A day not to remember with clarity, the poet Ben Clark (Ibiza, 35 years old) wrote a poem. Then, this poem ended up arrejuntado with others in the book, The confusing mix, which won the Poetry Prize Young Félix Grande. The day that was printed, the volume was the last day in which the poem was under the power of the poet because, as is often said, poetry is not only the writing but also the reads. What I didn’t expect Clark is that that poem would be appropriate for other people in such a measure: the poem became viral, he was totally out of control and suffered mind-blowing metamorphosis.
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In a certain time of the year of its publication, 2011, the poem jumped to Twitter, and from then until today continues to bounce from the corners of the Internet, riding on electromagnetic waves, and passing through optical fibers, and again projected on thousands of screens. The author has accompanied him on his journey: “In reality, it is as if what happened was completely alien to me, as if the poem was not mine,” Clark says.
In effect, the author’s name a few times accompanies a text whose authorship has been attributed to Mario Benedetti or that have been appropriated by various tweeters. Until it has been said that it is a chinese proverb. The poem, by the way, is titled The ultimate purpose of the (bad) poetry and says: “You read because you think that I am writing. / That is something understandable. // I write because I think I read. / And that is a terrible thing”. The author himself acknowledges that it is not one of his best poems, though it works within its limits, “as a Fiat Punto”.
‘THE ULTIMATE END OF THE (BAD) POETRY’
“You read them because you think that I am writing.
That is understandable.
I write because I think I read.
And that is a terrible thing”.
around the adventures digital of this small text is published now And that is a terrible thing, a Chronicle of a poem viral, a study by professor of the University of Salamanca Daniel Escandell Montiel, published by Delirium, where are still a thousand and one adventures in the poem. “The text has been reproduced in many different ways, for example, without the title, as that will remove your heavy burden of irony”, says the professor, who has counted up to 250,000 variations, some insignificant and others very significant. And up to a total of one million occurrences on the web, although it is difficult to give accurate data.
The poem has been shared as photo or as part of a meme, has been tuitetado and retuiteado, accompanied by emoticons, is corrected and increased, written in capital letters or with errata, reproduced in all kinds of fonts and all type of funding, it is almost always melancholy. Also shredded and used for parts on other texts that are more extensive. A poem useful as a box of tools. Versions that could be framed within the scriptures, not-creative, studied by Kenneth Goldsmith. The brevity of the text, its tone, condemning, almost aphorism, has had much to do in its success among the general public. “I think it has an air of false depth that has come a lot of people,” says Clark.
The ‘boom’ in the Grid
The text, in addition, arises in a year, 2011, in which the so-called boom of the poetry of the Internet, the parapoetas, of the poetuiteros or poetry pop tardoadolescente (as defined by Martín Rodríguez Gaona in the essay The lira of the masses, published by páginas de espuma) I was still not giving that talk or had called the attention of the major publishing houses that would sell tens of thousands of copies, throwing the cane to the procelosas waters digital. And although Clark will not be categorised as one of these poets, the case is that his work became viral. “This is a poem that emerges is aligned with the microgéneros, that for a long time were despised by the publishing houses and the academy, and that the Internet managed to recover”, writes Escandell. “This poem viral, in addition, it fits very well with the taste of the users of the Internet for a poetry very accessible, where it is valued more the emotional load that the load aesthetic,” adds the professor.
Before the Internet there were verses that colonized the collective mind. “Green I want you green”, for example, of Federico García Lorca, which many recite it without knowing the author. The book of Escandell opens with a few verses from Manuel Machado: “Until the people sing / las coplas, coplas are not / and when the sings of the people / no one knows the author,” and that “what is lost from name / wins of eternity”. We find ourselves before a case, one among many others, where this popularity has standing to social networks and the verses will resonate maybe forever (if there is a future), even without the accompaniment of its author, Ben Clark. One should ask, to paraphrase the poet, if that is “something terrible” or that it is “understandable”.
a Brief history of the verses apocrypha
The writer Bertolt Brecht, in Berlin in 1927. ZANDER & LABISCH
The Ben Clark is not the only poem of the story, which has viralizado (before and after the existence of social networks) or attributed to authors who are not in reality.
A case of long-living is the poem whose beginning he says “First they came for the socialists, and I said nothing because I was not a socialist”, that circulates in different versions and is traditionally attributed to Bertolt Brecht, though in reality it is the lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller.
“If I could live again my life, in the next he would try to commit more errors,” begins the poem Instantes, usually attributed to the writer Jorge Luis Borges, although its author was the american Nadine Stair and his spirit scratch in the self-help.
the death of Gabriel García Márquez was a false testament poetic of his, entitled The marionette, who was not such. Began as follows: “If for an instant God were to forget that I’m a marionette of rag and he gave me a piece of life, possibly I would not say everything I think, but ultimately think everything I say”.
The poem slowly Dies, the brazilian Martha Medeiros, is viralizó falsely attributed to Nobel chilean Pablo Neruda. Begins: “slowly Dies who does not travel, / who do not read, / who does not hear music.”
The Fundación Mario Benedetti alerting him in a tweet in may of 2018, that a poem entitled don’t give up was not de Benedetti, as it was spreading, perhaps by confusion with the poem No te salves, which itself is the uruguayan.
Although, beyond the literature, perhaps the historical figure that you have put more phrases in the mouth is the physicist, Albert Einstein, synonymous with wisdom and infallibility. By axismplo, that says that human beings only use 10% of our brain. Although it may seem so when trying to detect apocryphal texts.
