Journal with No Subject

Juan Calzadilla (Altagracia de Orituco, Venezuela, 1931) is a paradigm of the complete artist. His work includes poetry, narrative, essay, the visual arts, art criticism, journalism, translation, and editing. He was co-founder in 1961 of the revolutionary cultural movement El Techo de la Ballena [The Whale’s Roof], and in 1984, of the prestigious journal of arts and literature, Imagen. For his work as a sketcher and painter he received Venezuela’s National Prize for the Visual Arts in 1996. His constant poetic production, which began in 1954 with Primeros poemas, includes more than twenty fundamental titles. With intellectual discernment, he vehemently seeks to dissolve the subject, create a more stripped-down language, and to participate as well as represent.

• ContentsAcknowledgementsJuan Calzadilla or Total Poetryfrom Dictated by the PackI Live Day by DayWaiting for SalvationNecessary MethodsI Have Been AnotherHitting the AbyssWith Bad MannersQuartzThe Magma Must ReturnIn Memory of the AngelJonas Alwaysfrom Bad MannersInmateCounting to ZeroInvisible ArmsInterrogation of the Empty SuitsSubterranean LandscapesUnder New WarningCity Alone"Banal spectacles . . .""You demand clemency . . ."from Supernatural ContradictionsLegitimate DefensePaper MaskStone over Stone"Pay attention . . ."from Aimless CitizenI Have No Excuses to Explain Why I Am Not AnotherOccupationsfrom Strangers' ManualOld CityTin MaskLike in a WaveInverse SituationCitizenQuestion of Namesfrom Oh, smogGarbage Men's PrologueThe Regretful Constructors Where Citizens Evoke Rural LifeDreamers on FootA New RoleTo Guide Themselves Citizens Climb PolesDealer of Destinies IThe MultitudePraying HuntersThe Contaminated FountainThe Rebel Cub A Circumspect Firemanfrom MinimalsIntersticePoeticPoetic IIThe CrisisDog TalkHumboldtNostalgia in Clouded GrayI had No Gold, Cattle or HaciendaUrbanityEnd with RevolverEpitaphfrom Glow and HollownessLife is not literature Neither is religionProse contains the poemTo summarizePoeticIt is unnecessary to wind up the imaginationHere is our proposalInspirationNature offers itselfOnly what exists can be correctedPoeticCan reality be writtenThe precise body from thereI am the one who has to talk and not thingsfrom Principles of UrbanitySmudge of Ink on the SeaWritten in Emily's AlbumPavement with New CommensalIthacaThe Deed and Its WaitingThe Pure Poetic ActHeroism of RealityMassageWe Would Be Immortal Principles of Urbanity123The Ferocious InvalidsThe Sensible ManThe Last One on the TeamTo Be HangingStill LifeDefinitionRealismfrom Journal with No SubjectJournal with No SubjectAnd Besides It Should Be Done by AllObjectualist Poetic What Had To Be SaidHunger for WritingThe Poet Is a Hindrance, I KnowCouldn't It Be Given Form without Writing It?The Book Will Speak for ItselfThe Paradoxical Style Wager (In the Form of a Manifesto)The MagicianMiddle GroundI Want Poetry to Reign Toward a Corporal PoeticThe Materials Walled-In SisyphusTo Strike in the SkyAnd Now the History of CriticismPleasures of the Hunt1234HeadachesInexact CommunicationsThe Old Thresher (Autobiographical Memory)The LarkBig BangThe Poet CubInterlineationForm as SubterfugeEverything that Doesn't Fit on the PageThe Ambiguity of Sense Has Made Poetry the Greatest Temptation for the Imaginative IndividualOceanic DemonymErasureThe Rules of Artfrom AforemasCut with the Same MeasureYour Bag or Your LifeThe Idea of ModernityInmate of Putrefaction