Rosa Granda: “I like poems to dialogue with other authors and other ways of saying”

As an epigraph, a quote attributed to Dziga Vertov: “Our eyes, moving like propellers, set off towards the future in the flight of hypotheses “. The allusion to the Soviet filmmaker, director of that masterpiece entitled “The man with the camera”, it is used by the Peruvian Rosa Granda (Lima, 1983) to assemble “A yellow sound”, a bold and kinetic collection of poems that shoots in different directions, just like the free chaining of the frames of an avant-garde film.

Based on the scrupulous design of the publishing house Álbum del Universo Bakterial, Granda’s book is presented as a “montage in 21 notes”, which although it is reinforced by various artistic references (from the music of Olivier Messiaen to the painting of José de Ribera), finds in the interstices of poetic language the opportunity to consolidate a suggestive and hypnotic voice.

I would like to start with the title: “A yellow sound” is an allusion to synesthesia or a merely poetic choice?

That title is in one of the poems and appears with the editorial work already well advanced. It does have a lot to do with the synesthesia you mention, and it also functions as a small clue, along with the poetic montage, alluding to what I had read, to the artists who are linked throughout the text and who made reference to to yellow color.

Let’s talk about those references, which are various, cinematographic, musical, pictorial, and which seem like a kind of dialogue with other creators. Was your inclusion fully conscious?

Yes, it was something planned from the beginning. Relating the book directly to the idea of ​​the montage was a proposal that I had commented to Arturo Higa [editor del Álbum de Universo Bakterial] precisely because I noticed avant-garde Soviet cinema. It was a proposal that helped me to structure the poems and that allowed me to use those images. And to this was added the materiality: make the hole in the cover, create this image that comes off, and that everything in some way supports visually. Because in the verbal sphere it is a bit “off-centered”, but it is created in this way so that the reader can follow the route set out in this cinema with his gaze. When the images appear, you have to put them together, you have to give it in some way this syntax that in the text appears more consolidated with the visual elements.

Interestingly, there are not many references to poets. Who do you read lately or in any case, who do you return to more frequently?

It’s true, the clearest references in the book are from visual artists. Regarding poetry, I like to read Antonin Artaud a lot, whom I knew from his essays but I ended up reading his poetry a lot more. I like to read Peruvians from the 60s or 70s a lot. Lucho Hernández, “Contra natura” by Rodolfo Hinostroza, Enrique Verástegui. And well, the Vallejo of “Trilce” is inexhaustible. But in general I usually read more essays. For this book I read Goethe’s “Theory of Colors”, which helped me a lot precisely because of how he describes colors, and I also read Klimt’s diaries. I usually go for the essay and then I move on to poetry.

How was the work specifically done with the Bakterial Universe Album? Did the design intervene what was already written? Or vice versa?

When the text was already constructed, Arturo’s reading discovers that transit that I was commenting on and the moments of exploration. Most of the poems go hand in hand with the visual arts. So, for example, the geometric shapes with which the book begins are taken from the poem that alludes to José de Ribera and the painting of the compass. From there the point begins, then the lines, and they begin to disintegrate throughout the text. These volumes are created that graph the poems from materiality, and that are a way of traversing the space through the gaze of the reader. A stability that is offered in contrast to verbal language that, at a first reading, may seem “off-centered”, as I was saying, but that is actually handled with the parameters proposed by this avant-garde Russian cinema, a montage that it is reinterpreted in language, in the poetic.

Your previous collection of poems, “Torschlusspanik”, seemed to be built with a current of the subconscious. This gives the impression of being more content. Or is it just an impression of me?

I would say that several elements of modernity are taken. I see it that way because it has that forward look, that search, related to the modern philosophy that as it searches, it builds its truth. And it’s funny how that is also linked to cinema, because in the end you end up reconstructing with pieces and images the story that your head tells you. I also stick with a comment made by Mirko Lauer, who said it was a return to the neo-baroque. In any case, it would be a postmodern baroque, because there is an overflow in the verbal and visual limits, and a heterogeneity. Compared to “Torschlusspanik”, where everything was more oriented to the unconscious, “A yellow sound” opens up much more to spaces, and in various ways, be they geometric or discursive.

Is your writing process meticulous, detailed? How do you get to the final version of a poem?

Yes, I am quite rigorous in the reviews. Between the first collection of poems and the second I spent almost five years working on a text. Not even thinking of publishing it, because it was distanced from everything that is the editorial process. But I did go over it quite carefully. The year of the pandemic helped me to organize these writings. And with Arturo Higa we will have taken about four months between the editions and the conversations. We worked on a shared screen, which he told me was not so usual, because we needed to talk about the design, and the reading that he did and my visual proposal had to harmonize from the first moment. Fortunately, it was quite easy to work with him. But yes, it is very difficult for me to write a poem in one sitting. I need to do a lot of revisions.

The use of other languages ​​catches my attention, usually in references. Why the decision to keep them in their original language in the poem?

I like that the poems dialogue, not only with other authors, but also with other ways of saying. Language offers you that contingency, the fact that there are more possibilities to say. So proposing it in the poem is the way I have to transmit it. The search, which is related to what I was telling you about modern thinking. Attend to what is enclosed with other logics. It is also a way for the reader to attend to himself again, not with a look, but by superimposing this look. And that can favor movement simply by how you hear it in your head.

I know you have worked in fashion photography and styling. Prejudiced, one might think that nothing could be further from fashion than poetry. How do you link it?

It’s funny that you mention it because I just dropped out of Literature because I felt that I lacked more visual support. And I leaned towards photography, a career that I had certainly idealized. When I arrived I realized that it was all technical. I have worked with models, in productions, and it is a job that can be banal or superficial, but deep down there is also a prejudice, as you say. It helps me a lot because when you do the design and composition of a production, you not only have to manage the color palette for the costumes, but in general it influences a lot because it is a purely visual work. All of that helps to enrich you. I am not an academic, I am mostly self-taught, and taking those little situations helps me a lot. Everything related to fashion is usually divorced from writing, but in my case it has gone hand in hand.

Author: Rosa Granda Valderrama

Pages: 64

Publisher: Album of the Bacterial Universe

The book can be purchased at the Inestable, El Virrey, Sur, Scene Libre, La Rebelde, La Pajarera and Buensalvaje bookstores.

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