Ungaretti and Cruz: Hermetic Evolution

The works of both Cynthia Cruz and Giuseppi Ungaretti flooded my mind through some bizarre providence in the same day, and I could not help but notice their similarities. Sparse, mystical, and intensely personal, these poems proudly wave the flag of Hermetic poetry and assert the role of writing as a chiefly personal exercise. Rather than sparking a tete-a-tete with a popular audience eager to recognize themselves in the words of another, Cruz, like Ungaretti, leans on nothing familiar and refuses to provide the cushion of cultural references for those who shy from the unknown.

Ungaretti, considered the father of Hermetic poetry, presents beautifully terse lyrics that sing loud, despite their brevity. Here's a beautiful excerpt:


Time is silent among motionless rushes...

Far from moorings drifted a canoe...

Exhausted and sluggish the oarsman...The heavens
Already Fallen into abysses of smoke...


Stretched out in vain at the edge of memory,
It may be falling was mercy...

He did not know


It is the same illusion world and mind,
That in the mystery of its own waves
Every earthly voice is shipwrecked

He doesn't write for a reader, nor does he care if a reader responds to his work. Note the lack of popular allusions. Note the lack of interplay between writer and reader. This is a personal meditation, devoid of extension or concern for the critic. Welcome to Hermetics. Like Cruz, he seems to write for himself, exploring a private purpose and passion that exists in separation from another's expectation. Whether this is pure confession or pure creation confounds the "art for art's sake" paradigm of objective poetry. Confessional or not, the offerings of troubled souls give us much to think about. Let's think about them, rather than discount their lines as perverse spoutings from foreign minds.



See It's the Accent That Freaks Me Out for more Ungaretti.