Giannina Braschi is an iconic Boricua poet who writes in Spanish, Spanglish, and English.
Giannina is the author of Empire of Dreams, Yo-Yo Boing!, and United States of Banana. PEN calls Braschi one of the more revolutionary writers in Latin America today. Her texts are widely adapted into other artforms, including theatre, chamber music, graphic novel, painting, sculpture, and industrial design.
A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Braschi has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from Cambio 16 in Spain for having created “a literature of hope”—and from the North American Academy of the Spanish Language (ANLE) for her extraordinary contributions to Hispanic languages and cultures in the United States.
Dawn of Humanity
(From the new work Putinoika)
By Giannina Braschi
Electra:
When we started—at the dawn of humanity—everybody was dawning—in wonderment—developing their sixth senses—but now the universe, which was wonder and discovery, is put to work for what is less than it is—man—a microscopic spec of an ant giving orders to the world to act in sync with him—who has lived against nature for so long polluting our lungs.
Giannina:
How ironic that Pendejo wanted to build a wall to stop human trafficking, but he couldn’t build a wall to stop Coronavirus from entering the country.
Electra:
The body politic has been disarmed. Arms are crossed when it comes to human politics. Disarmament of the universe by life itself. There’s a scent of eucalyptus in the air. The air is breathing on its own. It is not subjected to the fact that we need air to breathe. It will breathe despite us. It will let us know that it doesn’t depend on us to breathe. We depend on the air. But we thought the air belonged to us. We thought we owned the air. We are sneezes of the universe. When the universe yawns, we erupt—eruptamos.
Antigone:
It all comes down to who is the stronger: the climate or the economy. Who is the richer: the climate or the economy. We are always looking for solutions—but more than there are solutions—there is pollution. People say the environment is toxic. No, the environment is not toxic. We are the toxification of the environment. We are the pollution and collusion.
Greta Thunberg:
I have Coronavirus.
Antigone:
I am polluted.
Electra:
We are all polluted.
Antigone:
Ask Oedipus. The plague entered Thebes and children got sick. My father had to find the cause. And he found out he was the origin and the cause.
Greta Thunberg:
Man has polluted us all.
Antigone:
We were all polluted from the beginning.
Greta Thunberg:
But now it’s not just Thebes—it’s all of us—the first global civilization—in unity of contamination and extinction.
Giannina:
I always say—if poetry doesn’t come out the way it should come out—because obstruction of life by economy cuts its resources short of inspiration—with economical wages cutting short ecumenical outcomes—Pan will come out and sing—no matter what—even if it has to go negative with the demic added to the bread of life. And here we go again. When will we learn. Always repeating the same mistakes all the time. When man becomes too confident—forgetting that he is a flawed thing bound to die like a flee—he becomes arrogant—and his mistakes go viral. He always falls into the trap of getting away from the source. He always forgets the nature of things. He separates and divides nature. And when he thinks he can control the uncontrollable—poetry comes back full force—to avenge all the channels that have been closed to its attainability. What you call terrorism of any kind, I call the revenge of poetry. Poetry comes into this world to manifest its destiny. If in every turn, there is a denial—a negation of its beauty—it turns violent—and it comes out—in manifestations of fury. It will always come out—through the good, the bad, or the ugly.
Giannina Braschi is an iconic Boricua poet who writes in Spanish, Spanglish, and English.