In the book A river of sun (Alternativa Ediciones) three wills come together: that of the pianist David Virelles, that of the engraver and illustrator Alec Dempster and that of the poet Ricardo Yáñez. Presented last Thursday at the Casa de Tabasco Carlos Pellicer, Dempster (Mexico City, 1971) referred to the process that triggered the six graphics and the same number of poems contained in this artist’s book.
Two years ago, Virelles, a musician from Santiago de Cuba living in New York, contacted Dempster, who had already designed two album covers for him, to ask him to make half a dozen monochrome prints to be projected as animations at the premiere of the piece. Oro, commissioned by Carnegie Hall. The number of engravings had to do with the sections of the work to be presented. The motifs in the images are those that Virelles provided to illustrate.
In view of the fact that Oro It has not been presented again, and in order to “give more life to these engravings,” Dempster showed the art created for the scenography to Yáñez, for whom he had already designed the cover of a book, with a view to a possible collaboration. Virelles writes in A river of sun that Yáñez, “an icon of contemporary Mexican literature, has a vast body of work that is nourished by both popular singing and the work of Garcilaso de la Vega or Gil Vicente. He is also a song composer, workshop leader and journalist. It is an honor that he has accepted our idea of collaboration.”
A work of friends
Yáñez in turn highlighted that the book is a work of friends. “It is not an illustrated collection of poems, but rather an illustrated engraving with poems.” The texts included are made from images; However, “not mine”, then, “they do not say what a poet usually says who, whether he likes it or not, generally talks about himself. This is not very good; however, it is what happens. Poets are egocentric, not egotistical or selfish, because our work is like that of actors: our raw material is within us.”
He continued: “Pretend that he (Dempster) had seen the same thing as me, even though they were pure words. He did not illustrate the texts to me, but I illustrated them with my words. I don’t know how well, I have my doubts. I would like my texts to have been better, although, of course, I gave the most I could. I am not used to working with other people’s material; so, what I put there are Dempster’s images, which are those of Virelles. It is curious.”
Yáñez proceeded to read the poems.
The poet Daniel Téllez, author of a “report” regarding Yáñez, assured that his colleague has “the rare gift of transparency, disinterested walking and the habit of thinking many things out loud.
“Ricardo is a river that germinates between song and poetry; a squire of language, there is no doubt. There is music in his ear and that overcomes all the barriers of the world. A chameleon inhabits him and transmutes his creative side. He interprets the lyricism of nature and popular speech. The enigmatic poet and the prosaic poet are one and the same in their crying. His eyes embody the temporal intensity of finitude.”
The narrator, illustrator and painter Carlos Pellicer López, nephew of the Tabasco poet, assured that “it is not common to bring together three high-grade artists in a book.” He indicated that their expressions “seem necessary and indispensable to us,” to the extent that “they look from deep within and bring out from there, very deep and very high, the roots that continue to sustain us. Thanks to them we can find the path that is illuminated by their deep ear, their mysterious voice and their wise gaze. A river that ends in sunflowers is a sun that ends in a book.”
Dempster is also a renowned musician who knows son jarocho. Hence, as a gift for Yáñez, he performed a couple of songs accompanied by a tambourine.
A river of sun It has a print run of 100 copies that include an original risograph. It was printed in Morelia, Michoacán. The cover was designed by Anona Books.