Maylan Álvarez in the feminine explosion of her poetry (+ photos, poems and audios).
In her poetry vibrates the voice of an empowered, confident woman, who does not hide behind the justification of the weaker sex but makes it strong from its multiple ways of interacting with society.
Maylan Alvarez is, like most women, a mother, a housewife, a wife, a friend, a prestigious professional, a daughter. All these facets have a place in her poetic work with an exquisite sensitivity and a deep truth, capable of shaking you when she narrates in verses the everyday realities.
«It’s telling it like it is. Maybe I use certain adjectives and not so much because I’m a bit allergic to them. The poetic material is in everything: at this table, in our embrace; then, that is reality. What is more poetic than our reality?
«Right now we are around my newly printed book-what a beautiful place we have chosen! That is the book of the everyday life of any woman on the planet: the one who left childhood behind and is now a mother, the one who once played with dolls and then relegated them to a closet, the one who today has to clean, wash, iron, cook for other people.
«What I want is for a Norwegian woman or a Palestinian woman to read me and understand that I am just one more, that I am a drop of water in the ocean of humanity. One day I will go unnoticed, but this is my time and I owe it to myself.
«Right now what I want to talk about is what doesn’t hurt me; as the storyteller Dazra Novak says, that therapeutic schedule that is scrubbing. I scrub because I’m also doing it for my children, for my husband, eventually for my father or for friends who visit me.
«I’m not talking about disliking it, which becomes an obligation that I have to stop writing and maybe then there were three pages that weren’t born».
…ONLINE AUDIO.
See also: https://www.radiollanuradecolon.icrt.cu/2023/12/02/maylan-alvarez-ante-la-indiferencia-del-olvido/
Many connoisseurs of the subject categorize her as a continuation of Carilda Oliver Labra’s work. Although she herself denies any proximity to the literary height of the Bride of Matanzas, her lyrics are influenced by the National Prize for Literature because of the themes she deals with and the beauty with which, from simplicity, she addresses the daily realities of women.
«That is a double stigma, it can be very good and it is also bad. It is bad because Carilda left us so high the stop that, then, nor approach us; her work is robust and wonderful, with some essential nuances in the Cuban lyric and also in the narrative because her two books of short stories are fabulous.
«Approaching Carilda is very difficult. I don’t think I am an imitator of Carilda, not even as a blonde, in fact I am a woman with a family, settled, I mean, in the sense that I have children, routines and Carilda was a breaker.
«She has bequeathed us a very important space in Cuban literature. She opened a breach, she opened the sea for writers to pass through and maybe because I am a woman, because there are common themes between both of us, but I don’t think there are great similarities between her and me. I would like to get close to her for a moment».
…ONLINE AUDIO
See also: https://www.tvyumuri.cu/cultura/maylan-alvarez-un-referente-en-la-literatura-matancera/
Her origins remain attached to his being. He was born in Unión de Reyes and his land is so close to his skin and soul that it always emerges, directly or indirectly, in everything he writes.
«I will never detach myself from Unión de Reyes, wherever I am, because one is from the place where one is born. I always tell my children that I want, wherever I die in the world either here or in Istanbul because I am a citizen of the world, that they cremate me and water my ashes in the San Andres; not in the sea, I am not a woman of the sea, I belong to the Unionense river.
«My first book of poetry was Naufragio del San Andrés, which for me was an immense surprise that it won the calendar award. Unión de Reyes has the place of my heart».
…ONLINE AUDIO
His poetry also reflects a bit of our own lives, full of lights and shadows, mixed feelings, uncertainties and, above all, a lot of love.
See also: http://www.ahs.cu/?p=29268
The storyteller, poet, journalist, editor and cultural promoter Maylan Álvarez cannot detach herself from any of her professions. Poetry, journalism and publishing are intertwined in her works, which gives them a strange fusion between the beauty of the everyday and the surprise of the metric.
«I want to make a trilogy because poetry suffers me but with it I channel many things. People at home know that I torment myself, I spend several days when I even eat little.
«I’m writing fiercely, but I can’t detach myself from anything. I have done active journalism in a news program, from getting on a helicopter with (Ramón) Pacheco and (Juan Carlos) Migoya to report from a swamp on fire, I have gone with Norge (Céspedes) to do the Humedal del Sur, I have traveled all over the province, to do daily information. I love that promptness of information.
«But I have to write poetry and I have to write for children because there is also a part of me that is due to that literature; I am trying it in the narrative and the work as an editor complements me».
…ONLINE AUDIO
Many awards exalt her work, placing her among the references of the literature born in this land of poets. Maylan Álvarez belongs to a generation of writers that with firm step and undeniable talent maintains and defends the extraordinary literary heritage inherent to this city.
A very deep poet and so close to reality that she cuts the air with her verses, an accurate editor to the point of undressing the text and dressing it with new finery, a journalist of high carats judging by your critical judgments and the sensitivity of her poetic prose and an inveterate reader, Maylan is in herself a powerful and beautiful explosion of poetry.
…ONLINE AUDIO
YERBA VERDE Y NARIZ ROJA
Amanece.
Mi esposo no está en casa.
Nuestro hijo más pequeño aprovecha para meterse en la cama junto a mí. Estoy leyendo a Rotterdam, que sabe elogiar la locura.
Al final de un capítulo observo dormir a mi hijo. Sus ojos se mueven, de un lado a otro, en estado REM.
¿Soñará con mis regaños?
¿Con peces de la bahía?
¿Imagina los payasos que no disfrutará hoy, porque el catarro le ha tomado por asalto desde ayer?
Mientras le observo, mi hijo de repente introduce el dedo en la nariz y se la arrasca, sin dejar de soñar.
El movimiento de los ojos le ha delatado…
Después de las muecas más simpáticas, instante donde la nariz queda roja, rojísima como la de los payasos que no disfrutará, retira la mano, acomodándola sobre su cabeza.
Un bultico luminosamente verde, a toda luz pegajoso, le cuelga del índice.
Ah, está soñando con la yerba del patio. Eso pienso y me convence la calidez de la idea, ante otra prueba irrefutable de que su infancia biencura a diario esta adultez que me duele.
Dueña de toda discreción, lo cubro mejor con la sábana. Me incorporo en silencio.
Arrascando groseramente mi nariz con la mano izquierda, busco un block de notas sobre la mesa de noche.
Quiero poetizar en blanco y negro que ya no se me permiten los sueños con payasos, ni peces, muchísimo menos con la yerba verde del patio.
EN LAS MANOS DEL «MÁS SERIO»
a Fabio el estridente, por la risa fértil
y las flores de majagua
que puso en mi pelo aquella tarde
Vi los brotes de majaguas, cosechados con misterio,
en las manos del «más serio» hijo tierno de mis aguas. Bendecido en mis enaguas (que es decir en mi regazo) he sellado cada lazo de su infancia,
su hervidero
y me ha sido llevadero darle color a su trazo.
Y si quizás yo me atraso en la caricia a su sombra, es la tarde quien me nombra entibiándome el abrazo. He de consignar, acaso,
desvelos, fiebres, columpios, orines,
calderos limpios,
una cuchara con miel,
testaferro de un papel rubricado en mis delirios. Hijo luna,
ángel lirio, luciérnaga del amor,
has sido el mejor postor entre el vivir y el martirio
de ver flamear como un cirio tu niñez acrisolada. Madeja desovillada,
mi madrigal con asombro,
reclinada aquí en tu hombro tiento tu risa alocada. Y si me siento agitada entre mimos y un regaño (nalgada sin mucho daño)
te prometo, agigantada,
la más perenne mirada,
acordonada en mi frente rumbo a mi pecho latente. Azafranado tormento,
hijo nube,
junto al viento beso tu infancia estridente.
SOY SIEMPRE FLOR Y LOCURA
Soy siempre la flor del loto sumergida en la raíz, cobijada en el tamiz de las aguas de este coto. He de confesar mi roto empuje por remontar, los varios mares surcar,
de ser pájaro y no flor
al conjugar el amor en un tiempo por llegar. Y mi suerte,
que es legar por mi vientre las semillas de dos flores
(amarillas sutilezas del bregar)
me seducen a la par y del dolor me repongo. Hijos:
¿dónde los pongo si las sonrisas me faltan, si los anhelos me asaltan
y si en virtud yo me opongo? Hijos:
¿dónde los pongo?
¿Cómo?
La noche parece obscura.
El drama merece un sinsabor menos hondo, sacra música de fondo,
más candiles,
oropeles, dibujitos, cascabeles,
hasta el unicornio azul
y un escenario de tul aprestado entre papeles.
Siempre en mi vida gabrieles como un abrir de ventanas: semanas cortas,
mañanas cinceladas en claveles, una explosión de lebreles ahuyentando mi cordura insana, tonta
y perjura…
Muerte y dolor sobre mí penden: hijos que se me desprenden.
Soy poeta, flor
y locura.