Alone in Galicia: Dinner With Poets
It cheers me up, seeing words as instruments of harmony and community rather than fear and hatred. In the current ugliness words have been perverted, but tonight they were redeemed.
L-R: The poets Pilar Pallares, Mary Jo Bang, and Yolanda Castaños.
13 May 2019
The start of my third week in Spain. My plan was to go to the library, download today’s Game of Thrones (out of a vague hope that it will recover after the recent fiascos), watch it back in the flat, then figure out how to get to Agora Centre for the poetry reading. I was about to take a shower when the doorbell rang—someone was delivering the new wi-fi router. I’d never connected a router before, but subhumans all over the world can do it. Had the wi-fi and smart TV working in a few minutes. I am back in the 21st century.
Lunch at La Bombilla. Tapas for 1 euro! It’s always packed at night, but I got a table at 1pm.
Back to the flat to get updates on the election back home. As expected no one from the opposition won, though I do not discount the possibility that no cheating was needed. Between the general stupidity and the opposition’s lack of resourcess the campaign was doomed. Then I studied the bus routes. It seemed easy enough, but I never underestimate my ability to get lost. Then a lightbulb moment: I asked Yolanda where she was, and it turned out she was meeting the poets at a café in the park near the Obelisco, a five-minute walk from the flat. (Of course I still overshot the mark and had to double back.)
At 7pm I was at the Copacabana terrace to meet Y and her guests, the Galician poet and translator Pilar Pallares, and the American Mary Jo Bang. Pallares is a handsome woman with a serious demeanor, much loved in Galicia, whose public appearances are rare. She had polio as a child and walks with crutches, and in recent years her health has not bee good. As she doesn’t speak English and I am too embarrassed to muddle through in Spanish, our conversation was limited to showing each other pictures of our cats. She has eight cats at home, and also takes care of a colony of cats nearby.
Bang is a Creative Writing professor in Missouri, and she spoke highly of her former students, Larry Ypil and Allan Popa. She is neat, with small, bird-like bones and a youthful demeanor. We shared our bewilderment at how both of our countries have been consumed by hatred and fear, and how those men could not only be elected but actually remain popular.
We proceeded to the Agora Centre, which according to Yolanda was built in a working class neighborhood as a social, cultural and civic centre. The architecture is interesting, like origami out of corrugated cardboard, and it has exhibition spaces, a big library, and meeting halls. Y’s event, Poetas Di(n)versos, was held in the auditorium. It was well attended, but more importantly the audience hung on the speakers’ every word. This was not a group of people supporting their friends as warm bodies, they were there for the poetry. It cheers me up, seeing words as instruments of harmony and community rather than fear and hatred. In the current ugliness words have been perverted to manipulate populations, but tonight they were redeemed.
On the way to dinner Mary Jo told us about her lung condition, a type that is usually fatal. Doctors had no idea how to treat her. She’s been in and out of hospitals this past year, finally lucking out when she visited the hospital in Denver which has the best lung experts in the world. Essentially she has incurable consumption but despite her fragile state she has willed herself to travel to Barcelona and La Coruña for a book tour. Writing, I think, has kept her alive.
The city was treating us to dinner. We arrived at Da Penela, a traditional Galician restaurant on Maria Pita Square, and after much discussion (I am always amazed at how long it takes people to order a meal, but then I am no foodie) we ordered tortilla, asparagus, scallops, red wine, and veal so tender you cut it with a spoon. Y had a talk in Santiago the next day so I volunteered to have lunch with Mary Jo and take her for a walk before her flight to Barcelona.
I should stop putting Felicity on as my bedtime silence-blocker. It’s very juvenile, predictable, and often corny, but it actually keeps me from falling asleep immediately.
To be continued