Três épocas

 

Há três épocas na memória,

E ontem mesmo, me parece, uma delas

Ocorreu.*

* Minha tradução de:

There are three epochs in the memory,

And only yesterday, it seems, the first

Ocorred. – translation by D.M. Thomas 

(Anna Akhmatova Selected Poems – Vintage Books, 2009 - "The Sixth", 78) 

Amor a todas elas

Dos jardins que poderia fazer crescer, se esquece às vezes.

Ressuscitada do avesso. Avariada. Não se podia consumir sempre.

E pausa para fazer nada. A mulher.

A dieta dos deuses é sustentá-las e desvirtuando o espaço.

Medidas de uma erosão.

O espírito de um fóton sem tempo -- volva tempo. Volta, amor.

Seus dedos esticam junto com a luz

depois que já passou.

A dedicatória de todo um mito esquecido

a elas. Fica, por favor. Em uma foto.

de K. Alves G.

O valor da voz

Cuida do

T Tempo

A velha abre a boca --

Calem-se todos: É

Um sopro sem ouro. Dura pesada

Para o sempre.

Um entre-mundos.

de Karinna Alves Gulias

On the judgement of loopholes

There has been a time when we spent our free time in our bedrooms together with our journals, writing and thinking about the meaning of life in quiet, comfortable boredom. When we experienced our subjectivity to great extent, explored in its highest form either from reading poetry and its ambiguities or from not understanding something.

Loopholes. Let’s read this word without its pejorative meaning. Rethink it. What does it mean? A hole though which we may see light coming in and that permits eyes to observe. An ambiguity or omission that allows for escaping something. Could it be the unquestionable objectivity we are escaping from? Our rational thoughts? Or reality as we know?

Loopholes. What can someone NOT say and consequently make us feel it is about us, always? The silence of subjectivity. Always present. Loopholes.

Before the advent of internet, when we met ourselves alone, quietly, with a book, we found those moments of subjectivity in the silence of poetic metaphors. Who has ever read a poem and found not themselves there? Always in the silence of the loopholes. I will find I there, in the cracks of the text. From that moment onwards, even though with sane skepticism, I will believe the author knows me better than my mother. Or do I know myself better than my mother?

In the age of online social network, however, the loopholes are in everyday written social interactions. It is very hard, although a superficial window of interaction. What an acquaintance says indirectly on his or her wall, may they know or not, will affect absolutely everyone that reads it. Every single day, when we log in to the written reality of social life and see a  judgemental message thrown onto their wall to no one and, at the same time, to everyone, how many will suffer by finding in it their superficial I being judged? How can I not find myself in it? It is a loophole! It is like asking humans to go against their nature, by avoiding finding their subjectivity while dealing with the unknown.

But what kind of silence do you think we humans should be focusing our selves to reading or listening to? Superficial judgements sent out into the air by acquaintances or deeply thought metaphors from a poem or poetic prose?

We hardly talk to each other anymore, as in debating and exchanging ideas. We now throw superficial ideas, (judgements, stereotypes or citations) and react. Still, our generation and the ones before and after are not equipped to deal with a written reality. And if we can't deal with the ambiguities of written text, without suffering with our subjectivity, how can we deal even further with the ambiguity of reality itself? Now that we can have AI generated videos that easily pass for recordings of facts and phenomena. 

I think this is time for us to rethink our educational system and the way we interact with each other and reality. Interpretation has been and will always be key to human development and personal happiness. And so our understanding of how the silence of words affects our subjectivity and the way it helps us construct our identities.
 
 
by Karinna Alves Gulias
 

The colonizer mindset - The Eurocentric (and North-American centric) view of everything.

I am a woman who was born in Brazil, an extremely social and friendly country, I possess a white skin complexion, even though I'm incredibly mixed, (to my personal pride,) as all of us Brazilians are, which is something that anyone can see just by walking in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, for example. However, only in the decades I have been living as an emigrant/immigrant have I really come to grasp the reality that I lived and live as part of a somewhat privileged group. I say somewhat because I am not living in my motherland anymore, and even though I have skin on the lighter range, I too experience the oppressing airs of the active xenophobia and colonial mentality in Europe. 

 I believe that the biggest mistake of a person, be that a common or clearly erudite one, who comes from a privileged group or powerful "first world" country is to think that racism or xenophobia are ideals that come from an individual perspective. I will give examples of this way of thinking: 

 - I don't think I'm racist. (Therefore, racism is not a thing). 

 - I have black friends. (Therefore, I don't practice racism). 

 Or even more individualist ways of portraying racism: 

 - Racists are evil. (And because I'm not evil, I cannot be racist). 

The biggest problem about conceiving "racism" in the third way mentioned above is that it makes people believe that being racist is an act that does not come from society in general, but from individuals who actively choose to do bad things towards others. When, in reality, racism, sexism, or xenophobia are culturally, socially, and historically built in the foundations and structures of society, especially the oppressor's society.

Everybody practices racism, both the ones who do not belong to the lesser group and the ones who do. Simply because it is a cultural reality, not an individual choice. I am sure most people nowadays do not want to belong to either group: the oppressor or the oppressed. Both groups dehumanize us, but they are a thing and it is here in our daily rituals, without us realizing.

It is hard to hear this, but any interest a person who belongs to the privileged group may have in treating the minority, which means the historically oppressed, groups with kindness or equality, without opening themselves up to accept our play in this non-equal, non-meritocratic reality, will be but superficial generosity. A vertical charity either to fulfill a personal emptiness or an individual conflictive self-image. 

If you want to be seen as good but do not want to venture into losing your romantic ideals of Patria or your properties to include others, who have been dehumanized and violated for centuries, if not millennia, then it means you chose to live a false reality: a capitalist, individualist fairy tale of a supposedly meritocratic reality, built by the oppressors to pretend they live fairly in a fair world.

Karinna A. Gulias

Poetry

 I, too, dislike it.

***Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in
***it, after all, a place for the genuine.

By Marianne Moore 

From the 1967's "The Complete Poems of Marianne Moore"

O acordo do ser menos entre Israel e Palestina

Dentro do pensamento Freireano da vocação do ser humano para o ser mais e a busca da liberdade, Israel e Palestina se deixam pecar. 

Que existe lá uma relação doentia de opressor-oprimido é inquestionável. Seja de que ideologia um seja, negá-la é negar a realidade por uma falsa sensação de segurança e defesa de uma verdade política manca. 

A política de desumanização é castradora, pois só cultiva o ser menos do ser humano. O agente opressor desumaniza o oprimido, para que seus atos não sejam criticados ou julgados de maneira justa, mas ao fazê-lo, o opressor também desumaniza a si mesmo, mesmo que de maneira distinta. É uma relação sórdida e inconsequente para com qualquer das partes envolvidas, que vem da falta de auto-questionamento e um medo ignorante da liberdade.

Qualquer ser humano ou grupo ou facção que se usa da retórica da desumanização para afirmar uma verdade ou uma ação se faz automaticamente um ser menos e, portanto, merece e deve ser questionado.

Citação de "Pedagogia do Oprimido" de Paulo Freire, 2022: 40-41.

Vídeo do meu lançamento

 

Os fracos são ricos no mundo

 (...)

Os fracos são ricos no mundo.

E os fortes, ao prestar a atenção, mudam.

 

Apegados ao toque. As coisas escorregam das mãos.

Vidros se quebram. Líquidos derramam.

[Sem fracassos.

(...)

Excerto do novo poema [Espera] de Karinna Alves Gulias

Estarei no Zoom no dia 3 de novembro

Estarei no Zoom no dia 3 de novembro para o lançamento do meu livro "Estória: Significados da Continuação". Eu lerei 3 poemas e a sinopse.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us05web.zoom.us/j/83298880402?pwd=Pb7eBknXKKT38YcfoJtspfkIe77OeS.1

Meeting ID: 832 9888 0402
Passcode: r5J7US

Estória

O uso do arcaísmo “Estória” no título do meu livro "Estória: Significados da Continuação" é intencional. É uma maneira de descobrir a palavra “história” em sua complexidade ambígua e simbólica no que diz respeito à linguagem, sem o peso fragmentário dos conceitos epistemológicos e políticos herdados da sua irmã com a letra maiúscula. Poderíamos dizer que a estória para mim é, assim, poiesis.

Livro novo já disponível

 

Meu biolink com os endereços do meu livro disponível nas páginas da livraria Atlântico: bit.ly/m/KAlvesG

Gentileza gera gentileza. Por outro lado, violência só gera violência e devastação

 

Os meus livros estão prontos!

 

On the objects of gravity - And the dog

"A monk asked Joshu, a Chinese Zen master: 

`Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?'

Joshu answered: `Mu.'" [無 = emptiness, nothingness, 'not']

(excerpt from https://www.ibiblio.org/zen/gateless-gate/1.html)

Taking into consideration the text above, and If we discard any prejudices that may come with the understanding of what religion is and its purpose, we will realise that reading Buddhist literature is one good way to open our minds to a different pathway: the "no concept" stream of consciousness.

It's true that to read the excerpt above from a conceptual and prejudiced perspective will only add to our prejudices, either in regards to the uselessness of religion or the inferiority of dogs or some other stereotypes that may be roaming about our minds. The first impression, however, will always be that of outrage, from a Western point of view.

But what if the way we are reading it is wrong?

If you follow the Buddhist thought process, you will know that we must disregard the emotions that come as a reaction, and try to understand the text we are reading without underestimating what it is trying to provoke on us. In addition, in Buddhism, the path to right understanding will never be that of conceptualization, even though many scholars may try. And, in some way, I am trying here.

Therefore, by first ignoring our prejudices and emotions, we can then open our minds to discard them and consequently try to understand the aforementioned excerpt -- without conceptual thought. And by not conceptualizing the meaning of the words, we will arrive at a different understanding of the text, which is much more all-inclusive than fragmentary.

What I defend here is that the same thought process should be applied to objects and tools. There is a great probability that the way we approach and use tools may be wrong from the start because of our biases, dogmas, and prejudices. When we use them, we are deciding their results, in a way. And they will never truly show themselves to us beyond what we are inclined to see, which is, in most cases, fragmentation.

In a possible field of new physics, this change in approach may be what is missing for us to start translating things in a more all-inclusive way.

Karinna Alves Gulias

On the objects of gravity - And new physics

No evidence. No paradigmatic truth is ever found or stable. That is what resonates on the clouds of information.

Translating languages or gestures is like translating universe(s). Every misreading, misunderstanding, and that strange feeling of nostalgia in every transliteration are ever present, past, or future in communication. Growing or ingrowing.

To understand the outworld without even acknowledging the universe within every tongue or person. Should we already know that trying to move forward is the same as moving backward? 

How can we transcend our cubic limitations if we still attach ourselves vehemently to ideas? Any idea, but especially those that, even though at the present civilization's paradigmatic circumstances should have perished, still persist and are the most obtuse and arbitrary ones: the ones based on value, rank, or merit, like race, gender, or nationality, for example.

"No concept" is where lies the beginning of our true understanding of "travel" and our interplanetary experience, even though it may sound like a fetish. Therefore, transcending our prejudices and barriers is necessary, so that we can enter the age of new science and thus overcome science as a dogma. But first, we need to acknowledge that "tools" are not at our service—something we should have known by now. 

Tools, like us, are objects of gravity.

Karinna A. Gulias

Objetos da Gravidade - o conto está disponível em ISSUU agora

 "Objetos da Gravidade" aqui

Clique no link acima para ler o meu conto, já que a Resvista Mallarmargens parece já estar fora do ar faz um bom, bom tempo, infelizmente.

Espero que este sea el fin de Rubiales y compañía

 

Meu terceiro livro está no forno!

É com grande alegria que anuncio que o meu terceiro livro está em processo de produção. Uma parceria com a editora Atlantic Books de Portugal. 

 I'm very happy to announce that my third book (in Portuguese) is in production, in partnership with Atlantic Books from Portugal.

Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock
 

Tick Tock - Hans Zimmer

The Rhythm Thief