Performance poetry in Mexico City

World Literature Today, Jan-Feb, 2008 by Santiago Chavez

La Lengua was founded in March 2002 as a project of literary and musical experimentation. They have released three LPs and are currently at work on two more. Their songs and choros have been published in multiple magazines and audiozines and have been widely distributed online. Their music has also been used in several films from Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. Their work is currently being translated into German, and it has also been the focus of a doctoral dissertation. Throughout its five years of existence, its membership has varied but currently includes Judith de Leon Patat, Santiago Chavez, and Rodrigo Solis.

What in English is known as "spoken-word poetry" in Spanish is known as poesia en voz alta or poesia hablada. In the Chilango calo (slang) of Mexico City, we call it choro. Its origins can be traced to the merolico and the traveling salesperson, the street musician and the pesero or metro announcer. The chorero can work alone or in a group, as in our case.

La Lengua is engaged in hoping and searching for community and identity, expressing itself through words and music united as a single object, which we can continue to call song or, as we affectionately call it in Mexico City, rola. We have taken the liberty of incorporating the choro into the rola, oral poetry into song. In the case of recordings or publications, the form crystallizes, though in reality the choro does mutate. It allows for improvisation, following certain pauses and respecting musical boundaries and semantic fields alike. In our rolas the boundaries between speech and song are tested--speech is sung and song is spoken.

   Todos los tuneles que somos nos vamos

   Esta cancion partio de una frase de un manuscrito de Jaime Acosta
   Teixeiro (1947-69), poeta inedito de la ciudad de Mexico de la
   decada del sesenta.

   Ayer me comi una sandia, con los pies colgando
   mientras tu reias desde la azotea, sentada en la orilla,
   y leias cantando un poema de Jaime que iba:
   Todos los tuneles que somos nos vamos.

   Si supieramos cantar como los vidrios.
   Si supieramos cantar como las laminas de acero.
   Si mis dedos se agrandaran por la noche.
   Si las maquinas callaran.

   Todos los tuneles que somos nos vamos.

   Vamos juntos a bailar sohre la calle mientras otros barren y
   tienden la ropa.
   Vamos a regar las plantas de conversaciones.

   Todos los tuneles que somos nos vamos.

   All of the Tunnels We Are We Go

   This song arose from a phrase from a manuscript of Jaime Acosta
   Teixeiro (1947-69), an unpublished Chilango poet of the 1960s.

   Yesterday I ate a watermelon, feet swinging
   while you laughed from the roof, seated at its edge,
   and you sang as you read a poem of Jaime's that went:
   All of the tunnels we are we go.

   If we knew how to sing like glass.
   If we knew how to sing like sheet metal.
   If my fingers grew bigger during the night.
   If the machines shut up.

   All of the tunnels we are we go.

   Let's dance together through the street while others sweep
   and hang their clothes to dry.
   Let's water the roots of conversations.

   All of the tunnels we are we go.

Translated by David Shook