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Lyrical Poetry and Pantheism of Juan Ramón Molina

Juan Ramón Molina was born in 1875 and died young in 1908, but he was a precocious writer. His style, somewhat less flowery yet influenced by Darío and his ability to express metaphysical concerns with a language that was still endearing, won him the favor of his readers...

By León Leiva Gallardo
Poetry has always been the vehicle of the unsaid, the unspeakable, and the forbidden. The ambivalent or ambiguous nature of the language, the nuances and the insinuations, all lend themselves for the intricacies and tribulations of the human experience, be they openly shared or shunned by others. In this sense, modern poetry is no longer a social form of discourse as it used to be in Medieval Europe, ancient Greece, and classical Rome, when knowledge and morals were transmitted through versification.

Gobbled Up

Sea monster -- Mythical giant sea creature. Thought by credulous sailors to appear suddenly and gobble up the unwary. Obviously, a preposterous supersti_______
-H. Beard and R. McKie, A Lubber’s Dictionary

By Jorge Agurcia Fasquelle
When we think of getting eaten alive, most of us associate it with a tiger, a Tiger Shark or memorable shag; but really -- even for those who have lived through the experience -- rarely do sand flies ever come to mind. And this is interesting, in and of itself, because to be attacked by these little fiends is to become a main course. By the time you spot that first telltale red spot on your back or neck or legs, you are already part of the history books, under the heading "Entrees." You still have time to get back into the water -- and that'll stop the onslaught -- but it's actually too late; and it will tell for days.

The Poets of No Self-Mercy

It is really difficult to find art for art's sake type o poets in Honduras, especially after the “little flood” of 1998 and the the “big blow” of 2009. We have experienced the cruelest depictions of nature and nurture; we have been weaned with sewer water and slapped on the face with democracy's dirty diapers.

By León Leiva Gallardo
In my last article on Juan Ramón Molina, I made direct references to his visionary poetry and a sort of a side allusion to his “heresy”. Any true poet who read Nietzsche at the turn of the XIX century must have been -- silently or openly -- tempted to go beyond good and evil. After J. R. Molina and Froylán Turcios (another iconoclast), Honduras gave in to the formalities of declamatory rhymes, preciosismo, and to facile moral poetry of the reprimanding type. It took about two generations to come out of that rut of self-righteous catechism where patria, landscape, and courtly love swooned in mariology.

James Joint Film "Secretos Conocidos" Premiers in New York

Realism is important to me as a filmmaker, realism with a dash of poetry. This is a factional work of art. One which we hope will provoke feelings in its spectators. In the best of cases, people might be led, in the humblest of ways, to deal with the pain of their own secrets or feel empathy for those who do. In the worst of cases, at least those who see it now know some of this "secret". So here we come.
-James Joint, Honduran filmmaker

Honduras Weekly
Anew short film, "Secretos Conocidos" ("Known Secrets") by Honduran James Joint will make its New York premier tonight at the Anthology Film Archives on the Lower East Side of Manhattan at 32 Second Avenue and 2nd Street. The screening will be part of the New Filmmakers New York's Spring Festival , which will run through April 10. The 19-minute work, produced by Mario E. Ramírez and edited by Axel Ebermann, was filmed entirely on location in Honduras with Honduran actors and actresses. The synopsis goes like this: Jesus buys and sells little girls and hates himself. Frank abuses little boys even though they are his family, and the Judge tries to stop it all. We known them all... they are our fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters and friends, and yet it all remains such a big secret (known by all)... (photo of James Joint courtesy El Tiempo)

The Lure of MarieBelle's Chocolate

When people think about fine chocolate, they associate it with Switzerland or Belgium. But cacao was introduced to Europe by the Spanish conquistadors. Chocolate comes from Central America. Shouldn’t the best chocolate come from there?
-Maribel Lieberman

By Stanley Marrder
The closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) rings at 4:00 pm US Eastern Time to signify the end of a stock trading session. In 1870, when the tradition began, a Chinese gong was used. When the stock exchange moved to it’s current building in 1903, it was replaced by a bell system which is still in use today. The tradition is highly publicized. Millions of people watch it daily through the NYSE Euronext website and TV networks such as CNBC, Bloomberg TV and Fox Business news. It is often done by a representative of a company, but there have been many high profile special guests.

Why Are We Still Beating Our Kids?

Editor's Note: The incidence of child abuse in Honduras is high. This is due, in part, to a conservative culture that tends to accept the spanking of children as an acceptable form of punishment. It can also be attributed to the disintegration of the Honduran family which has increased the prevalence of violence in the home directed at both women and children. Estimates of Honduran households in which violence is common range as high as 30 percent.

By Lorraine Devon Wilke
Most of us saw the Youtube video of Texas Judge William Adams beating the living daylights out of his teenaged daughter with a belt. We watched as he twisted and turned her like a pig on a spit, whacking away at whatever body part he could get to with the feral swing of his belt and we were appalled. Right? We were appalled? Certainly many were, but what also made itself evident after the exposé of Judge Gone Wild was the disturbing tone of some of the comments left in response:

Maya Demise Tied to Fear of Evil Spirits

At the same time, the Classic Maya would have implicated gods and their "divine" rulers for the collapse. In that way, their abandoned territories became thought of as chaotic, haunted places, and reclaiming any lands from the forest was at best done with great care and ritual.

By Charles Choi
A dread of malevolent spirits haunting forsaken areas could, along with environmental catastrophes, help to explain why some areas in the ancient Mayan world proved less resilient than others when their civilization disintegrated, researchers suggest. The ancient Maya once claimed an area about the size of Texas, with cities and fields that occupied what is now southern Mexico and northern Central America, including the countries of Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. The height of the Mayan civilization, known as the Classic period, extended from approximately AD 250 to at least 900. For unknown reasons, the Classic Mayan civilization then collapsed. The population declined catastrophically to a fraction of its former size, and many of their great cities were left mostly abandoned for the jungle to reclaim.

The Best Friend I Never Met: Billy Peña (1942-2012)

Billy lived an ascetic life. He ate sparingly. He slept fitfully. He prayed, doted on his pet dogs and cats, and he worked feverishly until the end.

By W. E. Gutman
It was an unlikely fellowship from the start, the kind of amity made famous in epic novels or on celluloid -- he, a devout Catholic; I, a Jew and an atheist. We came from different universes; we lived in dissimilar worlds that would fortuitously merge like two celestial bodies now caught in a synchronous orbit. Something I’d written 13 years ago about a half-crazed homeless old woman living in a cardboard box in Tegucigalpa’s Parque Central, had caught his eye, stirred his soul and triggered an impassioned response. Entitled Doña Nadie, his editorial took aim at the undercurrents of corruption, ineptitude and apathy that favor and perpetuate poverty in his native Honduras. I called him on the phone. We spoke for an hour and we became fast friends.

Juan Ramón Molina: Ahead of Our Time

Molina is considered -- no doubt overshadowed by the luminary Rubén Darío -- one of the greatest representatives of modernismo in Central America.

By León Leiva Gallardo
My admiration for Honduras' Juan Ramón Molina has not been due to mere antiquarian curiosity or nostalgia, but more like an ongoing interpretation, reinterpretation, and, now, translation of his work. It is not an easy task at all. His verse is metrical, intertwined, metered, and rhymed, the styles of the time in which he outlived himself. These formal aspects of his poetry can be deceiving though. Underneath the sensual, soft-spoken phrases, the extravagant similes and metaphors, and high-brow, classical allusions, are insinuations, if not manifest stands, of a mind beyond his time. Molina is considered -- no doubt overshadowed by the luminary Rubén Darío -- one of the greatest representatives of modernismo in Central America. But some of his poems and narrative pieces show the signs of the moderns, more so in content than in style. And a clarification is here necessary. European and American moderns, the constellation of avant-garde writers and artists, are known as modernos in Spanish, not to be confused with Latin American and Spanish modernists (modernistas)

The Indefatigable Fabricio Estrada

His incessant labor amazes me. He is an indefatigable castor canadensis who rebuilds his lodges as often as the reluctant currents may destroy them. This trait of his is not the product of overconfidence or vanity; it is the result of well-founded love and respect for his craft and his people.

By León Leiva Gallardo
Every time I travel to Honduras (mostly to Tegucigalpa), the first thing I always do -- after seeing family and friends -- is to go to the bookstores and search for the latest titles of Honduran writers, something literally impossible to find anywhere else. In this our town, I often end up finding the classics in Guaymuras and the latest in Café Paradiso, the meeting-place of poets and writers in general. It was there where I first read with great enthusiasm the irreverent, quick verse of Rubén Izaguirre and also Fabricio Estrada's first book of poetry. Their poetry couldn't be any more different if one purposely looked for contraries. I was baffled by the easiness, wit, and humor of Izaguirre. He had that element of surprise, graffiti-like quirkiness, much needed in those dismal days after Hurricane Mitch. But, please, don't get me wrong. This comparison is not gratuitous. I became interested in new poetic voices then, at the end of 1998, the beginning of 1999, because it was Rubén Izaguirre who introduced me to them (I will write about Izaguirre on another occasion). Allow me to explain myself.