darvantara sarolam, or the rhetoric of charm in the poetry of olga orozco

Darvantara Sarolam, or The Rhetoric of Charm in the Poetry of Olga OrozcoAuthor(s): Melanie NicholsonSource: Letras Femeninas, Vol. 24, No. 1/2 (PRIMAVERA-OTOÑO 1998), pp. 57-67Published by: Asociacion Internacional de Literatura y Cultura Femenina HispanicaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23021662 .

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Darvantara Sarolam, or The Rhetoric of Charm in the Poetry of Olga Orozco

Melanie Nicholson

Bard College

Olga Orozco (b. 1920), widely recognized as one of Argentina's

leading contemporary writers, inscribes herself within a tradition that

links the poet, the shaman, and the magician. For Orozco, the poetic word itself possesses a magical energy which, when set into motion,

promises access to the "other side," passage into a realm hidden from

all but the initiated. Several critics have called attention to this ritual

or incantatory element in Orozco's work, but the function of logos as

magic in her work has yet to be fully explored.1 The complex relation

ship between poetic language and power that emerges from a close

analysis of certain of Orozco's poems can, I believe, provide impor tant insights into one of contemporary Latin America's most eloquent— and unsettling—poetic voices.

Orozco, who has published nine volumes of poetry in a period

spanning five decades, works within a tradition of esoteric thought that affirms the transcendent reach of the spoken or written word.

The belief in logos as power is, of course, ancient, but within the

Western literary-philosophical tradition, it is not until the advent of

German romanticism that the poet consciously cultivates language as

a means of "changing the world." Octavio Paz states in this regard that "la concepcion de la poesia como magia implica una estetica activa;

el arte deja de ser exclusivamente representacion y contemplacion: tambien es intervencion sobre la realidad" (Limo 92). If the poetic word is truly capable of intervening in and transforming reality, then

the poet—seen as an occult initiate since the beginning of the nine

teenth century—is the possessor of a secret and sovereign power. Paz goes as far as to say that Andre Breton, the formulator of French

surrealism, "no solo nunca distinguio entre magia y poesia sino que

penso que esta ultima era efectivamente una fuerza, una sustancia o



58 Letras Femeninas, Volume XXIV, Nos. 1-2(1998)

energia capaz de cambiar la realidad" (Signos 166). Thus, the work

of writers within Orozco's chosen literary heritage, from Novalis to

Rimbaud to the surrealists, was grounded in the conception of the

poet as both seer and sorcerer.

Orozco herself, in certain prose writings on the nature of poetry, has made explicit her belief in the supra-rational power of the poetic word. In the act of writing poetry, she states, "Me entrego a juegos

peligrosos en los que creo adquirir poderes casi magicos" (Poemas

102). In another text, she draws a clear distinction between this type of consciousness and a more rational or discursive one: "Magia y

poesia estan profundamente unidas en sus raices: ambas intentan una

conversion analogica del universo, un encadenamiento que no es el de

causa a efecto reglamentarios" (Paginas 279). Bronislaw Malinowski, one of the first anthropologists to investi

gate the role of magic in the unfolding of human society, claimed that

magic "ritualizes man's optimism" (90). As a poetic trope, then, magi cal ritual symbolizes the speaker's desire—and hopeful attempt—to transcend the limitations of time and space, of the physical body and

the rational mind. Malinowski placed particular stress on incantation in his studies of magic, arguing that "the ritual centers around the

utterance of the spell" (73). Thus, to speak of the logos of magic in

poetic discourse is to consider the incantation not only as a means to

an end, but as a force in and of itself.

Two of Orozco's poems, both taken from Los juegos peligrosos

(1962), employ forms of discourse that approximate ritual incantation.

That is, they rely much more heavily than do other poems of Orozco's

corpus on repetition, rhyme, hypnotic rhythms, and alliteration. More

over, portions of the poems imitate to some degree an actual rite of

sorcery. My analysis of these poems draws heavily upon Northrop

Frye's essay "Charms and Riddles," published in the collection Spiri tus Mundi: Essays on Literature, Myth and Society (1976).

"Para ser otra" and self-alienation by means of a ritual language used to invoke an enigmatic alter-ego. The poem opens with a sort of

invocation to the logos itself:

Una palabra oscura puede quedar zumbando dentro del

corazon.

Una palabra oscura puede ser el misterio de otros nombres

que tuve.

Una palabra oscura puede volver a levantar el fuego y la ceniza.

(96)



Nicholson 59

Clearly, the reference here is not to the word in its declarative or communicative functions. The properties associated with it are interi

ority, darkness, mystery, and the phoenix-like power of resurrection.

This word, like a cathedral chant, rings or hums within an enclosed

space. The threefold repetition of the opening lines sets up a pattern that

is adhered to throughout. An understanding of this structure is vital to

a meaningful reading of the poem. Although the symbolism associ

ated with the number three is vast, its particular importance for the

esoteric traditions (and hence, for the structure of magical spells) may derive from the hermetic world view. According to J. E. Cirlot's A

Dictionary of Symbols, "Three symbolizes spiritual synthesis, and is

the formula for the creation of each of the worlds. It represents the

solution of the conflict posed by dualism" (232). This explanation re

flects the hermetic emphasis on the unity inherent in duality and on

the positive nature of creation. In keeping with this view, a character

in Orozco's prose collection La oscuridad es otro sol chants the sig nificance of the number three: "La trilogia, la trilogia es lo principal . . . Todo es tres, tres, tres, hacia adelante o hacia atras . . . Probado:

trilogia" (128). In "Para ser otra," a brief apostrophe, itself comprising three

syntactic units, is followed by a longer, more loosely organized sec

tion; this pattern, in turn, is repeated three times. A concluding section

ends with a tripartite question—"^Quien soy? donde? iY cuando?"—that encapsulates the poem's major concerns. It would

seem, following Cirlot's explanation, that Orozco's symbolic use of

the number three is in part ironic. Although the poem's beginning— the power of the dark word to raise fire and ash—does suggest the

creation of worlds, its conclusion in three abstract and open-ended

questions about the self does not represent the solution of any spiri tual conflict.

A more direct clue to the symbolism of the number three in this

poem may be found in Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment

(1975), an essentially Freudian study of the meaning of fairy tales.

Bettelheim claims that the number three "stands for the relations within

the nuclear family, and efforts to ascertain where one fits in there"

(220). According to this psychoanalytic interpretation, the child tries

to comprehend his or her place as the third, in relation to the mother

and the father. "Broadly put," states Bettelheim, "three symbolizes

the search for one's personal and one's social identity" (220). This



60 Letras Femeninas, Volume XXIV, Nos. 1-2 (1998)

symbolism is compatible with the overall sense of "Para ser otra," as

indicated by the title itself and by the final query "^Quien soy?" (96).

Appropriately, the concern with identity is couched in fairy-tale rheto

ric early in the poem, where the speaker reveals her desire to

"desenterrar una reina borrada por las plumas de un dominio salvaje"

(94). In each of the three brief incantatory sections, a different person

or being is invoked. The first reads:

Matrika Doleesa, llora por mi.

Matrika Doleesa, vuelve por mi.

Ven a buscar el ascua del esplendor

sepultada en mi mano. (94)

This fragment is modeled upon the traditional prayer of intercession

to the Virgin Mary, whose standard form is "Holy Mary, Mother of

God, pray for us sinners." Orozco's version, however, is more nar

rowly subjective: the speaker prays not "por nosotros," but "por mi."

Furthermore, the liturgical rhetoric of this first passage will give way, as the poem evolves, to an increasingly magical rhetoric.

The reader never learns the exact identity of Matrika Doleesa, nor of her counterparts in the poem, "Griska Soledama" and

"Darvantara Sarolam." Nevertheless, the names are rich in interpre tive possibilities. My intent here is not to provide an exhaustive analy sis, but only to suggest certain possible allusions that may shed light on the poem as a whole. The names themselves, alien to Spanish and

intimating Greek, Eastern European, or perhaps Near Eastern origins,

carry an air of occult power that is reinforced by the momentum gained in repetition. The first of these mysterious figures, whose name befits

the liturgical rhetoric as a version of the Latin mater dolorosa, seems

to be invoked with an air of nostalgia: the speaker calls her back, asks

for her sympathy. The language of the final request to this intercessor

raises it from an emotional to a spiritual plane: the buried "ascua del

esplendor" can be taken as an image of the gnostic conception of

pneuma, the spark of divinity buried deep within each human spirit. The second incantatory section is like a shadow of the first, re

versing the figure of the invoked female presence and the speaker's

relationship to her:



Nicholson 61

Griska Soledama, no llores pormi. Griska Soledama, no vuelvas por mi.

Rompe el cristal de invierno

donde guardas mis lagrimas. (95)

It is worth noting that, historically, the rituals and incantations of witch craft sometimes involved a reversal of liturgy or ecclesiastical ritual.

Practitioners would invoke the devil, for example, and then recite the Lord's Prayer backwards. In this poem the mater dolorosa of the

first, prayer-like incantation is gradually reversed through name, im

age, and rhetorical technique. If Matrika Doleesa is nostalgia and sym pathy, representing the archetypal good mother, then Griska Soledama

is abandonment and harsh reality, the archetypal terrible mother, or

death itself. She is, conceivably, "Nuestra Dama de la Soledad," whose

color, gris, betrays the absence of life and warmth. The buried ember, the child's spark of divinity, has turned to a frozen crystal of sup pressed emotion. Aptly, an Orphic note is sounded in the longer sec tion that follows, in which the lyric voice speaks of "mi descenso al

olvido" (95). The familiar motif of the otherworldly call assumes in

this passage a note of personal loss and grief: "Alguien me llama a

veces desde una casa que hunde sus raices de arena en la distancia

que llamamos nunca" (95).

Frye discusses the rhetorical similarities among the lullaby, the

more sinister sleeping song (that may lure one to one's death), and the

broader category of elegiac poetry. "Falling asleep in a world of echoic

associations," he claims, "is in turn close to the elegiac tone in poetry, the kind of rhetoric appropriate for talking about death or the vanish

ing of things into the past" (126-27). It is interesting to note that crit

ics point to an elegiac tone as one of the touchstones common to the

"Generacion del '40" in Argentina, a group of writers with whom

Orozco shares many rhetorical and thematic stances. In any case, Orozco's "Para ser otra" is a poem in which the sense of magical

spell is barely extricable from the sense of mournful contemplation. The third incantatory passage is, in fact, a "call from without" in

the voices of the dead:

Darvantara Sarolam,

junta nuestros despojos.



62 Letras Femeninas, Volume XXIV, Nos. 1-2(1998)

Darvantara Sarolam, buscanos la salida.

Toma el grano de trigo funerario, tomala desde el fondo de cada eternidad.2 (95)

Frye considers whether "Perhaps there was originally, in such elegiac

rhetoric, a magical attempt to quiet down a restless ghost" (127). The

restless ghosts who address Darvantara Sarolam believe she wields

the magical power to reverse the disintegration caused by death, to

actually release them from their eternal captivity. But who is this witch

like figure? The lyric voice responds: "Entonces, la que no duerme en

mi / levanta la cabeza de sonambula ..(96). Darvantara Sarolam is

the "otra" of the speaker herself. The poem's incantatory rhetoric

has, as it were, served as a magical ritual bringing about the appari tion of this ghostly other, with her power over the dead and her "mirada

que no ve para mirar mejor debajo de las aguas" (96). The poem as a

narrative of ritual magic reaches its climax in the lines that close the

third section:

Voy apoder mirar.

Voy a desenterrar la palabra perdida entre las

ruinas de cada nacimiento. (96)

Reintegration with the other, it would seem, creates a hitherto-un

known power within the self. For the speaker of this poem, this power is a verbal one, involving the very "palabra oscura" of the opening lines, the primordial logos that was lost when the mythical fall oc

curred, but which is recuperable as poetry.

* * *

"The more closely the magical aspect of charm is adhered to in

poetry," observes Frye, "the more likely the poem is to present some

kind of specific ritual" (136). "Para destruir a la enemiga" (Obra

108-09) is a poem that takes the form of instructions for a ritual sac

rifice. This poem, reminiscent of the well-known witches' chant from

Shakespeare's Macbeth, relies even more heavily than "Para ser otra"

on the rhetoric of enchantment. The black magic in this text is di

rected toward a sort of cryptic other, like Darvantara Solaram, per

haps a sorceress. The speaker's obsession with her may be related to



Nicholson 63

what Frye calls "magic that starts at the human level, searching for

powers greater than itself' (131). This kind of magic, he claims, "is more likely to turn to the mysterious beings in the lower world, who in the Christian centuries were nearly all demonic, and had been sinister

and dangerous long before that" (131). Despite the concern with a

clearly evil being, an elegiac tone is not absent from this poem, with

its long, plaintive lines and its allusions to death, grief, and memory:

Cada noche, a lo lejos, en esa lejania donde el amante duerme

con los ojos abiertos a otro mundo adonde nunca llegas, ella cambia tu nombre por el ruido mas triste de la arena; tu voz, por un sollozo sepultado en el fondo de la cancion que

nadie ya recuerda . . . (108)

However, the verbal energy of this poem is discharged most power

fully in a series of imperatives, given by the speaker to an unidentified

listener, that lend an imprecatory character to the poem: "No la dejes

pasar. / Apaga su camino . . . / Arroja su reflejo . . . / Sepulta la

medida de su sombra debajo de tu casa para que por su boca la tierra

la reclame" (108). Frye's definition of the rhetoric of charm will allow

a more accurate reading of this and similar passages:

The rhetoric of charm is dissociative and incantatory: it sets up a

pattern of sound so complex and repetitive that the ordinary pro cesses of response are short-circuited. . .. Such repetitive formu

las break down and confuse the conscious will, hypnotize and com

pel to certain courses of action. (126)

Two factors must be considered, then, in reading a poem such as "Para

destruir a la enemiga." On one level, it is evident that the speaker is

literally trying to compel action on the part of her interlocutor. Taken

out of its poetic context, the repetitive imperatives would comprise

the words of a magical spell. Yet this is not the transcription of a spell,

but a poem that adopts the spell's hypnotic technique. On this level, it

is the reader who is somehow compelled—if not to action, then to a

particular frame of mind—by the rhythms set up by the speaker's

commands.

One command in particular is crucial: "Nombrala" (109). The tra

dition of magic is permeated with the power of naming. Frye states

that, within the rhetoric of enchantment, "You may compel the evil by




possessing a name" (125). A clear connection arises (as elsewhere in

Orozco's work) between gnosis and power: to possess the knowledge of a name, particularly a secret name, is to hold sway over the object named. The repetitive force of the passage that follows is indeed spell

binding:

Nombrala con el nombre de lo deshabitado.

Nombrala.

Nombrala con el frio y el ardor, con la cera fundida como una nieve sucia donde cae la forma

de su vida, con las tijeras y el punal, con el rastro de la alimana herida sobre la piedra negra, con el humo del ascu^, con la fosa del imposible amor abierta al rojo vivo en su costado, con la palabra de poder nombrala y matala. (109)

Structurally, it is worth noting that the preposition "con," heading the

enumeration of the implements of sorcery, is repeated seven times.

The number seven, like the number three, has long been held in eso

teric circles (as well as in Judeo-Christian tradition and in Western

folkthought) to hold magical and mystical powers. According to Cirlot, the number seven symbolizes perfect order, a complete period or cycle;

notably, it is also the symbol of pain (233). In a twist of rhetorical

complexity, the seven implements of naming are themselves named;

only then can the final imperative be pronounced, in which naming wields the power of killing.

The speaker commands her interlocutor, finally, to bury a coin

face down. In the history of magic, the act of burying a stone or metal

object inscribed with a curse was not uncommon. These objects were

believed to be particularly powerful, since the efficacy of the curse

would last as long as the object remained hidden (Hole 108). The

inscription on the buried coin in Orozco's poem reads:

Reina de las espadas, Dama de las desdichas, Senora de las lagrimas: en el sitio en que estes con dos ojos te miro, con tres nudos te ato,



Nicholson 65

la sangre te bebo

y el corazon te parto. (109)

This passage is a tour de force of poetry as curse. The inscription is

broken into seven verses. The enemy is addressed by three epithets, each syntactically like the other, each ending in a three-syllable noun

with a feminine plural ending. The fourth line, markedly longer than all

the others, establishes a structural "border" between the first three

lines, which comprise the invocation, and the last three, which com

prise the curse itself. The magical three appears again as the number

of knots tied. The fifth, sixth, and seventh lines end in a verb of the

first person singular, present tense, echoing the ending of the fourth

line. These verbs, with the pronominal "te," follow the "as this, so

that" pattern that reflects the analogical thinking fundamental to magical

spells (Frye 130). That is, the enunciation of an action ("la sangre te

bebo") is considered by the charmer as equivalent to the action itself,

and, by extension, to its effect. Given the overwhelming power granted to the spoken word in such formulas, it is not difficult to comprehend the identity some poets claim between their art and the art of magic.

Comments Frye in his conclusion:

Wherever we turn in charm poetry, we seem to be led back to

some kind of mythological universe, a world of interlocking names

of mysterious powers and potencies which are above, but not

wholly beyond reach of, the world of time and space. (136)

Not charm poetry alone, but the occult arts as a whole, establish them

selves in a universe in which desire—whether for the blood sacrifice

of an enemy or for the discovery of the primordial word—finds effi

cacious allies. Orozco's poetic speaker continually presents herself

as one willing to play even the most dangerous games in order to tap into those potencies. Nevertheless, many poems also represent a fail

ure on the part of the allies and a breakdown of magical powers. The

force of the curse in "Para destruir a la enemiga" is completely un

dermined in the poem's concluding lines by the speaker's realization

that she herself is the enemy (109). In "Para ser otra," the epiphany

promised in the announcement "Voy a poder mirar" fails in the subse

quent lines, when the speaker finds herself facing a door still hidden

by fog (96). Even the power of divination comes to naught: "No

entendemos el sentido del viento ni sabemos leer en las constelaciones"




(Reves 41). Orozco's poetic world, in the final analysis, does resemble

the world of invisible yet accessible powers described by Frye. But it

is also, and perhaps more importantly for the speaker,

... el mundo que huye, el mundo que se va como por una grieta,

y aunque vuelve y me tienta una vez mas no consigo cenir los

nudos, no encuentro la manera. {Reves 94)

Orozco's lyric voice explores the occult as means of revelation and

power of passage. On one level, the failure—to see, to cross the thresh

old—is patent. Yet on another level, these explorations yield a rich

ness of symbol and image that shapes the very contours of the poetic discourse.

NOTES

1 Venezuelan Juan Liscano, one of the earliest critics to study Orozco's

work in depth, has observed that "La poesia de Olga Orozco es acto de magia

religiosa" {Descripciones 80). Naomi Lindstrom speaks of Orozco's poetry in terms of "el vaso comunicante que es el rito, la invocacion y la incantacion"

(766). 2 Neumann discusses both the positive and negative symbolism of grain

and, by extension, the mill (234). Orozco's phrase "trigo funerario" summons

the circular meaning of wheat as life which must, paradoxically, perish in the mill in order to sustain further life.

WORKS CITED

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Cirlot, J.E. A Dictionary of Symbols. 2nd ed. Trans. Jack Sage. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1971.

Frye, Northrop. "Charms and Riddles." Spiritus Mundi: Essays on Litera

ture, Myth, and Society. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1976.

Hole, Christina. A Mirror of Witchcraft. London: Chatto & Windus, 1957.



Nicholson

Lindstrom, Naomi. "Olga Orozco: la voz poetica que llama entre mundos."

Revista Iberoamericana 132-33 (1985): 765-75.

Liscano, Juan. "Olga Orozco y sus juegos peligrosos." Des crip clones. Buenos

Aires: Ediciones de laFlor, 1983. 73-101.

Malinowski, Bronislaw. Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. Gar den City: Anchor-Doubleday, 1954.

Neumann, Erich. The Great Mother: An Analysis of the Archetype. Trans.

Ralph Manheim. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1965.

Orozco, Olga. En el reves del cielo. Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 1987.

. Obra Poetica. Buenos Aires: Corregidor, 1979.

. La oscuridad es otro sol. Buenos Aires: Losada, 1967.

. Paginas de Olga Orozco seleccionadas por la autora. Buenos Aires:

Editorial Celtia, 1984.

Paz, Octavio. Los hijos del limo: Del romanticismo a la vanquardia. Barcelona: SeixBarral, 1974

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