Botanic Valentine Poem by Ajeno

15 February, 2007

“Necroflora,” sent anonymously to this site on February 14th 2007, reminds us that Ajeno’s father worked for the botanic garden in Villavicencio – maybe that’s where the young Ajeno saw this unusual plant, Amorphophallus titanum, usually found in the rainforests of Sumatra, which blooms only once after 9 years, then decomposes. If so, evidently Ajeno remembered the foul smell of exotic beauty for a long time, since the reference to St Valentine’s Day implies that “Necroflora” must be one of the poems which Ajeno wrote in English. That’s because in Colombia there is no St Valentine’s Day in February, but instead for commercial reasons a "Día del amor y de la amistad” (a day of love and friendship) celebrated each year in September. Perhaps typically, Ajeno has ignored the more obviously phallic symbolism in favour of a deconstructive feminist interpretation. Luisa María García Velasco has translated Ajeno’s English into Spanish. We grant permission for non-commercial use of Ajeno’s text in English or Spanish to create a personalised Valentine’s Day card for one’s Beloved.

Newly-found Ajeno poem illustrated by Picasso?

21 November, 2006

Another typically untypical poem by Ajeno, Goodbye has been found together with a drawing so closely resembling the work of Pablo Picasso that we must ask: did Ajeno send poems to Picasso some year before the great artist’s death in 1973, and was Picasso inspired by Goodbye? Or, even more remarkably perhaps, did Ajeno himself illustrate his own poem in the style of Picasso?  A third amazing possibility is that Ajeno somehow obtained an authentic sketch by Picasso which is otherwise completely unknown to collectors and art historians and which now appears on this website for the very first time, accompanied by the poem which the sketch inspired.

Atlantis Found!

14 January, 2006

The original Spanish text of Ajeno’s poem Atlantis has come to light – see Atlántida!
It was folded up in a Geography textbook at Luisa’s school.  During the present course she has to teach Geography in addition to English for the first time in her life, and logically she put a piece of paper about Atlantis between Argentina and Australia.Of course Ajeno’s title is symbolic rather than literal.

Ajeno’s final poem?

20 December, 2005

Newly discovered at Luisa’s home, wrapping up the figure of el hombre cagando from the family Belén accumulated over the years by her husband Paco, is what – based on internal evidence – may well be Ajeno’s final poem, Melting, written during his stay in Almería. (The Belén is the traditional nativity scene consisting of painted clay figures of Mary and Joseph, the Three Wise Men, farm animals etc, which is arranged every Christmas on a shelf or table or piano top.  El hombre cagando – “the shitting man” – is an irreverent comic figure originating in Catalonia, a model of a man with his pants down, having a dump.)

Although at first sight Melting may seem to belong to earlier in Ajeno’s life due to the fiery and acidic eroticism, the reference to a plate of fried birds may well derive from an outing to a cortijo (smallholding) in the Alpujarras (foothills of the Sierra Nevada) which Angela arranged to entertain her father by adoption. Apparently the owner of the cortijo, a poor but proud man, could only offer as hospitality to his visitors some home-made wine and half a panful of small birds fried three days earlier complete with beaks and bones and claws, which he caught in ancient spring-traps baited with the large (3 cm) local ants, which he kept in a plastic drum half full of sand and rotting fruit.To a man of Ajeno’s sensibilities, this snack may have seemed iconic and almost sacramental.

New “Exquisite Corpse” poem found! - Inspired by Amazonian drug?

20 October, 2005

A hitherto unknown “exquisite corpse” poem by Ajeno is Exquisite Corpse of Indian woman.  Although the woman in the poem is evoked in morbid terms, the title doesn’t mean she is a corpse, nor imply necrophilia -- even if the reader suspects so!  Exquisite Corpse is the Surrealist method by which a few people create a poem without one author knowing what the other is writing – the sheet of paper is folded before being passed on, leaving only one word exposed.  The first sentence ever obtained by this technique was: “The exquisite corpse shall drink the new wine.”  (Other famous sentences were: “The endless sex sleeps with the orthodox tongue” and “The avenged topaz shall devour with kisses the paralytic of Rome.”) 

Remarkably, the text of Exquisite Corpse of Indian Woman makes connected sense to a degree far greater than mere chance. Perhaps only Ajeno and one collaborator were involved, and conceivably an Amazonian drug such as ayahuasco (also known as yagé) was a stimulus.  Ayahuasco, made from Banisteriopsis vines, dissolves mental boundaries and induces visions and connected consciousness, a group mind, amongst ayahuasceros who create magical songs known as icaros under the influence of ayahuasco. The Tukano Indians of the Colombian Amazon use ayahuasco to inspire icaros. Quite possibly Ajeno experimented with ayahuasco at some time – although clearly any inspiration from this source was already very much in keeping with his own poetic sensibility

Ajeno will receive a plaque

3 October, 2005

According to a recent issue of Llano 7 Días, the weekly newspaper of Villavicencio,
a tertulia literaria (small literary group) which meets once a month is aware of Miguel Ajeno to the extent that it’s campaigning for a plaque to be put on the house where he grew up. However, the only poem by Ajeno which the tertulia has is Muerte de un poeta desconocido and the owner of the house objects that people may think his house was, or still is, the brothel in the poem.