
Greeks, Catullus followed the Alexandrians, Virgil guided Dante in his
wanderings through Hell, Petrarch was the model for European poets,
and so on down to our own day. Each poet is an undulation on the
river of tradition, a moment of language. At times poets deny their
tradition, but deny it only to invent another. The phenomenon is peri–
odic, and has intensified in the modern era. From Romanticism to
Surrealism, each poetic movement re-created its tradition. The Surrealists
made lists of poets that were a parody both of the Last Judgment and of
the final examination for a bachelor's degree. Each poet on the list was
given a grade alongside his name: Baudelaire 8, Rimbaud 9 and
112,
Lautreamont 10 (summa cum laude), Apollinaire 7, Claudel-5, Valery 1,
Apuleius 6, Virgil 0, Dante 8, Sade 10 (with honors), and so on. Most
poets choose their ancestors: Eliot chose the Metaphysical Poets and
Laforgue; Pound chose Cavalcanti and Li Po; Neruda chose Whitman;
Borges chose another Whitman, not Neruda's; and Whitman chose an
anonymous poet named Walt, a cosmos, and a borough of New York
City. The invention of the past is a projection into the future. Every
poet wishes to be read in the future, and in a profounder and more gen–
erous way than in his own time.
It
is not a thirst for fame; it is a thirst
for life. The poet knows that he is simply a link in a chain, a bridge be–
tween yesterday and tomorrow. But suddenly, as this century draws to an
end, he discovers that the bridge is suspended between two abysses: that
past that is retreating in the distance, and the future that is crumbling.
The poet feels lost in time.
Poetic forms are essential in poetry, because they are our recourse
against death and the attrition of the years. Form is made to last. At
