{"id":12967,"date":"2025-07-02T14:53:04","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T13:53:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12967"},"modified":"2025-07-02T14:53:04","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T13:53:04","slug":"gaston-fernandez-apparent-breviary-reviewed-by-astrid-meyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12967","title":{"rendered":"Gast\u00f3n Fern\u00e1ndez, Apparent Breviary, reviewed by Astrid Meyer"},"content":{"rendered":"

A quietly striking collection where readers are left to meditate upon the enigmatic traces of Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s words, and where they might point. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Gast\u00f3n Fern\u00e1ndez | Apparent Breviary (trans. KM Cascia) | World Poetry Books \u00a319.99\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0
<\/strong>Reviewed by Astrid Meyer<\/strong><\/p>\n

Apparent Breviary<\/em>, written between 1980-1981 by the Peruvian poet Gast\u00f3n Fern\u00e1ndez, translated from the Spanish into English in 2025 by KM Cascia, deals largely in traces and ephemerality. \u2018Breviary\u2019, which comes from the Latin breviarium, <\/em>meaning \u2018abridgement\u2019, and brevis,<\/em> \u2018short, brief\u2019, denotes an abridged version of the Psalms, an apt title for a work filled with Biblical allusion and echoes. Fern\u00e1ndez is sometimes tentatively dubbed a neo-baroque writer, in KM Cascia\u2019s words, because (quoting a leading figure of the neo-baroque movement, Severo Sarduy) \u2018his poetry is made almost entirely out of \u201cthe absent signified\u201d\u2019 (page ix). This collection, which consists of 100 single-page poems, offers an attempt to circumscribe in language that which is ungraspable, and perhaps ultimately unknowable. The poems seem almost to float in the ample white space in which they are inset, which also forms an integral part of their structure. In fact, it is as though the poems arise out of a silence, formally signified by the visual space and gaps that also frequently function as punctuation to signal pauses \u2013 spaces in which readers might draw breath. Thus, employing Jason Allen-Paisant\u2019s ideas, the silence constitutes a material \u2018presence\u2019, inviting readers to confront that which language cannot fully hold.<\/p>\n

The poems are sparse, lucid, and dreamlike, each a discrete piece within a larger, patterned whole – like a breviary – as words and phrases repeat themselves throughout, often with slight variation. Unsettling undertones of violence also run through the collection, urging readers to take note. For instance, \u2018Without a trace: all that antiquity of air \/ ubiquitous \/\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 as a blowgun \/ in the image of an eye\u2019 (poem 67), and later, \u2018Precipitation without militias the body \/ knows not the flow of the area on surface \/ [\u2026] Blood \/ Lord \/ for the backward of bullets\u2019 (81). Further, state-sanctioned violence, for which \u2018medal\u2019 perhaps stands as a metonym, is also subject to contemptuous ridicule, deemed \u2018vanity’:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Derision on the brow<\/p>\n

on the medal<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

in the blood<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Lord,<\/p>\n

if in the eye\u2019s measure<\/p>\n

air confronts the certainties<\/p>\n

of vanity (17)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moreover, a relationship between text and body is established: the two are frequently positioned as interchangeable. In fact, the text itself becomes a kind of fragmented, perhaps dismembered \u2018body\u2019: \u2018derision \/ centers in the mouth \/ between pores of \/ letters\u2019 (15). Elsewhere, Fern\u00e1ndez writes, \u2018Plausible \/ sonority, same \/ as blood\u2019 (31), thereby equating \u2018sonority\u2019, e.g. that of a poem\u2019s, with \u2018blood\u2019.<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s text also frequently offers a meta-poetic commentary on the practice of writing, focussing on how language is constructed, and on the materiality of poetry, underscored by the frequent references to \u2018book\u2019 throughout. \u2018Rage is a noun\u2019, the speaker notes, \u2018Either know a poet in a book Or put \/ one\u2019s conscience on \/ a cloud\u2019 (14). In the final stanza, the poem, which concerns senseless violence, descends almost into the nonsensical, thereby expressing the horror of conflict that cannot necessarily be comprehended or showcased through language alone. This is perhaps a nod to Peru\u2019s politically fraught recent history involving periods of military rule, rampant corruption, and restricted civil rights. The poem ends disquietingly: \u2018death to the phoneme so there will be no \/ death and \/ murder man \/ no reason \/ no prose \/ no poem\u2019 (14), the breakdown of the syntax formally enacting the \u2018no reason\u2019 of violence – the insensibility of the cited \u2018murder\u2019. This recalls H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Cixous\u2019s assertation in her essay, \u2018Coming to Writing\u2019, published in 1992, that \u2018we always live without <\/em>reason; and living is just that, it\u2019s living without-reason, for nothing, at the mercy of time\u2019 (5). Cixous\u2019 \u2018nonreason\u2019 of living corresponds to Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s \u2018no reason\u2019 of state violence, and perhaps also of the dislocation of exile, as Fern\u00e1ndez lived in exile in Belgium from 1969 onwards. Cixous further notes that \u2018all my lives are divided between two principal lives [\u2026] [d]own below I claw, I am lacerated, I sob [\u2026] carnage, limbs, quarterings, tortured bodies, noises, engines, harrow. Up above, face, mouth, aura; torrent of the silence of the heart\u2019 (17). Her language which pits \u2018face, mouth, aura\u2019 against bodily suffering and degradation finds its echo in Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s collection which frequently references and isolates individual body parts: \u2018Desire is no book \/ is no word the book closes \/ mouth \/ lips, fist \/ opens\u2019 (54), and, \u2018I know the true peal is \/ on the lips\u2019 (5). Fern\u00e1ndez also mentions \u2018aura\u2019 on several occasions, for instance,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The body alone now frequently \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0makes fire<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 word<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 creates void<\/p>\n

on the lip<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0praises,<\/p>\n

reverts to lip<\/p>\n

with no aura<\/p>\n

with no air<\/p>\n

with no poem (69)<\/p>\n

The poem seems to chart the word \u2013 and the body\u2019s \u2013 transfiguration. As Cascia further argues:<\/p>\n

[y]ou wonder if the poems may, in fact, actually be the white space, with the words there just to shape it. To draw attention to that \u201cabsent signified\u201d mentioned above. Which is the (apparent?) absence of God, an absence gestured at in the overtly religious language, yes, but also in the rest of the vocabulary, in the echo of the Psalms contained in the form. And in the titular concept, a breviary. (x)<\/p>\n

This collection calls to mind George Herbert\u2019s sonnet, \u2018Prayer (I)\u2019, published in 1633, which frames prayer as bridging the divide between heaven and earth. Prayer is metaphorised by Herbert as \u2018The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth\u2019, and as a [siege] \u2018engine against th’ Almighty\u2019. He thereby surprisingly juxtaposes violent, aggressive diction with the elevated, overtly religious; following the volta, Herbert writes, \u2018Exalted manna, gladness of the best, \/ Heaven in ordinary, man well drest\u2019, thus infusing the \u2018ordinary\u2019 with religiosity. In Fern\u00e1ndez, however, such exalted religiosity remains ambiguous \u2013 its validity is called radically into question, with no final or definite resolve. The \u2018apparent\u2019 absence of God towards which the collection gestures thus plays on both senses of the titular word \u2018apparent\u2019: obvious or evident, or rather, only seemingly true or real but not necessarily so. A reader is therefore left to meditate upon the enigmatic \u2013\u00a0and inconclusive \u2013 traces of Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s words and where they might point. As Cixous aptly notes: \u2018[w]riting [is] a way of leaving no space for death, of pushing back forgetfulness, of never letting oneself be surprised by the abyss. [\u2026] To confront perpetually the mystery of the there-not-there. The visible and the invisible\u2019 (3).<\/p>\n

Reviewed by Astrid Meyer <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A quietly striking collection where readers are left to meditate upon the enigmatic traces of Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s words, and where they might point. Gast\u00f3n Fern\u00e1ndez | Apparent Breviary (trans. KM Cascia) | World Poetry Books \u00a319.99\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Reviewed by Astrid Meyer Apparent Breviary, written between 1980-1981 by the Peruvian poet Gast\u00f3n Fern\u00e1ndez, translated from the Spanish into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[13,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nGast\u00f3n Fern\u00e1ndez, Apparent Breviary, reviewed by Astrid Meyer - The Manchester Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.themanchesterreview.co.uk\/?p=12967\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gast\u00f3n Fern\u00e1ndez, Apparent Breviary, reviewed by Astrid Meyer - The Manchester Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A quietly striking collection where readers are left to meditate upon the enigmatic traces of Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s words, and where they might point. 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