‘This afternoon, the shadow is burning/ this afternoon commits the most atheist/ this afternoon, Antoñete (God keeps him) dusts the mummy of the bullfight.
This afternoon the scarves wet/ this afternoon, in the courtyard of sales, non -compliance Years Chenel by natural ”.
This is a fragment of the sonnet that Joaquín Sabina (“I am a singer for cowardice; I, in reality, what I wanted is to be bullfighting”) dedicated the teacher Antoñete in 2000 on the occasion of the withdrawal of the bullfighter.
Sabina is one of the 78 poets interested in the bullfighting that Andrés Amorós, Professor of Literature and Writer, has selected in an anthology entitled The hundred best bullfighting poetry (The Paseíllo), recently.
“Poetry is undoubtedly the most appropriate genre to express the beauty and complexity of bullfighting,” says the author in the introduction of the book. And he adds: “Because of its wealth and variety, bullfighting poetry is a truly attractive world, which covers from the most cultured lyric to romances, popular couplets and, now, pop songs.”
The List of Amorós appears from Alfonso X El Sabio, Gonzalo de Berceo, Luis de Góngora, Lope de Vega, Francisco de Quevedo, Calderón de la Barca or Espronceda, to the contemporaries Antonio and Manuel Machado, Gerard The current Carlos Marzal, Felipe Benítez Reyes, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, the farmer Juan Pedro Domecq and Díez, the rejoneador Ángel Peralta, the bullfighter Mario Cabré, the critic Javier Villán or the singers Joaquín Sabina and Andrés Calamaro, among others.
Each of the poems is preceded by a comment about the author and that work from the literary and bullfighting point of view. “The selection criteria has been, above all, the quality of the poem,” says Amorós; “But in some cases it was inevitable to also take into account the importance of the poet: it is not negligible, for example, that they have written bullfighting poems Calderón de la Barca, Lord Byron or Rilke.”
Among all the authors chosen, Amorós affirms that “the most universal are Lorca and Miguel Hernández”, and about both said in the recent presentation of the book that what most interests him is “when they transcend the costumbrista and make him a universal human drama.”
“About him Crying by Ignacio Sánchez Mejías “which is an absolutely extraordinary work, “he said,” there are many people abroad who believe that Sánchez Mejías did not exist and that Lorca invented because she does not give concrete details. “
“I have to insist on something almost obvious,” writes Andrés Amorós in his book, “bullfighting is an art in itself, does not need poetry to convey beauty. But good poetry adorns it, and can help us discover aesthetic details or points of view.”