Who are we?

It is common to think of poetry as a form of expression associated with metaphor, as well as it is common to think of metaphor as a linguistic form associated with falseness, artifice, and non-correspondence with reality. Robert Frost, in his day, pointed out that all language—except mathematical or scientific language— is a metaphor for a certain reality. We may add, today, that the mathematical symbol, in particular for being a symbol, can also be considered a metaphor for a particular reality. Jorge Luis Borges thought that there is no essential difference between a metaphor and what the professionals of science label as the explanation of phenomena. Do the languages of art and science differ from each other, then? Perhaps only in the fact that the former appeals not merely to our reason but also to our emotions. Here is the motive, possibly, for Frost’s idea that the best way to learn and to teach is through poetry, precisely because the individual cannot separate the two fundamental components that differentiate him/her from the rest of the creatures in the universe.

Following Frost’s legacy, it is with pleasure that we introduce the first issue of Sirena: Poetry, Art and Criticism. This publication hopes to become a meeting place for poets from all languages and their translators, for essayists of various disciplines with an interest in poetry, and artists whose work represents a particular metaphor for a particular reality. Most of all, however, this is a meeting place for readers who are open to whatever poetry might bring them, who simply enjoy reading poems for the diverse ideas and emotions they impart; readers who, for the same reasons, appreciate art and other people’s opinions about these issues, since, as Borges would say, as we face our daily lives we should distrust those who have a univocal point of view, or those whose pronouncements are always consistent, because our reflections are at the mercy of the seasons, and are but portraits of particular moments. It is only by our permanent contact with diversity that we may, one day, come to think of ourselves as more accomplished human beings. Poetry and art, as we see it, is the source of diversity and at the same time exemplifies the phenomenon of language: a metaphor for particular moments, regardless of the discipline, a metaphor, that as the artist invents it, the reader or observer invents its meaning.

We hope that our readers will appreciate these pages as a metaphor for what we are: a group of individuals from different parts of the globe, with varied interests, who speak and write in different languages, and with multiple views of the universe in which we inhabit, but with a common interest: Art.

Jorge R. Sagastume
Editor