Torés, Alberto

Malaga - Panama

Alberto Torés García

I was very happy in my mother’s womb.

I did not know boxes of winds in dispute

nor Iroquois women inseminated with nostalgia,

and all conflicts reduced to see me grow.

I then wanted to be a poet.

Because poetry is undoubtedly the space of freedom par excellence and a reliable way to ease suffering. I have written and published some titles with publishing houses, dates and cities. I have also written and not yet published. Precisely, a book of poems, homage to Blaise Cendrars, The Adventure of my Seven Lives. Another unpublished book, Pistas de Lluvia (Hints of Rain). In it there is also a tribute to Cendrars. In the press, although with a notable delay, my 35 elastic poems and some museum pieces continue, alluding again to my debt with the poet.

We are in 1961.

The great Swiss poet Blaise Cendrars in sitting

on a wooden bench opposite the Unesco building.

He smokes incessantly, does not move his arm and his gaze

is lost in the webs of the past.

We are neighbours in José María de Heredia Street.

His face is beautiful with wisdom and courage. Sometimes,

he stroked my head with his left arm. Once

he said:

‘I will trade you your sticker for the Paris Literature Grand Prix’.

I definitely wanted poetry to be an essential part of my life and I approached it, with readings, recitals, communications, articles, translations, studies. For this reason, I have searched and found specialised magazines from all over the world with train stations, to alternate creative and critical labour. I have been anthologised with more or less fortune and translated with gratitude.

As for the rest, I believe I was born in Paris in September 1959. That I make ends meet each month thanks to my salary from the official language school. That my son in called Alfonso. That it is likely I run a debate forum, Otra Malaga. That I try to understand my time. That I almost always criticise it from an opinion column of a newspaper in Malaga. I know, like Cendrars, that when one is in love one must flee, and I have been living in Malaga for 24 years, with attempts to escape to Barcelona, Manchester and Paris.

Drawing by Fabio Zimbres