Villanueva de Tapia 2009 décima festival v. 1.0 08-14-09 P.Pasmanick

As my friends--and enemies--well know, I have been fascinated by the world of Spanishoral verse for the last 15 years. Anyone who has been subjected to one of my pedanticlectures on the topic has heard me compare the décima to the sonnet in terms of literarypedigree and meticulous metric structure, but there is another comparison that is alsotelling: the oral decima (and the variant forms) has a lot in common with the limerick.

The limerick (whose a-a-b-b-a rhyme scheme is identical the the second half of adécima) has a mocking sing-song lilt that make it a fit structure for humorous, vulgar, ornonsense commentary. Because the meter is so well known to most listeners, when wehear the first line we are consciously or unconsciously waiting for the final rhyme to fallinto place and provide the punch line. And it is above all popular, as in “of the people”.Playboy magazine used to run them on their jokes page, and an NPR quiz show useslimericks to pose questions, but otherwise I think limericks are most popular in lockerrooms, camp cabins, and meetings of professional men (mostly it is a male pastime).And in Nantucket I guess.

After an exhaustive period of research (30 minutes on Google) I learned that limericksare indeed a venerable folk form dating from the 14th century, when, in their bawdyform they were popular in taverns. Shakespeare utilized the form in several plays. TheOxford English Dictionary claims that limericks were even “extemporized” at parties.Limericks were cleaned up in the mid 19 century, when Edward Lear published his(mildly) humorous pieces, but popular limericks today remain essentially transgressive.

So on the way to the ninth international “song of the poets” festival in southern Spain,where I (bizarrely) represent the 350 million citizens of the U.S. of A., I began toimprovise limericks in the car. The first was dull but solid enough:

There once was a girl in Granadawho constantly danced the lambadaWhen she was asked why,she’d respond with a sigh“I’m not sure, I just know I’ve gotta.”

Well, that got me going all over the Spanish map: girls from Madrid, Bilbao, Teruel,Seville, and any Spanish town I could think of that had plausible (and decent) rhymes inEnglish. My family laughed politely for the first few, but I pressed on relentlessly untilthey they got upset. I shut up at last but continued to rhyme silently and smirk so thatthey knew I was still doing it. Girls from Madras, girls from Biarritz, those I kept tomyself. The form works perfectly well in Spanish too, so the girls of Vigo and, Godknows, Logroño, were not ignored.

As I sat tonight in a wi-fi tonight writing a note to the parents, I looked around and wrotethis:

As I sit in this sidewalk caféthe sunset reflects on the bay.In the ancient town squarecastanets fill the airand the bagpipes are starting to play

The town square in question was buit about 1960 but otherwise the picture was strictlyaccurate. But it doesn’t really make it as a limerick. Just like a haiku, limericks have alimited range of topics and tone. I’ll be looking into the limerick for my next project. Ihave not seen any articles in Spanish on the subject. (I have since written and posted tomy blog a 3,200 word report in Spanish on limericks, intended for the décima guys.)

We arrived at Villanueva and headed straight to our hotel, a charming facility marredonly by occasional bursts of shotgun fire that erupted at odd moments from the skeetrange conveniently located on the hotel grounds. I spent some time visiting theperformers from Puerto Rico, Argentina, Cuba, Panama, Columbia, and several regionsof Spain (Almería, Murcia, Basque country, and Canary Islands). The night began withgreetings in verse declaimed from the stage. I had my piece prepared and it went overwell. Then the Murcianos were on. One of their own stars, known as El Patiñero, haddied, and they tearfully sung his praises in a Flamenco style. I was moved, as I hadknown this guy and he was very good at what he did. Almería followed, then Cuba withfive top improvisors. Next came Argentina (with a new young poet whom I recognizedfrom a great youtube video in which he elegantly demolishes a witless rapper who offerslittle more than a stream of obscene insults).

Then it was my turn. I took the stage with my waterbottle drums and my daughterNaomi, aged 16, a veteran of the San Francisco girls chorus who has performed atmany high-end events, including Obama’s inauguration. As I did with her sister twoyears ago, I had written a 12 minute “controversia” which we memorized and sang. We(she especially) nailed that sucker. Only then did I allow myself a drink.

The next day the various countries did their thing, and we had another perfomance withNaomi and Emma, her friend form the chorus, and me. We had a little piece featuringmy decima denouncing sexual expoitation, a nod to décma’s role as a voice of protest.

Sunday we also had a brief segment (I wisely let the girls do the singing, accopnaied byan outstanding Flamenco guitarist) and i managed to improvise a farewell. Theseperformances are all up on youtube and accessible via my blog ( deciman.blogspot.com)

Some highlights of the festival:

• an Argentine payador singing with a Canary Islander bungled his pie forzado; insteadof saying “el canario y Argentina” he said “Argentina y el canario”. As he finished upand realized his mistake, he wittily apologized (in décima of course) and ended up withthe correct line. Big applause.

• the MC (the Cuban Roche, a fine decimista himself) recognized local poets in theaudience and passed the mic around as they sounded off in improvised quintillas(ababa, a capella verses). These sturdy sunburned campesinos just confirmed howdeeply present oral poetry is in this rural region.

• the informal slam/jam after lunch included a trip into the pool area in which the leadsingers asked peoples’ names and made witty comments to them, with special attentionto tattoos, skimpy swimsuits, and the overly hirsute. During this time the shotgun fireresounded and I improvised a quick one on the subject.

• the Columbian singer knowm as Radioloco, who specializes in comic cuartetas andoctavillas, blew us all away with his new mastery of décima in a variety of musicalgenres.

• we had a surprise guest artist, Orlando La Guardia, a Cuban in his late 70s whosevoice was all shot but who rasped out clever intiductions for every poet.

• we also had a few “esponteneos”, children who begged to go on stage and weregraciously welcomed by Roche. The first group sandg a quick kiddie song with gusto,took their bows, and ran off. The second “act” consisted of two girls who recited a littlerhyme and then began to tell a story, bouncing the narrative back and forth betweenthem, constantly one-upping the other with new dragons, princesses, luxurious gowns,in a sort of prose parody of the poets. It was charming for a while and when they wouldrhyme inadvertantly the crowd applauded loudly. But just like some of the duelingpoets, they did not know when (or how, maybe) to stop, and poor Roche crouched downnext to them, unwilling to just shut them up. He finally interrupted the flow, overoutraged cries of “We’re not finished!” and got them off stage at last amongst wild andrelieved applause and calls for a pie forzado.

We left early on Monday morning, after a refreshing sleep lasting all of two hours, andheaded 1,000 kilometers north to our home base in Galicia. I was satisified with myperformance and proud of my daughter and Emma.

I still had the rhyming bug bad and and had several chances to show off at some majorfamily dinners (tío Cándido’s 90th birthday for example). The limericks keep comingtoo.

Tonight we have the cousins over in an attempt to respond to their relentless hospitality.And we have a secret weapon. Mussel season starts August 1st, but the harvest hasbegun, and one of the second cousins, a big mussel farmer (they cultivate them in thebay on long ropes that hang from rafts) invited me to the docks where he gave us a 25pound sack of the tasty mollusks straight from the sea, a sack I could barely carry backto the apartment. The mussels are washed, the shrimp are boiled, the ribs aremarinated, the nuts and cheese and cured ham are ready to go, the wines acquiringtheir proper temperatures.

So that’s where we stand. Sitting down.

postscript: The meal was fantastic. Marilyn made an octopus too. But it’s all over nowbaby blue. We’re back in San Francisco, getting ready for school. Here’s a “decent”limerick with translation, the introduction to my essay:

El inglés tiene una quintilla In English there is a quintain

Su forma es bastante sencilla: Its metrical structure is plain:

son cinco los versos there’s five lines per verse

los temas, perversos the themes are perverse

con rima al final que te pilla. and the rhyme at the end causes pain.

Philip “There once was a man from D.C.” Pasmanick

PSS: Natalia is still on a political tour of the occupied West Bank. She;ll spend a week iIsrael where she will visit a man named (wait for it) Phillip Pasmanick, no relation as faras I know, even though he looks like me, collects insignias, and has a daughter namedNaomi. Natalia was here in our absence and left the house a big mess. Marilyn saidtoday, on discovering that a pan was missing from the kitchen “I just pray that shecomes home safe and sound…so that I can kill her”.