SOURCE: "Cardenal's Poetic Style: Cinematic Parallels," in Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Vol. XI, No. 1, 1986, pp. 119-29.

In commenting on the ethical purpose and art of the poet, Cardenal writes in his poem "Epístola a monseñor Casaldáliga":

These lines declare even as they demonstrate a belief in the avoidance of highly figurative language, and they suggest the reasons for this belief. Indeed, the reader of Hora 0, Salmos, and the poetry that follows will be struck by the abundant use of literal, commonplace details and the paucity of figurative language. The details include historical and current events, ordinary household objects, commercials, well-known biblical references, the names of some of Cardenal's friends, and familiar, twentieth-century political figures, all having an existence apart from the subjective world of the poet, all verifiable, as it were, in external reality. This is not to say that the poetry of Cardenal is devoid of similes, metaphors, or symbols. One need only turn to the evocative, intimate poems of Gethsemani, Ky. to find several examples of figures of speech. In Cardenal's poetic work as a whole, however, one discovers not only the predominance of literal images but an ever-increasing use of prosaic detail, particularly in the poetry written after 1960—such as Homenaje a los indios americanos, "Canto nacional," "Oráculo sobre Managua," and the epistles to Casaldáliga and José Coronel Urtecho. In order to explain the poetic advantages of this technique, we need, first, to consider it by itself and, then, within a poetic structure or form. In doing the former, it will prove useful to invoke a parallel with the artistry of film, and, in doing the latter, to apply the language of film to an analysis of the structure of the first sequence of Cardenal's most ambitious poem, "Oráculo sobre Managua." But before doing either, it is necessary to discuss what led Cardenal to use literal detail so extensively.

Cardenal's penchant for a concrete language, often journalistic in style, can be explained partly by his faithful adherence to the principles of exteriorismo, a tendency predominant in Nicaraguan poetry since the 1950's. For Cardenal, the foremost exponent of this poetic tendency

El exteriorismo no es un ismo ni una escuela literaria. Es tan antiguo como Homero y la poesía bíblica (en realidad es lo que ha constituido la gran poesía de todos los tiempos).

El exteriorismo es la poesía creada con las imágenes del mundo exterior, el mundo que vemos y palpamos, y que es, por lo general, el mundo específico de la poesía. El exteriorismo es la poesía objetiva: narrativa y anecdótica, hecha con los elementos de la vida real y con cosas concretas, con nombres propios y detalles precisos y datos exactos y cifras y hechos y dichos. En fin, es la poesía impura.

Poesía interiorista, en cambio, es una poesía subjetivista, hecha sólo con palabras abstractas o simbólicas como: rosa, piel, ceniza, labios, ausencia, amargo, sueño, tacto, espuma, deseo, sombra, tiempo, sangre, piedra, llanto, noche …

Cardenal's affinity for exteriorismo cannot be explained solely in aesthetic terms, as this passage seems to suggest. It is, rather, the result of combined aesthetic and ethical interests. Indeed, in most instances, his aesthetic interests are subservient to his strongly ethical concerns. From the early Epigramas to the present, his poetry is patently didactic. As he emphatically states in the prologue to his anthology Poesía nueva de Nicaragua: "La literatura debe prestar un servicio. Debe estar—como todo lo demás en el universo—al servicio del hombre. Por lo mismo la poesía también debe de ser política. Aunque no propaganda política, sino poesía política." Thus, Cardenal's poetry seeks to inform, convince, and, ultimately, through immersion in apparently objective detail, move the reader beyond reflection into action. It seeks, in Robert Pring-Mill's words, "to provoke him [the reader] into full political commitment, thus fostering the translation of the poet's more prophetic visions into sociopolitical fact" [Ernesto Cardenal: "Zero Hour" and Other Documentary Poems, edited by Donald D. Walsh, 1980]. Exteriorist poetry, Cardenal feels, with its emphasis on the details of external reality is the mode most capable of rendering the troubled sociopolitical reality of Latin America, and, because of its sensory immediacy and readily verifiable frame of reference, the one most effective in engaging the reader.

Although in his definition of exteriorismo Cardenal focuses on the type of language employed by the poet, what mostly distinguishes his exteriorismo from "interiorist poetry" is the way in which he employs "los elementos de la vida real y … cosas concretas." The word "sangre," for instance, included by Cardenal in his catalogue of interiorist terms, is not uncommon in his exteriorist poetry, as we see in the following passage from "Oráculo sobre Managua":

Puertas destrozadas hierros retorcidos techo de zinc
perforado por la avioneta las paredes con grandes huecos
sangre en el patio un colchón ensangrentado en el baño
pedazos de camisas calzonetas pañuelos llenos de sangre
sangre en la cocina los frijoles regados tapas de parras
con goterones de sangre en el patio la casa llena de humo …

In all cases in which "sangre" appears in this passage, it is employed as one of many visual, concrete details depicting sensorially and directly the aftermath of Leonel Rugama's shootout with Somoza's forces. The term thus functions strictly as a literal image.

Cardenal therefore remains true to his exteriorist poetic credo, not by restricting his poetic language to certain words as he suggests, but by using visual details in a literal way. The literal use of concrete language allows him to create a reality external to the speaker. At times, the speaker appears to be totally independent of this reality, as when Cardenal writes in Hora O:

En abril, en Nicaragua, los campos están secos.
Es el mes de las quemas de los campos,
del calor, y los potreros cubiertos de brasas,
y los cerros que son de color de carbón;
del viento caliente, y el aire que huele a quemado,
y de los campos que se ven azulados por el humo
y las polvaredas de los tractores destroncando;
de los cauces de los ríos secos como caminos
y las ramas de los palos peladas como raíces;
de los soles borrosos y rojos como sangre
y las lunas enormes y rojas como soles,
y las quemas lejanas, de noche, como estrellas.

En mayo llegan las primeras lluvias.
La hierba tierna renace de las cenizas.
Los lodosos tractores roturan la tierra.
Los caminos se llenan de mariposas y de charcos,
y las noches son frescas, y cargadas de insectos,
y llueve toda la noche. En mayo
florecen los malinches en las calles de Managua.

The end of winter in the first stanza and the coming of spring in the second are described with such realism and objectivity that the passage seems almost a random documentation of external reality. The faithfulness to concrete detail on the part of the poet and his restraint in withholding his emotional attitude allow the reality its autonomy. In depicting places and events which immerse the reader in the physical world about him, Cardenal's poetry operates much like a camera recording elements and events that can be responded to with sensory immediacy. Such poetry Robert Pring-Mill calls "documentary poetry."

Whereas Cardenal's documentary poetry makes extensive use of physical reality, it cannot be called objective. Regardless of how faithful Cardenal may remain in his depiction of external reality, intervening between the reader and that which is depicted, is the poet's selection of details and ordering of events. In fact, Cardenal's documentary poems rely heavily on the techniques of selection and ordering to bring the reader into communication with a physical world seen exclusively from the poet's point of view.

In the passage quoted above from Hora O, for instance, Cardenal has carefully selected a number of visual details to emphasize the arid and barren fields (e.g., "los campos están secos"; "las polvaredas de los tractores"; "los ríos secos como caminos") and to depict the termination of life (e.g., "las quemas de los campos"; "los potreros cubiertos de brasas"; "los cerros … color de carbón"; "el aire que huele a quemado"; "los campos … azulados por el humo"; "las quemas lejanas"). These visual details function with great immediacy as an objective correlative which prepares us to accept Cardenal's subsequent, explicitly stated view, that "abril en Nicaragua es el mes de la muerte." Moreover, the juxtaposition of the third strophe which portrays the tragic consequences of the aborted April Rebellion reveals that the death previously evoked is not only that of nature but, more importantly, that of Adolfo Báez Bone and other revolutionaries:

En abril los mataron.
Yo estuve con ellos en la rebelión de abril
y aprendí a manejar una ametralladora Rising.

Thus, what at first appeared as a documentation of a reality from which the poet was independent is now perceived as a description strongly tinted by the poet's point of view.

In its reliance on the selection and use of details and on the juxtaposition of events and descriptions, Cardenal's documentary style closely parallels the artistry of the documentary film. In documentary film the director's point of view is conveyed through the eye of the camera which selects what the viewer is to see, including effects of montage. This does not mean that Cardenal has consciously adopted the techniques of film, but there are parallels between the techniques of his poetry and those of film which ultimately enhance our appreciation of his artistry and our understanding of his thought. Given Cardenal's use of unconventional poetic techniques—many of which find filmic equivalents—the parallels provide us also with a critical terminology for analyzing his poetic strategy.

In order to demonstrate the usefulness of talking about Cardenal's documentary poetry in filmic terms, I will concentrate on the condensed opening lines of "Oráculo sobre Managua" (ll. 1-35). Before narrowing our focus to this section, however, it is necessary to give some sense of the section in the context of the poem as a whole.

Written in the aftermath of the earthquake which destroyed the center of the capital on December 23, 1972, "Oráculo" presents a comprehensive view of the inextricable relation of man, history, and nature. Its twenty-four sections, comprising almost a thousand lines, may be grouped into five distinct, though conceptually interrelated, sequences. The first one, consisting of just the first section (ll. 1-35), serves a function comparable to that of the establishing shot in film by giving an overview of a prehistoric site. The overview, in establishing the notion of an evolutionary-revolutionary process, provides a context for what follows, a context that gives fuller meaning to the particulars in subsequent sequences.

The second sequence, comprised of sections two and three (ll. 36-140), links the starving inhabitants of present-day Acahualinca, a shantytown near the prehistoric site, with the political prisoners tortured by Somoza, and with the prehistoric inhabitants fleeing in terror from a volcanic eruption. These ancient people are the same inhabitants whose footprints Cardenal points to in the opening establishing sequence. Thus, through what might be called a poetic visual montage, Cardenal successfully equates the terrorizing force of the prehistoric volcano with that of the victimizing Somoza.

The longest of the sequences, the third one, includes sections four through seventeen (ll. 141-588). In this sequence, through a variety of cutting techniques and camera-like movements, Cardenal develops the notion depicted visually by the examination of the archeological layers in the first section: an evolutionary-revolutionary dialectical process which encompasses both nature and man, prehistory and history. Although not made explicit in the opening section, this process is now conceived as an overall, though not constant, progression toward integration and union. According to Cardenal, the progression takes place both in the physical world and in the realm of human consciousness. It will yield "Un hombre nuevo un tiempo nuevo una nueva tierra" (I. 474).

Introducing yet another aspect of this process—revolutionary change in society—the fourth sequence, sections eighteen through twenty-one (ll. 589-767), portrays Leonel Rugama's battle against the Somoza regime as a struggle toward union. The revolutionary activity of society is parallel to the revolutionary activity of nature, seen as the volcanic eruption in the first sequence. These dramatic changes in society and nature, Cardenal maintains, result ultimately in the union of people (e.g., the union of people fighting in solidarity for economic and social justice, and the union of the ancient inhabitants in common flight from the erupting volcano).

Finally, in sections twenty-two through twenty-four (ll. 768-993), the fifth sequence employs, in effect, a pan shot of the drastic physical changes brought about by the earthquake. Analogous to the volcanic action of the first sequence, the earthquake is viewed by Cardenal as "un preludio telúrico de la revolución" (I. 892). The poem concludes with an integrating notion: sudden changes in the natural world (e.g., ancient volcanic eruption and modern earthquake) and revolutionary changes in society and the political state are understood as quickened steps in the pilgrimage toward a new social order. This order, characterized by union, is for Cardenal tantamount to love: "En medio de la tendencia general a la desintegración / hay una tendencia inversa / a la unión. Al amor" (ll. 165-67).

Although parallels to filmic techniques abound in all five sequences, they show themselves in greatest concentration in the opening sequence which lays the groundwork for the rest of the poem. An account of these parallels, using the terminology of film, yields the following interpretation: Introducing the sequence is a medium shot of a yarn and textile factory, as the narrator recalls it from before the earthquake. There follows immediately a flash shot of the tremor. The flash shot, signaled by a parenthetical statement—"(si ha quedado / la fábrica tras el terremoto)" (ll. 1-2)—establishes the idea of evolutionary change central to the meaning of the poem. A pan or horizontal camera-like movement to show a drainage channel near a lake leads to a series of close-ups of "basuras, bacinillas rotas, / … huellas, impresas en estrato volcánico" (ll. 3-4). The adverse conditions of the present are thus linked visually to the prehistoric footprints which resulted, as we soon learn, from equally adverse conditions. A visual montage of chamber pots and footprints further develops the notion of time and change suggested in the early flash shot. A sudden flashback achieved through the equivalent of two wipe cuts reinforces the idea of an evolutionary process: "Tal vez sin tejido textil, y ni siquiera cerámica, / ocuparon esta área de Managua junto con el bisonte. / Vivían de la caza y la pesca y la recolección de alimentos" (ll. 5-7). Concomitantly, the flashback serves as a basis for a contrast between the fertile conditions of the past and the decaying resources of the present. A sharp cut back to the present, followed immediately by a second flashback, shows that the present site of three lakes was in ancient times a single, active volcano. Three close-ups of footprints, separated by pan shots in the direction of the lake suggest the flight of the ancient people away from the volcano, and prepare us for understanding evolution as a long pilgrimage which will continue even in the present aftermath of the earthquake. Two flash shots, again signaled by parenthetical statements, provide specific details of the people in flight: "huellas huyendo del volcán / unas hundidas más (indica que algunos llevaban cargas) / no corriendo (los pasos son cortos y regulares)" (ll. 14-16). A close-up of other tracks of fleeing animals changes to a dissolve, denoted by three periods in succession. This dissolve serves, in turn, as a smooth transitional pointer to a shot of the eruption in progress. A quick cut returns us to the present site of Acahualinca where the poet begins to examine in a vertical movement or tilt shot the various layers of the subsoil beginning with the most ancient ones (at the bottom) and concluding with the most recent ones (at the surface). Whereas movement by itself suggests a process at work, the verticality of this movement suggests Cardenal's belief in a progression within the process. This progression is conveyed in specific terms by Cardenal's focus on artifacts. There is progress in the very creation of artifacts, and there is also progress in the evolution of the artifacts from utensils to objects of art:

… y finalmente la capa superior de tierra
con la primera cerámica. Maya. Monocroma. De Nicoya
(polícroma). De la época de Cristo. Cerámica Luna
(lacas blancas y motivos de líneas finas). Monos
jaguares rojos con fondo bianco, incensarios.
(ll. 30-34)

At the surface level of the archeological site lies the rubbish of contemporary times: "Y encima / trozos de Coca Colas y llantas Goodyear y bacinillas" (ll. 34-35). Cardenal's choice of details such as Coca-Cola bottles, Good-year tires, and chamber pots and the juxtaposition of these to the artistic pottery of Mayan times indicate the decadence of a consumer, capitalist society. This montage is particularly effective in communicating Cardenal's attitude toward present society as a retarder of progress, a theme he develops at length in the third sequence of the poem. For Cardenal, the division into classes and the rise of capitalism represent an unfortunate by-product of a dialectical evolution toward an absolute communal society. The slowing down of the evolutionary-revolutionary process, however, is seen, ultimately as a transitory irregularity in the course of evolution. Likewise, the contrasting revolutionary changes in nature and society are presented as quick leaps in the evolutionary continuum.

The establishment of parallels between Cardenal's poetic strategy and various filmic techniques provides us with an approach well-suited to a study of the Nicaraguan's documentary style. This approach enables us to concentrate on the visual aspects of the poetry and to analyze the relation of its parts (its structure). The poet's documentary-like depiction of the world of external, objective reality, in combination with his restraint in the direct manifestation of subjective attitudes, enables the reader to experience Cardenal's perspective with sensory immediacy and, in several instances, with journalistic objectivity. Yet, as in film, the documentary approach is not as objective as it appears. As we have seen, beneath the surface lies a strongly personal interpretation of reality conveyed by means similar to those of film. These consist of the selection and use of details; quick, bold cuts from present to past events and continuous movement in the depiction of the setting, both to suggest an evolutionary-revolutionary process and to give the reader a felt sense of continual change; visual montages of events and elements in nature and society to establish parallels and contrasts which, in turn, convey the poet's attitudes; various distance shots to emphasize details or to set them in a meaningful context; and an establishing sequence to provide an overview to which the successive parts of the poem can be related.

In using "filmic" devices, Cardenal attempts to make the readers of "Oráculo" undergo, in two ways, the same dialectical process of integrating and unifying nature, man, history, and prehistory which he sees taking place in the universe: (1) through the readers' visual responses as they experience movement and change and (2) through the readers' conceptual responses as they relate and integrate what they experience in the poem. As a result of these responses, readers are made receptive to the poet's views, namely, that the earthquake that shook Managua is not an isolated event, but one in a long chain of evolutionary-revolutionary changes moving us toward the creation of an all-integrating consciousness and universal love. To the extent that readers accept this view, it is because Cardenal makes "Oráculo" a means of actively engaging his audience in the pursuit of his own goal, and he achieves this largely by using means that can be readily identified through cinematic parallels.