(Source: http://www.magma.ca/~brich/mylog4frame2.html#anchor79921)
Carlos Perez came to Canada as an immigrant from Venezuela many years ago: but to judge by his recently published book of poems (Canãveral, published by Per Mor press, Brampton, Ont, $15) his mind and imagination continue to be dominated by thoughts of his native land.
One thing that is sure is that a Canadian-born person writing about life as he does in these poems, would be unlikely to call on such vital and sometimes terrifying images --- his poems are full of words about police, dictators, workers with little past, a grim present, and only hope for the future.
The book is illustrated by excellent photos about work --- usually agricultural work --- by more than a dozen photographers.
Carlos lives in an imaginative world of revolution, a revolution that has been delayed in many parts of the world, including his native country, but that is inevitably on its way.
The launching of his book earlier in the week at Rasputin's club on Bronson street, Ottawa, was a manifestation of these revolutionary beliefs and hopes. I thoroughly enjoyed the evening, in which a number of creative Spanish-speaking people got up and read from their words, or told stories, between paying tribute to Carlos and his writing.
In fact, two of the finest contributors to the evening were not Spanish-speaking, but English-speakers. I had never heard of either of them, but was mightily impressed by what they produced.
In particular a young man, calling himself Free Will, who looked not much more than 17-20 or thereabouts, electrified the audience with a brilliant presentation of a long poem which he delivered at breakneck speed and without a moment's hesitation, making it seem that he had performed it many times before. He was angry, in the tradition of angry young men, but as talented as angry. And it astonished me that this talent should have been lying right here in Ottawa, and somehow or other had escaped my notice. Most of the people to whom I mentioned him later in the week had never heard of him either. His politics pleased me in that they included what is happening to various dissident Aboriginal groups who are fighting to preserve their land, in various parts of Canada.
The second brilliant and persuasive performer was a man of Guyanese descent, John Akpata, who wrote the introduction to Carlos's book of poems. "John Akpata," wrote Carlos in his acknowledgements, "the very name is a weapon that will torment hypocrite ears for generations to come." (That sentence, in itself, gives a flavour of what the evening was like).
Carlos's poetry, as the following poem on Caribbean Reparations will attest, does not mince words:
At the doorstep of your corporation
with generations of blood flowing
like angry rivers breaching lies
flooding midnight dreams of lament
with fists and guns and the purest rage
at the doorstep of our injustice
and not just the mere scars you marked
leaving us in chaotic contemplation
killing each other without direction
some how expecting us to be silent
mad and immobile like a beaten animal
you must be mad, we are here to break you
even if it means burning down your history
this garden, your very genocidal realization
Of course many of the poems are personal, love poems, remembrances of gentle things past, but even in these, the political is never far away. For instance a poem called War Cry begins on a personal note:
Here we have come to wipe the tears from your eyes
to lift the moon's forgotten ancestral ceremonial pace,
and beneath your feet light the stars of your very grace...
but the same poem by the fourth stanza strikes a different tone:
By the bullet or the poem we will defend our inheritance; share our scars with drum beats of a peaceful human race,
ready to toss the war cries away and let the children gaze
and finally allow love to gallop the entire planet's face.
There is no hesitation, in this view of the world, in calling on the bullet as a solvent of problems. That is very Latin American, I guess (if I may indulge a stereotype) and arises from the grim history imposed on that continent by its European conquerors.
Carlos's poems are a reminder of the grim baggage that so many immigrants to Canada carry with them, for the rest of their lives. New Canadian, for example begins thus:
They told me then the good news
(the red cross that is)
that the torture would finally stop,
that my family is alive,
that the dictatorship has fled away,
and I would be free again, that all are celebrating in the streets
as democracy has arrived
And the poem ends:
As today we walk this new land
voiceless and poor
while strange people in the street
seeing our skins, give us
the blind eye, telling me and my wife
that here we're free, to remember,
but as long as we don't speak
of the injustices we see now
as we walk the cities on foot,
as we are now free to move and be
free from our own eternal memory.
It is good to know that such people exist among us, and are still fired by their indignation against the indignities to which they and their people have been subjected.
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