“The tradition of all dead generations weighs like
a nightmare on the brains of the living.”
—Karl Marx“...even the dead will not be safe fom the enemy if he wins.
And this enemy has not ceased to be victorious.”
—Walter Benjamin
“Tear down those fences and
let al the people rise, even the dead.”
—Ernesto Cardenal
What might contemporary secular poets learn from a Nicaraguan Marxist poet-priest such as Ernesto Cardenal, an avowed Catholic minister whose poetic works largely reflect his solidarity with Nicaraguan campesinos as well as the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) socialist party? His short collection of eight dialectical montage poems, together called Zero Hour and released in 1980 after the height of the Nicaraguan Revolution and the collapse of the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, equip the secular poet with a space to meditate on just this question. While for some poets Cardenal might be an outlier in the world of poetry and poetics, the whole of his life stands solidly remarkable as a tapestry of religious convictions, communist actions, contemplative communal life, endless letters and volumes of poetry, and a fight larger than him that to date refuses to abandon justice work in the face of what I have come to think of as global “death before death.” It is in light of this that Zero Hour becomes an agent of not only reflecting on the crimes of States, but of charging poets to participate in political movements without sanctimoniousness.
I first found Cardenal in the wake of writing a full poetry collection about leaving the fold of Christianity—ironic, since all of Cardenal’s political and poetic work centers on a type of Marxist Catholic liberation theology central to his revolutionary activity with the Sandinistas. As a former almost-chaplain, a poet, and a person moving ever leftward, my imagination was very particularly fascinated by Cardenal’s disinterest with waiting to be saved by a messianic socialist Jesus in lieu of organizing campesinos to save themselves. That there was no separation for Cardenal between this type of communist organizing, poetry, and the contemplative religious existence is a signal to me that there is something in his life and work that secular poets, from any country and regardless of faith or un-faith, would be insensible to ignore in light of the specific cruelty in our current global moment. Assuming quite a few poets are concerned with creating a road forward with some semblance of integrity-towards-justice as the world quite literally burns, we might look to the paths drawn by figures such as Cardenal, noted as saying that he “wrote for the young people of the future.” Now is his future, and "we" must sing into existence along with him a better now.
Zero Hour, specifically, is perhaps Cardenal’s seminal work. As one of his most well-known collections of poetry, it is one of the best starting points to begin engaging with the larger corpus of Cardenal's thoughts. Specifically, Zero Hour gives insight into how secular poets might learn to think about literature as a medium or agent. Throughout the eight poems in the collection, it is clear that Cardenal believes that “our battle is on the field of language” (Cardenal, 57) in tandem with the knowledge that “so long as there are class divisions there’s no freedom” (32). Speaking long and often of the details surrounding Nicaragua’s past and present oppressions under the dictatorship of the Somozas as well as under the thumbs of the World Bank, the United States, and the United Fruit Company (to name a few), he inescapably involves “us” in the texture of specific catastrophes inaugurated by these political players. His use of visual film-like “shots” contour his spatiotemporal landscape through the application of documentary-style writing and forces his readers to confront the political topography of the time—and often, even the present.
Through this visceral writing method, he incites poets themselves to recognize that
poetry, no matter the decade, is not merely language but is also an opportunity to choose how one will be particularly oriented in the world. In other words, it is never apolitical. For me, this leads into thinking about language as a material force and as an agent of both life and death. For Cardenal, the poetic impetus that comes up throughout Zero Hour manifests as recognizing that “this is no time for literary criticism,” (90) but rather a time to incarnate a cosmic redemption of the proletariat and establish a “communion with the species” (54). Since Cardenal’s vision throughout all of his works involves inaugurating some sort of “Communist Kingdom of God” where the exploitation of the proletariat, the expropriation of resources, and ultimately the vicissitudes of capitalism and colonization are destroyed, it is not too far a stretch to understand this vision as being the reason and rhythm for much of his writing.
Communion then, according to Cardenal, formulates itself through considering the
human animal as being a part of a larger ecological web, which in turn necessitates
revolutionary action since “true contemplation is resistance. And poetry” (73). He understood that transformation of the earth is not only possible, but even more possible when we move by writing ourselves out of the world that concretely operates. In this way, he notes that “revolution is at times routine and without glory” (52). Thoughts around revolution notwithstanding, he also understood that both urgent immediacy and a sort of “long con” were in effect in his vision of communion, and ultimately, of communism. It is here that one can hear Cardenal’s words, “literature, as effective as guns — said Mao” (57) and recognize the depth of his commitment to agitating for a different world.
Having traveled extensively as a member of the clergy as well as on behalf of the Sandinistas, transnational political frameworks became central to his understanding of what it means to be a part of a larger ecological web. This, perhaps, is central to all of his work — but especially to Zero Hour. From visiting New York to to speaking of Columbian guerrillas, Cardenal displays an intimate relationship with the world by nature of his simply paying attention. This attention, detailed in its scope and forceful in its convictions, grasps not at straws but at the systems that make up the kinds of horror that might force one to spend years writing to understand it in order to destroy it. From this, the secular poet can gather that not only does understanding larger global actors make one a better poet—it perhaps makes one a poet in the most true sense of the word: that is, concerned.
Even years after it’s publication, Cardenal reminds his readers through Zero Hour what it means to be concerned. Ultimately, he teaches those of "us" that are listening what it is to reject nihilism. In a global political moment wrought with cruelty and existential despair, poets cannot be caught dead — in any sense — being nihilists, leading to fascism. Nihilism consists in believing that things cannot be otherwise. Cardenal teaches the world, even after his recent death in 2020, that it can be otherwise and humanity can make this so. Taking heed of his prophetic charge to create sustainable and just social systems through acting upon our particular ability to — like Cardenal — forego using metaphor against the projects of global liberation movements, poets can “document” out of the intent to imagine, create, and agitate toward a world without borders, sanctions, and cruel relations. A world like ours needs more poets committed to standing in the abyss of the material world, engaging both its horror and its beauty. And the sooner this is done, the better. This old world isn’t getting any younger.
REFERENCES
Cardenal, Ernesto. Zero Hour. Edited by Donald D. Walsh. Translated by Robert Pring-Mill and Jonathan Cohen. New York: New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1980.