I’m sharing Elaine Stirling’s tribute to Nobel Prize winner, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Gabo), who passed away recently. Elaine’s words speak for themselves.
Gabo was a man of many talents, but if there is a most notable work, it is surely ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude‘ (1967) which did much to popularize magical realism. This is not some obscure strand of literature of interest only to historians. Gabo’s influence and that of magical realism in particular is not only relevant today but relevant to us here and now at Greyhart Press. We will shortly be publishing the novel ‘Daughters of Babylon’ by Elaine Stirling. Gabo, magical realism, and ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ are all major influences.
And while Elaine is yet to win her first Nobel Prize (or if she has, she’s kept it quiet from me) her post on Gabo was selected by the WordPress editors for their ‘Freshly Pressed’ showcase. Well done, Elaine!
Let us speak of love
Openly in the streets where myth
Vanquishes hard truth, and stories course
Eternally like tendrils of a vine.
I’ll learn again to disregard no dream
Naturally, to avoid reality’s cold hosts.
The gossips crow today of hosts—
How faithful, how devout to godly love,
Excepting fellow man; but in your dream
They flourish, flawed, woven through the myth
In which the hummingbird protects the vine.
Macondo breathes, and soldiers know, of course,
Enemies in politics and sex direct the course
Of every man, while fever born of tropics hosts
Fierce calumnies that twist what is divine.
Ghosts, they coincide us, fleshed by love
And fecund women who secrete pure myth
Between their limbs to fuel the shaman’s dream.
Oh, I’ve no quarrel with the torpid dream;
Grist shines in every form, each course
And rivulet propels Creation’s myth.
But let us tolerate no disappointed hosts
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