About a poem . . . "Mind, Give Me" by Juan Ramón Jiménez

Mind, Give Me

Mind, give me
The exact name of things
. . . that my word may be
the thing itself,
recreated by my soul.
So that all who do not know them
go through me,

        to things;
all who have forgotten,
go through me,

        to things
all those who love them
go through me,

        to things . . .

Mind give me
the exact name, and yours
and theirs, and mine, of things!

-- Juan Ramón Jiménez  (translated by Peter Levitt)

*****

"I can almost hear him whisper these words as a kind of prayer, though it is not his prayer alone.  To have one's words or vision become reality -- what poet or person could want more than that?  Then, the river a poet names, with its stones and song, would ceaselessly flow in the hearts and minds of other human beings, and green would become the green of real love, as when Lorca wrote, 'Green, how I love you green.'  The possibilities here are endless.  Even peace is only as far away as our ability to truly hear the imagination and to say through word and deed, from the depth of our being, exactly what we hear."

--Peter Levitt, "About a Poem: Peter Levitt on Juan Ramón Jiménez's, 'Mind, Give Me,' Shambhala Sun, September 2010

 

Comments

[Jacob W.]

hey jennifer, are you attending Views? If so and you are up to it, I would love to read some of your thoughts on your blog or wherever. I was furiously trying to come up with a way of attending but in the end came up short. Reading about it here would certainly help ease the heartbreak :-) ...

[jmac]

Thanks for your sweet message, Jacob! I am sorry that you cannot attend the Views from the Avant-Garde program this weekend, because you are an inspiring writer and artist, with a fierce love of cinema! I am not certain if I can attend the show this weekend, because I may be out of town. Hopefully you can see some of this work online. Stay in touch! :)