POETRY FROM CÓRDOBA : SPANISH POET JOAQUÍN PÉREZ-AZAÚSTRE's "Brief History of the Gin-Tonic"

 

JOAQUÍN PÉREZ-AZAÚSTRE

Brief History of the Gin-Tonic

 

In the nineteenth century

everyone with a hidden past

used to seek out his port.

 

Scurvy was the enemy

of these sailors and in this the cocktail was born:

they fought scurvy through lemon,

the elixir in the salve,

with a vitamin to keep it afloat.

They fought scurvy through quinine,

those white hands of the tonic.

 

Its arrival to Spain was late:

the son of Pedro Salinas

brought it overseas.

In Barcelona, he found a crew

for the ritual.

They stilled the Cognac for gin-tonics

because, among other things,

their lives were stung

by countless scurvies;

 

Gabriel Ferrater, Costafreda,

Jaime Gil de Biedma, Carlos Barral,

Manu Portal, and many others,

encouraged by Salinas,

passed up their brandy for gin.

 

There’s no school so vital

to learn how to live

as the school that teaches you

to learn how to drink.

 

You can’t explain a literature

without explaining it, likewise,

to change the shape of what’s written:

what is real with what is impossible,

is almost always possible.

 

In the ritual of the gin and tonic

we see a mirror of obedient bubbles.

The distance is not forgotten

and neither is the absence:

it depends on the length of the sip.

                                                       

 Translated from the Spanish by Hyden Bennet

 

Córdoba-born poet Joaquín Pérez-Azaústre won the Adonais Award in 2000 for his book, An Interpretation, the Loewe Foundation International Prize for Young Creation for The Red Sweater and the Vicente Presa Prize for The Price of a Dinner at Chez Maurice, The Loewe International Award for The Ollerías. He writes literary columns in several Spanish newspapers and has published the novels: The Orange notebook, America and The Manolete Suite.  He is also the Winner of Gil de Biedma International Poetry Award 2006, Tiflos Poetry Prize 2012 and City of Melilla International Poetry Prize 2016,

 

 

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