Jaime Luis Huenn's Port Trakl
Port Trakl, a narrative of poems written by Jaime Luis Huenun and translated by Daniel Borzutzky, focuses on a Port named after poet Georg Trakl, where “poets come to die” (11) and share their poems amongst themselves. In his book, Port Trakl, Huenen showcases the connections that poets can share with each others’ work through his narrative about the poets at the Port sharing of their work as a collection that’ll remain at the port.
In Christian Hawkey’s Ventrakl, he describes books as “the truest ghosts among us, the immaterial made material” (6). He then goes on to state that writing is an act that ‘sets the fiction of one’s self aside” (6), and that is it a type of friendship. This idea extends to Port Trakl through Huenun’s use of the
port to connect poets to the “ghost” that is the Georg Trakl’s poetry. The speaker explains that he came to the port to discuss his travels, and to give his friends his poems as “proof of my time on Earth” (11). Port Trakl is known as where poet come to die, and as seen by the last quote, is also a place for poets to put their poems into a collection of works. These poems no longer belonging to a single person, but a collective consciousness that, as Hawkey explained in his work, is a space to channel each poet’s work and allows them to cross into each other. The intersection is seen through the sharing of their work and the influence that Georg Trakl’s work has on them.
At the port, poets let go of their individual identity to be apart of a shared consciousness made up of many poets. They’re able to set themselves to the side to connect with the poems of Trakl. The speaker states that the people at the bar were “smiling in all the languages of the world” (11), and later writes about a stowaway saying “I lost language on the ashen coast of Trakl” (41). This can be interpreted as these poets leaving their “language”, or their writing, on the port before they leave. Their language is lost because it doesn’t belong to only them anymore, but is meant to stay at the port, to prolong the friendship between poets and readers that Hawkey explains. This friendship that poets have with Trakl let them appreciate his work and add their own work into the mix. Huenun uses the story of Port Trakl to highlight the connection that poetry can create between a reader and writer, allowing one to understand a poet’s work and then share their own. Once work is shared, it is no longer an individual’s property, but rather an addition to an array of poetry.
Port Trakl is heavily influenced by poet Georg Trakl, from being written in a similar tone to mentioning Trakl’s poems. A question for further literary inquiry could be, “How does Huenun tie in Georg Trakl’s life events into his writing of Port Trakl” ?
In Christian Hawkey’s Ventrakl, he describes books as “the truest ghosts among us, the immaterial made material” (6). He then goes on to state that writing is an act that ‘sets the fiction of one’s self aside” (6), and that is it a type of friendship. This idea extends to Port Trakl through Huenun’s use of the
port to connect poets to the “ghost” that is the Georg Trakl’s poetry. The speaker explains that he came to the port to discuss his travels, and to give his friends his poems as “proof of my time on Earth” (11). Port Trakl is known as where poet come to die, and as seen by the last quote, is also a place for poets to put their poems into a collection of works. These poems no longer belonging to a single person, but a collective consciousness that, as Hawkey explained in his work, is a space to channel each poet’s work and allows them to cross into each other. The intersection is seen through the sharing of their work and the influence that Georg Trakl’s work has on them.
At the port, poets let go of their individual identity to be apart of a shared consciousness made up of many poets. They’re able to set themselves to the side to connect with the poems of Trakl. The speaker states that the people at the bar were “smiling in all the languages of the world” (11), and later writes about a stowaway saying “I lost language on the ashen coast of Trakl” (41). This can be interpreted as these poets leaving their “language”, or their writing, on the port before they leave. Their language is lost because it doesn’t belong to only them anymore, but is meant to stay at the port, to prolong the friendship between poets and readers that Hawkey explains. This friendship that poets have with Trakl let them appreciate his work and add their own work into the mix. Huenun uses the story of Port Trakl to highlight the connection that poetry can create between a reader and writer, allowing one to understand a poet’s work and then share their own. Once work is shared, it is no longer an individual’s property, but rather an addition to an array of poetry.
Port Trakl is heavily influenced by poet Georg Trakl, from being written in a similar tone to mentioning Trakl’s poems. A question for further literary inquiry could be, “How does Huenun tie in Georg Trakl’s life events into his writing of Port Trakl” ?