Plou terra en la cabana del poeta menorquí Ponç Pons

"Encara no he sortit de l’illa i ja m’enyor.

.

Escolta Homer:

Sóc fill d’un paradís.

Vull tornar a casa."

Ponç Pons (Menorca, 1956) va ser un lector precoç que, als deu anys, va començar a fer poemes i va descobrir que l'únic destí vivible era la literatura. "Illòman" declarat que es considera "menorquí fins al moll emblancat dels meus ossos" i afirma que "Ser menorquí és ser estranger pertot / Ser menorquí és una malaltia", confessa que escriu per a un lector invisible que té les faccions mesclades de tots els autors que estima (Pessoa, Quasimodo, Seferis...). 

La seva obra, plena de referències culturals i reflexions ecolingüístiques, ha guanyat prestigiosos premis i l'ha convertit en un dels poetes més importants de Les Illes. Admirador de Spinoza, viu apartat del món literari, tot repartint el seu temps entre l'ensenyança (és catedràtic de literatura), la dedicació a la família, la passió per la poesia com a forma de coneixement i el retir al camp en la cabana d'una estància que es diu "Sa Figuera Verda". Escriu a mà i de nit. 

És soci de l'Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana.

(Pàgina elaborada amb el suport de la Institució de les Lletres Catalanes. Documentació: Biel Pons. Fotografies: Arxiu personal de l'autor.)

Castellano

Ponç Pons (Menorca, 1956) Fue un lector precoz. A los diez años empezó a escribir poemas y descubrió que el único destino vivible era la literatura. “Illòman” declarado que se considera “menorquí fins al moll emblancat dels meus ossos” (menorquín hasta la médula) y afirma “Ser menorquí és ser estranger pertot/ Ser menorquí és una malaltia” (ser menorquín es ser extranjero / Ser menorquín es una enfermedad), confiesa que escribe para un lector invisible que tiene las facciones mezcladas de todos los autores que ama (Pessoa, Quasimodo, Seferis...).

Su obra, llena de referencias culturales y reflexiones ecolingüísticas, ha ganado prestigiosos premios y lo ha convertido en uno de los poetas más importantes de las Baleares. Admirador de Spinoza, vive apartado del mundo literario, repartiendo su tiempo entre la enseñanza (es catedrático de literatura), la dedicación a la familia, la pasión por la poesía como forma de conocimiento y el retiro al campo en la cabaña de un lugar que se llama “Sa Figuera Verda”. Escribe a mano y de noche. 

Es socio de la Associació d'Escriptors en Llengua Catalana.

(Página elaborada con la ayuda de la Institució de les Lletres Catalanes. Documentación: Biel Pons. Fotografías: Archivo personal del autor. )

Sa Figuera Verda

Ponç Pons fent paret seca

Interior cabana

El poeta, trabajando en el escritorio de la cabaña que utiliza como refugio para sus creaciones literarias. Pons en pleno siglo XXI escribe en una cabaña a la luz de las velas.

Ponç Pons, amb Günter i Gabo, a Sa Figuera Verda. Foto Ignasi Pons



Nura 

(Ponç Pons. Quaderns Crema)

Estafats pel poder no hem tornat a sentir

amb soldats desfilant aquells himnes ardents

ni a veure ensotanats totèmics capellans

Ara som indolents en un país democràtic

engreixam entre tots molts polítics corruptes

Tot allò de Proudhon de ser iguals de ser dignes

S’ha acabat tenim reis i a Marx proscrit l’han mort....

...El poder que corromp desvirtua sintagmes

La vivesa del savi és viure i deixar viure

Tant de camp devastat tantes cales corrompudes

Ja no em queda més pàtria que la biblioteca

Areia escrita

Tenc una tenda de campanya lusa.

La plant discretament pel nord de l'illa
a les platges desertes de setembre.
Menj pa fet meu i fruita,
passeig, escolt, escric,
parl amb els arbres,
llegesc el mar.
No ho dubtis:
Viure és més que existir.
Damunt la sorra
agraesc a la nit els seus misteris
i encenc un foc humit de llenya morta.
El fum sembla una ofrena,
el vent canvia...
M'invent l'eternitat.
Fa trons.
Plou terra.

Tengo una tienda de campaña lusa.

La planto discretamente por el norte de la isla

en las playas desiertas de septiembre.

Como pan hecho por mí y fruta,

paseo, escucho, escribo,

hablo con los árboles,

leo el mar. 

No lo dudes:

Vivir es más que existir.

Sobre la arena

agradezco a la noche sus misterios

y enciendo un fuego húmedo de leña muerta.

El humo parece una ofrenda,

el viento cambia ...

Me invento la eternidad. 

Truena. 

Llueve tierra.

http://www.escriptors.cat/autors/ponspo/

http://fabian.balearweb.net/post/39146

http://detroiaaitaca.wordpress.com/2011/09/15/ponc-pons-dillatari/

http://blogs.ccrtvi.com/jordicervera.php?blogid=46&archive=2007-06

La pintora Claire Fejes en su cabaña de Alaska

Claire Fejes, painting the flow of life in Alaska

Claire Fejes

"Nature moves from the sea and the land to the people and then back again to the sea. Painting the flow of life through a mother and child or through whaling captures the essence of the Eskimo culture."

"Pulling Off Mukluks"

"Cutting Fish"

“Snow Writing.” c.1983, oil on canvas, 24-by-30-inches.

"Mother and Child" 

La vida de Claire Specht Fejes, artista nacida en Nueva York en 1920, da un giro radical cuando en 1942 decide unirse a Joe Fejes. Ambos deciden empezar su nueva vida juntos en Fairbanks, Alaska. Era el año 1946, año de guerra, y los Fejes cambian su vida en el Bronx neoyorkino por una cabaña perdida en una aldea fronteriza de la región subártica. Durante una década, Claire utilizó la misma pequeña mesa situada cerca de la estufa que calentaba la cabaña. Aunque al principio de su carrera en Nueva York la artista se había centrado en la escultura, una vez en Alaska decidió probar con la pintura al óleo. Durante esos años la artista trabajó en múltiples auto' retratos, denudos, retratos y escenas de paisajes que rodeaban su cabaña. Sus vecinas, mujeres Athabascan y también Eskimales fueron sus modelos y Claire intentó reflejar sus historias de vida basadas en la subsistencia en un medio hosco y difícil, pero lleno de una hermosura y una plenitud lejanas a esa vida de ciudad en la que ella había crecido.

Claire recordaba en sus memorias el frio asombroso de los inviernos que la obligaban a trabajar con dos pantalones y dos jerseys y botas dentro de la casa. Cuando llegaba la primavera siempre sonreía cuando descubría que todos sus dibujos de invierno contenían una estufa en ellos.

En el año 1958, toma una decisión radical: empaca sus instrumentos de trabajo, una tienda de campaña y algo de comida y se translada a Sesaulik, un campamento ballenero de Inupiats, en la costa ártica de Alaska. La experiencia la vive como una epifanía, un estallido interno. A su vuelta comienza a trabajar en veinte piezas al óleo sumergida en energía creativa. Su estancia en el campamento ballenero fija su estilo: improvisado y emocionalmente intenso, basado en una completa inmersión en el tema o en el sujeto en el que trabaja.

"I felt I had shed the other world and had been initiated into Eskimo life. Every defense, every preconception was stripped away, as though I had undergone a sort of baptism.... Here we were on the open sea. Not a tree. All you saw was the earth, the water, the sky, maybe the mountains, and the people working."

http://thealaskahouse.com/fejes/life_story.php

http://www.alaskannature.com/Claire_Fejes.htm

http://verdadmujeresarte.blogspot.com/2011/03/claire-fejes-painting-flow-of-life-in.html

La cabaña estudio del pintor canadiense Tom Thomson

Thomas John Thomson (August 5, 1877 – July 8, 1917), also known as Tom Thomson, was an influential Canadian artist of the early 20th century. He directly influenced a group of Canadian painters that would come to be known as the Group of Seven, and though he died before they formally formed, he is sometimes incorrectly credited as being a member of the group itself. Thomson died under mysterious circumstances, which added to his mystique. (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Log cabin at Achray where Tom Thomson lived in 1916, now a new mini museum describing the many works he completed there. (APMA #1132).

Tom Thomson studio (exterior), Toronto, Unknown, 1942, Archives of Ontario, F1066/I0010308.jpg, This photograph gives a sense of the shack Tom Thomson used as a studio in Toronto. The shack was located adjacent to the studio building Dr. James MacCallum and Lawren Harris erected on Severn Stre

[...]

La petite cabane, dégradée par les intempéries, où a vécu Thomson a été déménagée dans la Collection McMichael d’art canadien – 630 acres dans une région boisée et vallonnée de Kleinberg (Ont.). Bob et Signe McMichael qui, en 1965, ont fait don au gouvernement de l’Ontario de plus de 200 œuvres importantes du Groupe des Sept ainsi que de la maison qu’ils avaient bâtie pour les abriter, ont participé à la restauration de la cabane ces six dernières années. Elle a été ouverte au public pour la première fois cette semaine.

[…]

La première exposition du Groupe des Sept s’est tenue au Musée des beaux-arts de Toronto en 1920, trois ans après la mort de Thomson, décédé à l’âge de 40 ans dans un accident de canot, au lac Canoe dans le parc Algonquin. En 1913, Lawren Harris a fondé le Studio Building (qui existe toujours près des rues Bloor et Yonge) où les membres du groupe peignaient et logeaient, mais Thomson lui préférait le cabanon adjacent qui datait du milieu du 18^e siècle.

[...]

Aujourd’hui, le cabanon est un lieu de pèlerinage, un entrepôt de souvenirs. 

(...) Au cours des hivers de 1915 à 1917, Thomson vivait et travaillait dans l’une des deux pièces que comptait la cabane. C’est là qu’il a peint ses grandes toiles. Sur le chevalet qu’il avait lui-même construit, se tient aujourd’hui une petite reproduction du Pin, qui est sûrement sa toile la plus célèbre. Les McMichael espèrent la remplacer par une impression grandeur réelle du Vent d’ouest (dont le Musée des beaux-arts de l’Ontario est actuellement propriétaire), la toile qui se trouvait sur le chevalet au moment où Thomson est parti au lac Canoe pour la dernière fois. 

[…]

Source: Gail Dexter, "La cabane que Tom Thomson louait pour un dollar par mois devient le lieu de pèlerinage du Groupe des Sept ," Toronto Star, 1 juin 1968. Notes:

Tom Thomson cabin at the McMichael Gallery in Kleinberg, Ontario

Tom Thomson cabin

The summer cabin of artist Tom Thomson has been relocated to the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg where one can see several of his paintings along with those of his contemporaries in The Group of Seven . Although he was a great influence on the Group of Seven painters, he died mysteriously at Canoe Lake in Algonquin Park in Northern Ontario in 1917 before the group was officially formed Autumn Birches, 1916. "Never before had such knowledge and the feeling for such things been given expression in paint. Thomson's canvases are unique in the annals of all art especially when it is remembered thathe was untrained as a painter. His master was Nature." ..FB Housser, A Canadian Art Movement: The Story of the Group of Seven, 1926 One of the few surviving photos of Thomson, a keen fisherman and entirely self-taught painter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Thomson http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tom_Thomson_cabin_at_McMichael.JPG http://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/thomson/artistsworld/importance/5330fr.html http://iaincarstairs.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/synthesis-and-understanding-the-spirit-of-art-tom-thomson/

Jim Baker, un trampero del viejo oeste y su cabaña

Jim Baker

Jim Baker - Mountain Man
Jim Baker 1818-1898

Trapper, scout and guide was a friend of Jim Bridger and Kit Carson and one of General John C. Fremont's favorite scouts. He was one of the most colorful figures of the old west.

Born in Belleville Illinois, at 21 he was recruited by Jim Bridger as a trapper for the American Fur Company and on May 22, 1839 left St. Louis with a large party heading for the annual rendezvous in the mountains. In August of 1841 he was involved in a desperate fight at the junction of Bitter Creek and the Snake River when 35 trappers beat off a large band of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho.

The decline of the fur trade in the early 1840s drove many the trappers to quit, but Baker stayed on. Little is known of his movements after 1844, but in 1855 he was hired as chief scout for General William S. Harney of Fort Laramie, and he was part of the Federal Army sent against the Mormons. In 1873 he built a cabin with a guard tower near the Colorado Placers of Clear Creek where he raised livestock until his death in 1898. His grave marked with a stone near Savery, Wyoming.

Baker was married six times, each time to an Indian woman, one of whom was the daughter of a Cherokee  chief; he had a number of children.

(Fuente: http://www.franksrealm.com/Indians/mountainman/pages/mountainman-jimbaker.htm)

"Jim Baker," illustration for A Tramp Abroad, 1880

(...) Jim Baker
There was a value or purpose, however, to wiping the grease and other substances on the clothing. David Lavender in Bent's Fort described the trapper's clothing:

"Down to his shoulders hung the hunter's hair, covered with a felt hat or perhaps the hood of a capote. He liked wool clothing, for it would not shrink as it dried and wake him, when he dozed beside the fire, by agonizingly squeezing his limbs. But wool soon wore out and he then clad himself in leather, burdensomely heavy to wear, fringed on the seams with the familiar thongs which were partly to decorate but most utilitarian, to let rain drip off the garment rather than soak in, and to furnish material for mending. Further waterproofing was added by wiping butcher and eating knifes on the garments until they were black and shiny with grease. Upper garments might be pull-over type or cut like a coat, the buttonless edges folded over and clinched into place with a belt. No underclothes were worn, just breechclout. In extreme cold a Hudson's Bay blanket or a buffulo robe was draped Indian-wise over the entire costume."

Some of the early mountain men never did get used to modern hygene. Jim Baker (1918-1898), who served in the Fremont Expeditions, ultimately settled down in a two-story log blockhouse between Dixon and Savery.

As noted above, the cabin was originally constructed between Dixon and Savery. In 1917 the State Legislature appropriated $750.00 to purchase the cabin. It was moved to Frontier Park in Cheyenne.

The above photo was taken by Lt. Drewry while he was on temporary duty for ten days at Fort D. A. Russell. He was at D. A. Russell for examination for commissioning in the regular army. He was successful.

In 1976, the cabin was again moved from Cheyenne to Savery "on loan" from the Wyoming State Museum. The various moves probably account for the concrete foundation visible in the next photo.

Cabaña Jim Baker en Savery, Wyoming

In the late 1800's, Baker was as famous as Jim Bridger. His stories were quoted by numerous writers including Mark Twain and Theodore Roosevelt. One of the more famous was his observations on blue jays:

You may call a jay a bird. Well, so he is, in a measure—because he's got feathers on him, and don't belong to no church, perhaps; but otherwise he is just as much a human as you be. And I'll tell you for why. A jay's gifts, and instincts, and feelings, and interests, cover the whole ground. A jay hasn't got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise. The sacredness of an obligation is a thing which you can't cram into no blue-jay's head.

In 1895, Baker and John Albert, another early mountain man, were invited to serve as marshals for Denver's very first Festival of Mountain and Plain. The committee put him up in one of Denver's finest hotels. When it was suggested he might like to take a bath, he informed them he did not need one -- he had one this year. Additionally, he refused to sleep in the bed, preferring the floor, and refused to use the flush toilet, preferring the alley behind the hotel. (...)

(Fuente: Rendezvous From Wyoming Tales and Trails. http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/fur2.html)

(...) Jim Baker's Cabin was built in 1873 among tepees of the Shoshone Indian tribe who adopted baker. Baker was born in 1818, died in 1898 and is reputed to have saved the lives of 35 trappers. He married several different Indian women and left a number of children. The Baker Cabin was originally located just a few miles from its current location at the Little Snake River Museum. (...)

http://www.myspace.com/carbonchttps://www.legendsofamerica.com/jim-baker-frontiersman/ountywy/photos/1921581#%7B%22ImageId%22%3A1921581%7D

http://www.franksrealm.com/Indians/mountainman/pages/mountainman-jimbaker.htm

http://www.kankakeevalleyhistoricalsociety.org/schmal/jamesbaker.htm

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/jim-baker-frontiersman/

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/119/119-h/p1.htm#ch3

http://www.historicwyoming.org/index.php?id=306

http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/fur2.html

http://www.wyomingtalesandtrails.com/fur2.html