shuttered-glowing-void – A Poetry Reading and Conversation with Rodolfo Häsler

Date: Thur., Sep. 5th, 19:00-20:30

Place: Tÿpo Bar – Tekstin talo (Lintulahdenkatu 3)

Participants: Rodolfo Häsler (Cuba/Switzerland), Emma Toukonen (Finland), José Luis Rico (Mexico)

Event description:

Poet and translator Rodolfo Häsler (1958) represents a peculiar case in the landscape of Spanish-language poetry. Born in Havana, educated in German-speaking institutions in Spain and Switzerland, Rodolfo Häsler is the author of ten poetry collections and several translations of German classics, including Novalis and Kafka. From his first books, published in the 80’s (Poemas de arena, Tratado de licanthropía), Häsler’s work has harnessed a wide array of literary devices (from the quasi-objective description of landscape to Lezama Lima’s verbal delirium). At the level of discourse, Häsler’s poetry is imbued with that Hispanic esotericism that “doesn’t denote [its object] but rather evokes [it]” (Hugo Friedrich, Die Struktur der modernen Lyrik, 1956). On the other hand, through its cosmopolitan drive and themes, Häsler’s work amalgamates Germanic and Romance cultural traditions, disrupting referentiality (city names, everyday visions, travel experiences) by means of a reflexive eroticism: an erotic approach to philosophical reflection. In this sense, his poetry simultaneously touches the limits of rootedness and rootlessness. In this talk, Häsler will read his poems alongside Emma Toukonen’s Finnish translations. The Helsinki-based poet  José Luis Rico will discuss the constitutive elements of Häsler’s work and its relation to the Spanish- and German-language traditions.

Rodolfo Häsler (Santiago de Cuba, 1958) is a Swiss-Cuban poet and translator. He studied Literature at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. Among his books of poetry are Poemas de arena (1982), Tratado de licantropía (1988), Elleife (1993, 2018, Aula de Poesía de Barcelona Prize), De la belleza del puro pensamiento (1997, Oscar Cintas Foundation Fellowship), Poemas de la rue de Zurich (2000), and Lengua de lobos (2021, XII Claudio Rodríguez International Poetry Prize). He has translated the complete poetry of Novalis (DVD Ediciones, Barcelona, ​​2001) and Kafka’s short stories (Editorial Thule, Barcelona, ​​2006). He curated the edition of Bolivian poet Blanca Wiethüchter’s poetry anthology, El festín de la flama (Editorial La Cabra, Mexico City, 2012).