(Antonio Jiménez Millán died last Saturday, in Malaga, at the age of 71, a victim of cancer diagnosed a few years ago)
When a poet dies, we inevitably turn to his words. It is a way to lengthen a conversation that in other orders we would know was finite. In Biology, History You already told us about that death that haunted you “like an old woman in love and alone.” But today we want you to tell us about other things. And there are so many things you can tell us about. Tell us about time, about its strange oscillation between past and present, about its relentless imprint on a city, on a card or on the stubborn and treacherous memory that we are. Tell us about desire, as an attempt to stop the fragility that stalks us. “There is nothing deeper than the skin, / Nietzsche said. / That saves him.”
When a wise man dies, we return to his reflections. And we want to continue listening. Share with us the idea that wisdom must go hand in hand with moderation, honesty, and balance. Explain to us, from your good man’s perspective, that “in life and in literature / you have to know how to keep your distance, / not believe the fireworks.”
When a good teacher dies, we keep his teachings and art spreads before us like a gale that opens all the windows. Music, painting, philosophy, cinema were enriched by your lucidity. “I wanted to tell them / that art is not different from life / and sometimes it reserves for us, / in the middle of the darkest night, / an ancient passion, a warm gesture / just like the October sun / at the beginning of the school year.”
When a friend dies, one remembers above all, the kind smile, the calm gesture, the seductive shyness, the refined humor, the welcoming closeness. That anecdote that protects us in sadness. You came to Barcelona to present Biology, History. After so many years of books and presentations, I was surprised by your nervousness. “I’m playing away from home,” you told me, “Luis can’t come, luckily Joan will be there. Do you think people will go?” And there were many of us. To listen to the poet, the wise man, the teacher. “He is one of the Castilian poets who knows the most about Catalan Literature”Joan told me that day. You admired Joan and he admired you. Luis also admired you. And all the young poets you surrounded yourself with in recent years, who slowed down their pace to match your words. And that only happens when one is generous with life.
Antonio, your generosity made you always play at home. In Granada, because chance wanted it that way, in Malaga that surely celebrated your election, in Lleida, where the Catalan poets surrendered to your sensitivity, in Barcelona, where we welcomed you with open arms and with a team that you made your own. You played at home in all the cities you visited and read, because “to read a city is to follow a life, to slowly go through the images that time left us.”
We needed your commitment and your ethics. The world is getting a little ugly for us and you knew how to look for beauty no matter how hidden it was. But as you wrote in memory of Juan Carlos Rodríguez: “It is your inheritance, and not we resign to that lucidity, / although you are no longer among us / already we It’s so hard to talk about you in the past.”
And despite the sadness “today only we want celebrate life.”