Page transcription
March-April, 1962
3
EL MODERNISMO EN LA POESIA
Dicho sea el árbol que es apenas sensible,
y más la dura piedra porque ésa no siente,
que no hay dolor más grande que el dolor de
ser vivo
ni mayor pesadumbre que la vida consciente.
Rubén Dario
Once more the Panamericanistas had the opportunity to attend a very interesting tertulia. This time Rodolfo Suárez talked to us about a very poetic subject: poetry. Professor Suárez, a very old friend of the Association, is a poet himself and so kept the audience enthralled for an hour and half.
He began his talk by giving us an account of romanticism in poetry, and naturally he referred to "el romántico de los románticos", Gustavo Adolfo Becquer.
Tu pupila es azul y si en su fondo
como un punto de luz radia una idea,
me parece en el cielo de la tarde
una persona estrella.
Professor Suárez stressed the fact this romantic streak is still a part of Spanish American poetry. Furthermore, he believes that poetry, in order to stir emotions, should have "una pequeña vena romántica". From here on, he discussed modernism and its representative, el veraguense Rubén Darío. Darío broke away from the classical rules of poetry but he never stopped being a romantic at heart.
Juventud, divino tesoro
que te vas para no volver;
cuando quiero llorar no lloro
y a veces lloro sin querer.
This was followed by a beautiful recitation of a few verses of other "modernistas" that kept us en un maravilloso trance until Professor Suárez began discussing los poetas de vanguardia with their nonsensical wording that is beyond human understanding. Sound-patterns without meaning can never express any ideas or feelings. But everything ended well for the Panamericanistas when Rudy Suárez finished his talk with the recitation of one of his own beautiful poems.
Our thanks to Professor Suárez for this delightful evening.
TERTULIA COMMITTEE
PAST EVENTS OF NOTE
CARNIVAL was held Friday, March 2, at the Philopatrian Club. A large group enjoyed a delicious supper, dancing, and entertainment, and the crowning ceremony of the Carnival Queen.
CIRCULO, February 20, heard Dr. Roberto Couture de Troismontes, Technical Director of the Central Library, and Director of the School for Librarians, Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, the National University of Córdoba, Argentina, Spain.
TERTULIA, February 22, heard an evening of teatro leído presented by three Argentinian guests active in amateur theatrical groups (in Spanish). There was a short play in Spanish, followed by a description of this art form and a discussion of dramatists.
CIRCULO CASTELLANO
The first meeting of the Circulo Castellano in the new year was held January 24 at the Franklin Inn Club. To take our minds off the thoughts of winter in Philadelphia, we were treated to a most interesting lecture of Mexico as seen through the eyes of a botanist.
Bill Clothier as chairman presented the guests of honor, Dr. Faustino Miranda, and our good friends and longtime members Iris Langhorn. In addition to being Director of the Jardín Botánico, Dr. Miranda is a botanist of botany at the National University of Mexico, where he is also a member of the staff of the Instituto de Biología. As many of us know, Mrs. Langhorn's life work in Mexico has been as a Research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. At present she is devoting all her time to the preparation of a bibliography of the materials published since the discovery of Mexico on Mexican plants, which catalogue now totals about 20,000 items.
Dr. Miranda is in the United States on a Guggenheim Fellowship granted to prepare a book on the trees of southeastern Mexico. Most of his time during spent at the National Herbarium of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, but he was spending a week here to check material in the herbarium of the Academy of Natural Sciences. Our own Academy has a valuable collection of plants contributed by the great botanist, José N. Rovira, who lived in the state of Tabasco at the close of the 19th century.
Dr. Miranda showed us slides of the Botanical Garden in Mexico City, stressing the two types of plants there. These are those that need warmth and humidity such as orchids, and which are grown in a greenhouse of unusual structure covered in a plastic Marcolite; and outdoor plants such as cacti and agaves (cactus plants) that like dry weather. Mrs. Langhorn's slides were a mixture of botanical material and pictures of general interest to travelers, but the theme of her presentation was that a botanist finds material of interest wherever he goes. Mrs. Langhorn's husband, Oscar, was the cameraman for her black-and-white films.
This was an interesting and informative meeting and we are proud of the contribution one of our members is making to the botanical field.
ELEANOR UHLHORN
SYMPATHY
The Board of Directors and her many friends among the Association's members in Philadelphia and elsewhere join Eleanor Burris in mourning the death of her dear mother on January 25, 1962. Mrs. L. Burris, the former Mary C. Smith of Philadelphia, died unexpectedly on that date, leaving five daughters, six grandchildren and nineteen great-grandchildren. Eleanor is among the earliest and most faithful of Pan-American Association members. She has been a member of the Board of Directors, Corresponding Secretary, and currently is Recording Secretary of the organization, and is widely and fondly known to members and past members of the Association.
