Gloria Gervitz. Migrations/Migraciones.
Hernandez, Ana Maria
Gloria Gervitz. Migrations/Migraciones. Mark Schafer, tr. San
Diego. Junction. 2004. 161 pages. $23. ISBN 1-881523-14-4
IN AN AFTERWORD, an unusual conversation between the poet and the
translator, we learn that Gloria Gervitz wrote Migrations/Migraciones
(her only work in verse) over a period of twenty-seven years, publishing
most of the seven sections that compose the poem as individual poems or
as shorter versions. Similarly, the translator first became acquainted
with the poem in 1991 and, enthralled by it, translated the various
sections as they emerged over a period of thirteen years. In this sense,
the conversation between the two sheds light on the symbiotic
relationship that sometimes occurs between a creator and her alter
lingua. While these talks are illuminating, the poetry itself exerts its
magic with no need for extraneous details; Gervitz is a master of
phrasing, rhythm, and melody, and her poetry was probably meant to be
read out loud, like an epic. This is, indeed, an epic of the soul, an
inner adventure, where the heroic tasks are in the realm of memory and
the affections.
A comparison with the Spanish mystics is unavoidable, except that
the deity in her poems is female. The longing for the mother--real,
symbolic, archetypal, chthonic--is the central thread in the poem, in
which seven sections are titled according to rites or prayers that
allude to specific moods: Shaharit (morning prayer), Yizkor (memorial
prayer), Lethe, Pythia, Equinox, Threnody (song of lamentation), and
September. These sections constitute a life's journey from
innocence to wisdom through the deepest of emotions: loss, oblivion,
lucidity, and grief.
On a different plane, the title refers to longing and alienation,
central experiences of contemporary reality. However, Gervitz's
search is not of this world, and the pervasive, boundless--albeit
quiet--sorrow in the poem suggests an irreparable loss we all share and
express through Christian, Jewish, or pagan invocations, among others:
the loss of unity with nature, with the archetypal mother.
The translation by Mark Schafer is lucid, elegant, and preserves
the hypnotic quality of the original text.
Ana Maria Hernandez
LaGuardia Community College, CUNY
