Irish Migration Studies in Latin America Review of Iván Alejandro Portela Bonachea’s Cantos de Tir na n-Og By Olwen Rowe Mexico: CONACULTA, 2004 191 pages. ISBN 9703506410. Iván Portela’s latest collection of poetry, Cantos and misery. In order that the atrocities of the world de Tir na n-Og, was published in 2004 by do not silence him, he returns time and time again CONACULTA, the Mexican National Council to the one true source, the lyric […]. (11). [1] for Literature and the Arts. As the title The lyrical poem, like Tír na nÓg, represents suggests, the Irish myth of Tír na nÓg, the Land for Portela the land of possibility, the land of of Eternal Youth, and Ireland are the principal beauty and truth, where he feels closest to inspiration for these poems. Portela is a God. university lecturer and since 1981 has taught at the Universidad Iberoamericana, a private Cantos de Tir na n-Og, his latest offering of cantos, Jesuit university in Mexico City, where he has which translates as ‘songs’, like the titles of his been recognised for excellence in teaching. He other collections, emphasises his faith in the is also a key participant in a variety of poetry lyrical form. The collection comprises just over workshops. Among his published books are La a hundred poems, all of which are dedicated to otra cara de Irlanda (The Other Face of Ireland) Ireland and its Celtic mythology. The collection (1986), Cantos Ivánicos (1992) and Cantos de fuego is divided into two sections, ‘Cantares para (Songs of Fire) (1998). Oisín de Tir na n-Og (Poems for Oisín from Tír na nÓg)’ and ‘Como la dorada Fáinne Óir en Portela is a delightfully anomalous poet. Born el Reino de Erín (Like the Golden Fáinne Óir in Santa Clara, Cuba in 1944, he moved to (Ring) in the Kingdom of Erin)’. The epilogue Mexico when he was nineteen years old, was is taken from W.B. Yeats: ‘There is a country subsequently naturalised as Mexican and has called Tir na n-Og, which means the country of made ancient Ireland his poetic homeland. He the young for age and death have not found it’ has taken on the cloak of the ‘bard of the (from Fairy and Folk Tales), thus setting the Mexican Irish’, a Cuban-Mexican Oisín, in parameters for Portela’s poetic exploration of search of his true homeland. He must be the the land of eternal youth. Yeats is an explicit only Latin American poet to have written so influence throughout the poems, with direct passionately and extensively about Ireland and quotations taken from his better-known poems. Celtic mythology. Seamus Heaney also features in these poems, Pura Lopéz Colomé, a key contemporary amongst a colourful array of historical and Mexican poet and the official translator of mythological personalities who amicably Seamus Heaney into Spanish - from whom inhabit the mystical world created in Cantos de Portela takes a number of epigraphs for poems Tir na n-Og, alongside the embodiment of the in this collection - establishes in her beloved for Portela, Teresa Cuddy. introduction to the collection Fervor por Irlanda The first poem sets the tone for the collection, (A Passion for Ireland) that there is no better as Portela invokes important figures from the legend or place than Tír na nÓg to characterise past, lamenting his own absence from their Portela’s poetic undertaking: country: Ancient Erin has always been the exclusive vehicle ¡Oh, canto de Irlanda, canto de Tara, for his poetic explorations, whose purpose is none canto de Daedra, other than to find a mirror which reflects his true canto de Ulster, canto de Erín!, God, he who lives in him and in all that surrounds ¡canto de Patricio, canto do Aimirgín, canto him, God of meanness and generosity, of pleasure de Munster, Rowe, Olwen, ‘Review of Iván Alejandro Portela Bonachea's “Cantos de Tir na n-Og”’ 93 Vol. 6, n°1 (March 2008) canto de Connacht, canto de Leinster … giving us an essential key to the way in which canto de Oisín! Tír na nÓg and Ireland are places not only of mythical significance, but are, more (Oh, song of Ireland, song of Tara, importantly, mystical. song of Deirdre, The collection is sadly blighted by orthographic song of Ulster, song of Erin! errors, particularly in place names, which are song of Saint Patrick, song of Amergin, song often unnecessarily and irritatingly misspelt, of Munster, thus detracting from the authenticity which the song of Connacht, song of Leinster … song poet stresses he derives from the geographical of Oisín!) location, such as Pulatomish (Pollatomish, Along with Yeats and Heaney, Amergin, the County Mayo) which was almost poet warrior of Conchobar Mac Nessa, who unrecognisable. was to become the chief poet of Ulster, frequently appears in the poems, and Portela In this first poem, while the poet invokes the takes a quotation from Amergin as the epigraph heroes of the past, he also experiences an exile for a later poem. The geographical expanse of from their country ‘Soy hijo de Usnach, voz de this stanza, encompassing all four provinces of Cuchulain / levanta tu cetro (I am Uisneach’s Ireland, is reflected in the following poems in son, the voice of Cuchulain, raise your the collection, which extend, as the title of one sceptre)’. He feels both at home in and poem suggests, from New Ross to Salthill, excluded from their country. The refrain taking in key literary sites including Ben Bulben throughout the poem is ‘¿Por qué no estoy allí? and Joyce’s Martello Tower in Dublin. (Why am I not there?)’. While the poems celebrate a definite period in Ireland, they also The poems and their notes bear testament to lament Portela’s ultimate separation from the the poet’s belief that being in key locations in country and its ‘invisible regions’. The poems in Ireland grounds his vision, so to speak, and the collection take up this theme time and time lends his words the authority of experience, of again, as the poet laments that while being filled having been there. The vibrant synthesis of with memories of Ireland, ‘No despierto en Irish myths, legends and history in these poems Irlanda …(I don’t wake up in Ireland …)’ (81). suggests that these stories are not only taken Sadly, while he is full of his experience in from written material, but also from local oral Ireland, it is but a blip in universal time, so storytelling, thus explaining the poet’s small as to be almost inconsequential. In a insistence on having been there and the salute to Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake, he describes a authenticity this seems to give his vision. It also day in Dublin as ‘un fragmento de quarks (a links these poems to this tradition of fragment of quarks)’ (86). storytelling as a way of affirming and celebrating identity, in this case, the adopted As Pura López Colomé has insightfully argued, identity of the poet. for Portela the lyrical poem plays a redemptive role, and, like Tír na nÓg, it creates a space Portela takes on the role of the bard by where he can retreat from violence and evil in invoking the mythical and historical voices on the world and attempt to become one with his travels. His experiences in Ireland seem to nature. In one poem, it is the pull of the waves have given his poetry the decisive focus that he which lead to poetry - ‘y las olas arrastrando la desires. In one of the more revealing poems, poesía (and the waves drawing out the poems)’. ‘Estoico (Stoical)’ (28), we understand that for He hears the lyre in Heaney’s voice (27). Portela travel and memories of travel renew the Portela embraces an Orphic tradition which heart. The experiences are implicitly connected believes in the power of the poem to heal and to the desire to survive the darker side of the redeem. He follows in the footsteps of the world, and to do so without regret. ‘Estoico’ Romantics who sought to address and remedy ends with the image of the soul being liberated our loss of spiritualism and the increasing between Tara and the plenitude of God, thus reliance on technology as our present and 94 Rowe, Olwen, ‘Review of Iván Alejandro Portela Bonachea's “Cantos de Tir na n-Og”’ Irish Migration Studies in Latin America future salvation. Portela explicitly joins Yeats, between a variety of forms and contexts. who, though classified a Modernist, considered However, at times I wished for a more complex himself to be one of ‘the last Romantics’. engagement with Ireland and even Mexico. While the poems insist on the poet’s In addition to the overarching lyrical and attachment to Ireland, and his sensations of mystical tone of the collection, there are finding his home there, the poems sometimes welcome moments of irony and self-conscious fail to communicate why his attachment is so humour. Frequent references to ‘Irish Mist’ and intense and enduring. A number of times the description of the house of the beloved Portela bring his images of Ireland into sharp Eileen, which ‘como todas las casas irlandesas, contrast with the grey Megalopolis, both / aromatizada de pollo frito, té negro y spray representing his place of residence, the de cabellera (like all Irish homes, / was sprawling Mexico City, but also other giant fragranced with fried chicken, black tea and urban developments, such as New York and hair spray)’ (71), provide an effective contrast Beijing (Peking), ‘las monstruosidades de to the mythological framework. asfalto (the asphalt monsters)’ (p.106).